New Brunswick property tax bills continue to arrive in the mail across the province this week and increasingly questions are being asked about a growing charge that the province adds near the bottom of the invoice.

Shaun Underhill received his bill this week and almost missed the $42.78 amount listed as a "cost of assessment" fee.

"I didn't even know the assessment fee was a thing, to be honest," said Underhill.

The charge is easily overlooked. It's a minor element in the big dollar amounts found in every property tax bill, but in recent years it has become the fastest growing piece.

The fee is set in legislation at $19.40 for every $100,000 that a property is assessed to be worth and has been allowed to remain at that level as property values have soared.

Underhill says he didn't realize the province charged a fee on his property tax bill for assessing the value of his house or that it has been escalating. (Submitted by Shaun Underhill)

In some cases that has allowed the fee to double in cost to homeowners in some communities in just three years.

Underhill lives in Nashwaak where property values have not jumped as much as in other centres. His assessment fee is up 29 per cent since 2020 but he can see how it would escalate much more rapidly for others.

"This fee is a percentage of your assessment. It's not just some flat rate so I would imagine some people's fees have increased quite a lot," said Underhill.

New Brunswick property tax bills have a line at the bottom, just above the total, showing a fee charged by the province to assess the property. It's a minor piece of the total bill but for many homeowners has doubled in the last three or four years. (Peter Anawati/CBC)

The New Brunswick government has been encouraging municipal governments not to take full financial advantage of escalating assessments and where possible to lower charges including property tax rates to homeowners in the face of rising property values. But the province has not done the same with the cost of assessment fee.

In his state of the province address in January, Premier Blaine Higgs made a point of addressing the problem of rising assessments causing property taxes to go higher and suggested governments should do what they can to disconnect the two.

"None of us want to pay more taxes," said Higgs.

"I want to take a moment and sincerely thank those municipalities who looked at the costs they are incurring, measured it against the extra money and were still able to lower property taxes for each homeowner."

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs made special mention of municipalities that lowered tax rates in 2024 rather than fully cash-in on assessment increases in their communities. Nevertheless the province did just that with its cost of assessment fee. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

But the cost of assessment fee has seen no downward adjustment. Instead it has soared equally alongside property values which in some neighbourhoods has been by a significant amount 

On streets like Moncton's Candice Lane, houses assessed for as low as $160,400 in 2021 are valued in 2024 as high as $336,300.  

That has pushed property tax bills on Candice Lane up about 30 per cent, thanks to tax rate reductions adopted by the City of Moncton and "spike protection" measures that limit how much of an assessment increase can be taxed in a single year.

However, there are no similar restrictions on the growth of the cost of assessment fee which on some Candice Lane homes, like the assessments, have jumped 110 per cent in three years to $65.

Houses on Moncton's Candice Lane have had property assessments more than double over three years in some cases. That led the province to double what it charges to assess them from, in one case, $31 in 2021 to $65 this year. (Pierre Fournier/CBC)

It's a minor amount that can go unnoticed in a three or four thousand dollar property tax bill, but it has been piling up money for the province.

This year the cost of assessment fee is expected to raise a record $15.8 million from property owners. That is $1.5 million more than last year with most of the increase coming from owners of residential properties.

A request for information from the New Brunswick Department of Finance about why the fee has been allowed to escalate on residential properties was not directly answered, but in a statement the department said the money is used to pay for a variety of expenses it incurs. 

"The cost of assessment fees charged to property owners funds the centralized assessment and tax system including administering billing, collections, tax sales and assessment services," the department wrote in an emailed response.