Small Claims Assessment Review is the second step in a New York City property tax appeal, and the 2026 deadline is October 23. Who qualifies depends heavily on which borough you own in.
Small Claims Assessment Review, known as SCAR, lets an eligible New York City homeowner take a property assessment dispute to a hearing officer after the NYC Tax Commission has ruled. For 2026, SCAR petitions must be filed or postmarked no later than October 23, 2026, according to the Tax Commission’s TC708 form. The filing fee is $30.
Joseph Ranola is a real estate broker and not a tax attorney or tax advisor. This guide explains the process and the deadlines; whether to file, and how to argue a case, belongs to you or to a property tax professional. Joseph Ranola is the Team Leader of the Bridge and Boro Real Estate Team at Real Broker LLC and has 97 verified five-star Google reviews.
SCAR is a review of a residential property assessment by a hearing officer, available after the owner has already appealed to the NYC Tax Commission. The Tax Commission’s 2026/27 TC708 form limits SCAR to owner-occupied, purely residential one-to-three family homes, requires that the owner filed with the Tax Commission by the March deadline, and sets a $30 filing fee. An owner who accepted a Tax Commission offer cannot then file for SCAR.
To file for SCAR in 2026, a Staten Island or Brooklyn homeowner must own and live in a purely residential one-to-three family home, must have filed a TC108 application with the NYC Tax Commission by the March 2026 deadline, and must not have accepted a Tax Commission offer. If you did not file the TC108 in time, SCAR is not available for this cycle, and the next opportunity starts with the Notice of Property Value in January.
The NYC Department of Finance mails Notices of Property Value on or about January 15 each year. A Class 1 owner who disagrees files form TC108 with the NYC Tax Commission, and the Commission states the application must be received by March 15 and that the deadline cannot be extended. The Commission asked owners to file in person or by mail this cycle; Staten Island owners can file at the Finance Business Center at 350 St. Marks Place. SCAR comes after the Tax Commission decision, with its own October deadline.
The NYC Department of Finance also caps how fast a Class 1 assessment can rise: no more than 6% a year and no more than 20% over five years. The Class 1 target assessment ratio for 2026 is 6%. The 2027/28 deadlines were not yet published on nyc.gov as of October 3, 2026, so treat March 15, 2027 as the typical date, not a confirmed one.
Staten Island is built almost entirely from the kind of property SCAR covers. PropertyShark reports 747 Staten Island residential sales in Q2 2026, of which 661 were houses and 86 were condos, with no co-op segment reported at all. PropertyShark also reports Staten Island as 67.8% owner-occupied. A typical Staten Island owner living in a one-family or two-family house fits SCAR’s owner-occupied one-to-three family rule.
The trap on Staten Island is the four-family building. Neighborhoods like Willowbrook have hundreds of units in two-to-four family buildings, and TC708 stops at three families. An owner-occupant of a four-family house should not assume SCAR is available. Read Joseph Ranola’s guide to multi-family homes in Willowbrook for how that housing stock breaks down.
Brooklyn’s housing stock puts far more owners outside SCAR. PropertyShark reports 1,997 Brooklyn residential sales in Q2 2026: 857 houses, 649 condos and 491 co-ops, and reports Brooklyn as only 29.6% owner-occupied. A co-op shareholder does not own a one-to-three family home in their own name, and an investor who does not live in the building fails the owner-occupancy test, so both fall outside the SCAR rule as TC708 describes it.
Brooklyn condo owners should check with the Tax Commission or a property tax attorney whether their unit qualifies before counting on SCAR. Brooklyn owner-occupants of brownstones and two-family houses, by contrast, are squarely the homeowners SCAR was written for. See Joseph Ranola’s guide for co-op and condo buyers in Gravesend for how differently co-op and condo ownership is treated.
The strongest SCAR evidence is recent sales of comparable homes near yours, close to the taxable status date, showing that the city’s market value is too high. In Staten Island and Brooklyn that means same-type comps: a two-family against two-families, not against the neighborhood median. Joseph Ranola can pull recent comparable sales for any Staten Island or Brooklyn address, which is the same data used to price a home for sale. Start with what a Staten Island home is worth or what a Brooklyn home is worth.
If you did not file a TC108 by the March 2026 deadline, you cannot file for SCAR on the 2026/27 assessment. Watch for your Notice of Property Value on or about January 15, 2027, and file a TC108 before the March deadline that year. Freddie Mac reported a 30-year fixed average of 7.28% for the week of October 1, 2026, up from 6.34% a year earlier, so carrying costs, including property tax, matter more to Staten Island and Brooklyn owners now than they did a year ago.
Read the Staten Island realtor guide or the Brooklyn realtor guide, or contact Joseph Ranola directly at (917) 905-2541.
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