Second Home PP

If you need a new form of list return, please download one here.

If you’re on this page, it’s because your business has received a Form 2HF Form of List return request from our office. 

By now, you’ve owned your second home in Orleans long enough to realize that you get TWO property tax bills from us every year: your real estate tax bill (the much larger one) and a (much smaller) personal property tax bill; form deals with that smaller bill. The assessed value you see on there represents 1% of your Orleans' homes' assessed building value. Every second home personal property bill in Orleans is valued this way. That 1% figure was derived by analyzing form of list returns just like the one you're holding back in 2022 (the last time we did a full revaluation). By comparing the self-declared personal property estimates of 100 random second homes, we're able to deduce that the average amount of personal property kept at these properties comes out to about 1% of the building's total value. This sampling technique is used by every jurisdiction in Massachusetts with a robust population of second homes.

What is second-home personal property?

There are two types of taxable property in Massachusetts: real property and personal property.

Real property is your house, and everything permanently affixed to it (can’t take it if you were moving), as well as the land it all sits on.

Personal property is everything else in your house such as furnishings and fixtures and the like. In Massachusetts, all of the personal property you keep in your primary residence is exempt from personal property tax, which is why you don't get that same bill from the community you primarily reside in. Second homes do not enjoy this exemption, which is why we’re talking about this.

Example: your swimming pool and the patio that surrounds it is real property. All of the patio furniture around the pool is personal property. 

How the heck am I supposed to know what my dishware and my mother’s 50-year-old rocking chair are worth?! 

We don’t expect you to be one of those appraisers for Antiques Roadshow. We’re not even expecting you to think all that hard about any of this. No one’s going to verify that your guess at an item’s value is accurate. We just have to go through this exercise and come up with a percentage figure to use.

Approach it this way: suppose you were having an estate sale or a huge yard sale. That 50-year-old rocking chair has got to go. Would you take $10 for it? If so, that’s the value we’re looking for! You don’t have to count every spoon, fork, and knife in your drawers, and you don’t have to count all of the pots and pans you keep in your cupboards. But if you were willing to sell ALL of your flatware for $20 and all of your cookware for $50, perfect! Use that value! And don’t feel constrained by the form itself; if it’s easier for you to ignore schedules A-F on the form and just write or type out your stuff on a separate sheet of paper, go for it. Just remember to sign and return Page 1 of the form with it. 

If you’re completely stuck, just give us your best recollection of the price you paid for the item(s) and when you paid it. We’ll work with that.

Why do assessors need this information?

Like we said earlier, the law requires us to do this. Your life (and ours) would be significantly less onerous if we didn’t have to charge you personal property taxes on items you already paid sales tax on, but these are the laws of our commonwealth, and we have to abide. 

When is this due?

State law says 60 days from the postmark date on the envelope…but we’re a bit more forgiving and realize that we're all busy with life. Just get it to us as soon as you’re able, ideally before the end of May.