Seramonte Associates, LLC v. Hamden

Citations

• 202 Conn. App. 467

Syllabus

Pursuant to statute (§ 12-63c (a)), the owner of real property used primarily for the purpose of producing rental income may be required to ''annually submit to the assessor not later than the first day of June'' certain rental income and expense information. Pursuant further to statute (§ 12-63c (d)), an owner who fails to submit the information required by § 12-63c (a), shall be subject to a penalty ''equal to a ten per cent increase in the assessed value of such property for such assessment year.'' The plaintiff, an owner of several rental properties in the defendant town of Hamden, appealed from the judgment of the trial court, which upheld the decision of the defendant's Board of Assessment Appeals affirming a 10 percent penalty imposed by the defendant's assessor on the tax assessments of the plaintiff's properties pursuant to § 12-63c (d), as a result of the plaintiff's submission of required tax forms after June 1. The plaintiff sent the tax forms by first class mail to the assessor on May 31. It was undisputed that the assessor failed to receive the required forms by the June 1 deadline set forth in § 12-63c (a). The plaintiff claimed that the word ''submit'' as used in § 12-63c (a) was ambiguous and that the trial court was required, as a matter of law, to rule in its favor on the basis of the statute's ambiguity and also claimed that the imposition of the assessor's penalty violated the excessive fines clauses of both the federal and state constitutions. Held: 1. The trial court properly rendered summary judgment in favor of the defendant on the count of the complaint that alleged that the board improperly upheld the 10 percent penalty: the plaintiff could not prevail on its claim that the word ''submit,'' as used in § 12-63c (a), essentially means ''to mail,'' as the word ''submit,'' when viewed in the context of other tax statutes, was unambiguous and meant that the assessor must receive the forms by June 1; the legislature's decision not to include the