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Tips for Correction Agents

Related to RP-5217 Sales Reporting & Correcting
rev. 8/19/10

 Tips for Correction Agents 
GENERAL SALES INFO ACTION ADDITIONAL INFO
Importance of Sales Reporting & Correcting Timely verification/correction and reporting of RP-5217 sales data in the first instance is critical to meet ORPTS needs and ultimately the needs of local government. The period of time between the occurrence of a sale and its use for a product is compressed. Sales are generally used within the year. The RP-5217 Sales Database supports many State processes: Establishment of Equalization Rates, Level of Assessment verifications, Real Property Market Trends, Supplemental Appraisals (Residential Class only), Sales ratios for equity and uniformity analysis, RAR and COD, State Aid eligibility criteria and Annual Reassessment programs.
Comprehensive Sales Reporting Information on ORPTS Web Site Go to: Sales Data Management - RP-5217 Reporting 

Then choose specific topics from left hand menu.
The topic 'Managing RP-5217 Data' contains a wealth of information regarding sales reporting & correcting.
Sales-related Contacts & Telephone Numbers Contact Regional Office for the following sales related issues:
  1. RPS User Info & Entering Sales, RPS Systems Concerns, and List of Arms Length Sales Not Updated.
  2. State Aid - Applications, Requirements, COD's, RPS Reporting Percentage Reports, questions & info.
  3. Annual Reassessments - Sales Ratios and Trending.
Central Regional Office -
(315) 471-4816
Northern Regional Office -
(518) 591-5232
Ray Brook Satellite Office -
(518) 891-1780
Southern Regional Office -
(914) 215-6300
Western Regional Office -
(585) 343-4363
Contact Data Management - Sales Reporting staff for the following sales related issues:
  1. All RP-5217 Reporting & Correcting, RPS035 Transmittal Problems, Paper Corrections, Specific Correction Issues, Sales Data and Usability Issues, Data Issues related to Online Sale Reports, etc.
  2. SalesNet

Data Management Unit -
(518) 473-9791

All sales transmittals & corrections must be directed to this UNIT and not to any specific individual. If not, we cannot ensure that the transmittal will be received, logged-in or processed promptly.

Contact ORPTS Solutions Center regarding support for the following:

  1. SalesWeb
  2. ORPTS Online
  3. RP-5217 Form preparation questions

ORPTS Solutions Center -
(518) 591-5233

Contact Equalization Support Services (ESS) for information regarding sales-related issues:

  1. RARs
  2. Equalization Rates

Equalization Support Services -
(518) 474-5666

Please note: The Data Management Unit is responsible for the correcting & reporting of the sales data used in the Equalization Rate and other ORPTS products, but does not produce those products.

Mailing & E-mail Addresses Send correspondence, RPS035 transmittals, RP-5217 ACR Correction Forms and SalesNet files to the Data Management Unit. Mail:
NYS Department of Taxation and Finance
Office of Real Property Tax Services - Data Management Unit
WA Harriman State Campus, Bldg. 8A
Albany, NY 12227

E-mail:

RPS REPORTING ACTION ADDITIONAL INFO
RPS Transmittal Schedules & Online Sales Report Review An 'Application for RPS Sales Transmittals' should be filed with ORPTS Data Management Unit. RPS Reporting via RPS035 should occur at least 'Quarterly'. Other options are 'Bimonthly', 'Monthly' or 'Other' as follows: If a new assessor has been appointed/elected or a new sale correction agent designated, a new 'Application for RPS Sales Transmittals' should be completed and sent to ORPTS Data Management Unit. Go to the ORPTS website under the topics 'RP-5217/Sales', 'Managing Sales Data', then 'RPS035 Transmittals'.
For Quarterly Reporters, transmit RPS035 by:
February 15 - with October, November, December sales
May 15 - with January, February, March sales
August 15 - with April, May, June sales
November 15 - with July, August, September sales
(This schedule applies unless otherwise approved for monthly, bimonthly or other reporting schedule - in which case, check transmittal agreements.
ORPTS Online Sales Reports:

The Online Sales Report application will provide assessors and their staff the ability to produce/access reports at their convenience. From the application, the user can review/verify the RP-5217 data and confirm the data they provided to ORPTS (via RPS035 transmittals or paper corrections) is reflected accurately.

 

For Bimonthly Reporters, transmit RPS035 by:
February 15 - with November & December sales
April 15 - with January & February sales
June 15 - with March & April sales
August 15 - with May & June sales
October 15 - with July & August sales
December 15 - with September & October sales

For Monthly Reporters, transmit RPS035 by:
January 15 - with November sales
February 15 - with December sales
March 15 - with January sales
April 15 - with February sales
May 15 - with March sales
June 15 - with April sales
July 15 - with May sales
August 15 - with June sales
September 15 - with July sales
October 15 - with August sales
November 15 - with September sales
December 15 - with October sales

For Other Reporters, a schedule other than described above, would need to be specified, justified and agreed upon with ORPTS.

By using the Secure Assessment Community Account, users can access the Online Sales Reports application. County Directors and their staff will have rights to access the data for all municipalities within their county. Assessors and their staff will have rights to access the data for only the municipalities for which they have been granted access. For more information regarding accessing the Online Sales Reports Application, please go to the ORPTS website:

Online Sales Report Access

RPS035 Transmittal Checklist Every sale must be entered into RPS: Valuation Usable-Yes/No, Arms length & Non-arms length sales (See topics RPS Valuation Usable, ORPTS Arms Length and Ratio Exclusion, below.) For details on how to add sales to RPS, run RPS035 transmittals or related to RPS processing in general, refer to the RPSv4 online help or contact your ORPTS regional CRM or County Director of RPTS.
Run Accumulated Sale Report (RPS035P3) before extracting the transmittal file. Compare the number of sales on this report to the totals on the RPS035P1 report after the transmittal file has been run, to ensure all sales are being transmitted.
Check electronic media (diskettes, CD's) before transmitting. Make sure files and sales are present and contain data. For questions on RPS035 file transmittal - refer to Vol. 8 Part 1 of Assessor's Manual or call Regional RPS liaison.
Sign the transmittal form (RPS035P1). Keep a copy of the RPS035P1 report in assessor's office for troubleshooting, if a problem occurs.
E-mail or mail RPS035 transmittals to address on front sheet of 'Tips' The files needed include: RPS035T1 to process and RPS035P1 to print report of sales. Most files received are zipped files.
Contact ORPTS if you do not receive notification regarding the processing of your RPS035 file. Within 2 weeks of transmitting, you will be notified that your file has been processed. Notification will be in the form of:
  1. Return of electronic media (for mail transmittals).
  2. E-mail message (for E-mail transmittals).
COMMON REPORTING ISSUES ACTION ADDITIONAL INFO
RPS Valuation Usable (V4) Do NOT use "Valuation Usable" for including/excluding sales for ORPTS purposes. This is for local use only to exclude sales from local sales analysis products. It is not used by the ORPTS Data Management Unit to include or exclude sales data from any sales-related product. ORPTS Arms length determinations are based on: 'Condition of Transfer', Full Sale Price minus Personal Property or a calculated difference between Contract Date and Date of Sale.

ORPTS Ratio usability is based on: Part of Parcel, Multiple Parcels, Multiple Towns, Condo, Significant Change, Full Sale Price minus Personal Property and Total AV.

ORPTS Arms Length Exclusion Criteria ORPTS will exclude a sale as non-arms-length if:
  1. Full Sale Price minus Personal Property is less than or equal to $10.
  2. More than 1 year has elapsed between Contract Date and Sale Date.
  3. Conditions of Transfer (Condition Codes) are present (exceptions are 'G'- Significant Change: which only impacts ratio usability and 'J' - No Conditions Apply: which erases/deletes any other Condition Codes).
Sales are included or excluded for various ORPTS purposes based on Sales Exclusion Criteria.

Condition Code 'I' requires an acceptable explanation (see 'Condition Code I' below).

ORPTS Ratio Exclusion Criteria ORPTS will exclude an arms length sale for ratio purposes if:
  1. Part of Parcel Sale (see 'Part of Parcel' below).
  2. Multiple Parcel Sale
  3. Condo Sale
  4. Parcel is located in Multiple Towns (see 'Multiple Towns / SWIS' below).
  5. Full Sale Price minus Personal Property is less than $10,001.
  6. Total Assessed Value = $0.
  7. Significant Change has been indicated (see 'Significant Change' below).
  8. Parcel is NOT residential (excluded from RAR only).
 
Condition Code 'I' A Condition Code "I" correction will NOT be made without an acceptable explanation. (See explanations on the right.)

V4 Users:

Indicate Condition Code 'I' on RPS V4 file and provide an acceptable explanation in the dropdown Memo field.

V3 Users & Paper Correctors:

Use a paper correction form, and provide an explanation / rationale to accompany a correction to Condition Code 'I', even if the change is made on the RPS file.

Acceptable Condition Code 'I' explanations include:
  1. Estate Sale*, Charity, Religious, Education, Subsidized Housing, Trust Life Estate
  2. Forced sale - Foreclosure or in lieu of, Auction, Referee, Tax Sale, Bankruptcy, Divorce, Judicial Order.
  3. Substantial Personal Property / Good Will Business Value -10% or more of Full Sales Price - if amount of personal property is not specified.
  4. Sale Price is Suspect -Need one of following additional explanations: Sale of Common Area for Condo or Association, Assumed Mortgage or Cash Consideration Not Reported, Contiguous Property, Neighbors, Friends, Tenant/Landlord, Prior Relationship Between Buyer and Seller, Trade of Properties.
  5. Property Not Offered on Open Market
  6. Uninformed Buyer/Seller - Price above or below Market Value - Also requires some rationale such as comps or $/SF comparison.
  7. Land Contract (for V3 and paper reporters only)
  8. Correction Deed Required - Illegal deed description or grantor.
  9. Sale Price Restricted Trust

*Estate Sales that have been excluded can also be made usable, if ORPTS is notified by assessor, and as long as the sale meets the other conditions of market value. 'Guardian' sales may also fall into this category.

Timeshares Sales identified as 'Timeshares' that need to be excluded as NOT Arms Length should be coded as Condition Code 'F' - Sale of Fractional or Less Than Fee Interest. Do NOT use Condition Code 'I'.  
Significant Change Sales identified as 'Significant Change' are excluded for ratio purposes (i.e., RAR, COD, Sales Ratios). In order to be eliminated, the sale must meet the requirements of, and be identified as 'Significant Change': 'Significant Change' means that the physical change occurred between the taxable status date for the preceding final assessment roll and the date of sale. (This does NOT mean that the improvement was discovered within this time frame.)

The value of the physical change is 10% or more of the total market value of the property (not assessed value). (The assessment should change on the next appropriate roll.)

The physical change to the property is due to either construction or demolition and must be reflected on the assessor's annual report. (Equalization changes do NOT support this correction.)

Change in Use Identify sales as 'Significant Change' if the primary use of the parcel will change after the sale and the sale price for this new use is representative of the market. This allows the sale to remain arms length, but excluded for ratio purposes. Examples of change in use include:
Residential vacant lot or residence is purchased for commercial development.
A hospital acquires residences to expand hospital parking. Agricultural vacant land is purchased for residential subdivision.
Book / Page Enter this information carefully on a correction form or the local file. This 'key' must be identical to the Book and Page as entered on the RP-5217 by the County Clerk in items C3 and C4.

If correction is required to ORPTS file:
Please make corrections on the RP-5217 ACR correction form.
Enter current/ORPTS Book/Page next to the headings on the form, enter 'C3' / 'C4' for the item numbers and provide new Book / Page under 'Correction Information'.

SBL is NOT used to match to the ORPTS sales database. The County Code, Book & Page are used as the 'key' and the unique identifier used to match the local corrections (paper and RPS) to the ORPTS sales database. If the book/page is incorrect, the sale will not be updated until fixed or the wrong sale may be updated.
Part of Parcel If 'Part of Parcel' is NOT entered in RPS and on the RPS035, where appropriate, the part of parcel information on the ORPTS database will be erased and overlaid with the number of parcels indicated on the RPS035 file. (The RPS default for number of parcels is one.) Part of Parcel sales should be identified. When Part of Parcel is incorrectly omitted a sale is then improperly included for ratio purposes.
Multiple Towns Sales Multiple Town sales must be identified in RPS and on the RPS035 file. A sale is considered to be in Multiple Towns when the 1st four positions of SWIS code are different for the parcels in question.

Paper Correctors: Please indicate a multiple town sale via the check box on the RP-5217-ACR correction form.

When a sale is not correctly identified as being in multiple towns it is improperly included for ratio purposes.
Date of Sale v. Date Deed Recorded Correct entry of:
Date of Sale = date of transfer (item 12 on RP-5217) and is labeled 'Sale Date' on the RPS sales update screen.

Date Deed Recorded = date the deed was recorded with the County Clerk (item C2 on RP-5217) and is labeled 'Deed Date' on the RPS sale update screen.

Dates should be entered in the correct fields. ORPTS uses Date of Sale for extracting sales for reports, RARs, Equalization Rates, State Aid, STAR, etc. since the Date of Sale is tied to the Sale Price.
Full Sale Price In some cases '100% Financing - No Money Down' transactions' have a Full Sale Price that includes not only the total amount paid for the property, but also the value of the concessions. A correction can be made by deducting the value of concessions and report the corrected Full Sale Price to ORPTS. The corrected Full Sale Price will then be used in calculating a new Sale Price (Full Sale Price minus Personal Property) used in any ORPTS products.  
Total AV Keep in mind that the Total AV used for a sale must always reflect the latest final roll at the time of sale. AV's need attention/correction for sales that are identified as "Not Roll Matched" or "Not RPS Updated" on the Online Sales Report "List of Arms Length Sales" (see ORPTS Reports , below), or where a court-ordered AV change was required and the assessment is different from the update from the 15-C file
PAPER CORRECTIONS ACTION ADDITIONAL INFO
Correction Forms (RP-5217 ACR) - Who sends and what corrections should be made Uses of the RP-5217 ACR correction form should be limited to the following:
  • For RPSv4 reporters**, the RP-5217 ACR form should be used ONLY for corrections to Book/Page. All other corrections should be made on the RPS file.
  • For RPSv3 users**, the RP-5217 ACR should be used only in these limited circumstances - Book/Page change, Condition Code 'I' explanations and Multiple SWIS (for overlapping municipal boundaries).
  • For non-mechanical/'paper reporters' this is the only method for reporting sales corrections.
  • Paper reporters should NOT send paper corrections -
    • If City/Town/Village for
      • Condition Code J - None when Condition Code is blank on the RP-5217 form. (ORPTS system automatically assigns "J" if Condition Codes are left blank.)
    • If City/Town for -
      • Roll Year (ORPTS system automatically updates based on Date of Sale)
      • Total AV (Within a week of load to ORPTS database, the Total AV is systematically updated using the latest final roll (15-C) at time of sale. Correction is needed ONLY if it is Not Roll Matched (and incorrect) OR a court-ordered AV change was required (and the assessment is different from the update from the 15-C file.)
Corrections submitted directly to ORPTS on the Online Sales Reports may be returned unprocessed.
For questions related to paper corrections - contact Data Management staff.

 

See 'Common Reporting Issues'', regarding 'Multiple SWIS' corrections.

Entries on the RP-5217 ACR: Enter SWIS Code, Book, Page and SBL/Roll ID.
Enter 'RP-5217 Item No. for Correction' and 'Correct Information'.Check the box 'Property in more than one SWIS' or 'Significant Change...' only if correcting this data.**Note: All data that can be corrected within the RPS system should be and transmitted via RPS035. A paper correction transmitted to ORPTS on the RP-5217 ACR form/paper, but NOT indicated/made on the RPS file could result in that correction being 'undone' if/when a subsequent RPS035 transmittal is applied to the ORPTS sales database.

 The Book & Page is the key to the ORPTS sales database. See 'Common Reporting Issues'', regarding 'Book/Page' corrections.

The 'Item No.' correlates to the item number on the RP-5217 form. 'Correction Information' reflects the new information/data for update of the ORPTS sales database.

ORPTS REPORTS ACTION ADDITIONAL INFO
Online Sales Reports: 'List of Arm's Length Sales' Review the arms length sales data for accuracy, with particular attention to:
  1. Sale Update or Roll Match status.
  2. COD or RAR usability;
  3. Sale Price, especially as it relates to the Arm Length nature of the sale.
The list provided displays the sort sequence used under the center heading at the top of each page (i.e., SWIS, Property Use and Parcel ID.)
'Not Updated' indicates a sale has not been updated with a paper correction or via RPS035. For RPS reporters, this indicates that we have not received or we were unable to update our database with the local RPS information. Review the sale, determine if sale data is reflected accurately and correct as needed. Check sale status on the local file. If a sale appears on List of Arms Length Sales as 'Not Updated' but carries a 'T' on the RPS file, check date of local transmittal compared to the date on the report to determine if timing is an issue. If timing is NOT an issue, check for differences between Book and Page (see this Topic above) that may be creating a matching/update problem. Fix if necessary, change RPS flag from 'T' to 'R' and retransmit or contact staff in the regional office or Data Management Unit for further investigation/direction.
'RPS Updated' or 'Paper Corrected' indicates that an RPS transaction or paper correction, respectively, has been applied to the sale. If both have been applied to a specific sale, only 'RPS Update' is displayed.  
'Not Roll Matched' indicates that ORPTS was unable to match to the 15-C Assessment Roll to update the sales database with assessment information. Therefore, this data may need review & correcting. However, if 'RPS Updated' is indicated, then assessment information would have been updated/corrected from the RPS035 transaction. After sales are loaded to the ORPTS' sales database, they are updated within the week with the 15-C assessment roll information - from the latest final roll at time of sale. Fields that are updated include Total AV, Property Class, Roll ID, Lot size, School District, Grids. The 15-C roll matching/update utilizes the respective city or town roll. Therefore, assessing unit villages should continue to provide corrections to village assessments, where necessary.
Online Sales Report: 'Sales Excluded from Agency Use Based on Buyer and Seller Name' Sales found on this report have been flagged on our database as Non-Arms Length and excluded from any agency use - RAR, COD and FVM/Survey. Corrections are NOT necessary unless there is disagreement with our exclusions. However, please update local file with correct information. For details on correcting, see "Non Arms Length Sales Corrected to Arms Length" below. Identification of sales has been made via a computer search in the buyer and seller names. This report displays sales transactions where:
  1. No condition of transfer is indicated on the RP-5217, but a party to the transfer is a government agency/lending institution.
  2. The sale was the result of settling an estate.
Online Sales Reports: 'Sales with Potential Contradictions in Data Entered on RP-5217' This report displays sales with potential contradictions. They are identified on our database as Arms Length sales and will be included for RAR and COD purposes (unless they had been excluded for other reasons). However, corrections to these sales must be made if the 'Relative' sale should be excluded or the AV or Sale Price is incorrect. This report displays sales transactions where:
  1. The assessment equals the sale price;
  2. The transfer of property is potentially between relatives. Potential relative sales are identified via a computer search, based on similar entries in the buyer and seller names. If the data is accurate (i.e., AV and Sale Price should be equal or parties to the transfer are not related) then no response or correction is necessary.
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