ALBANY — Hundreds of thousands of city condo and co-op owners will be in for property-tax shock if state legislators don’t fix a mess they left behind yesterday.
Lawmakers wrapped up their 2012 legislative session last night without extending $445 million in property-tax abatements for some 365,000 of the apartment owners.
The city Department of Finance has already sent out bills assuming an extension of the abatements, which expire this month. They were instituted in 1997 to level the playing field with lower-taxed owners of one- and two-family homes.
Gov. Cuomo refused to allow a last-minute vote on an extender bill, which included unrelated provisions, including a tax break to encourage renovations to affordable housing and changes to the Loft Law.
Cuomo had said he intended to provide a “message of necessity” to allow for a quick vote, but sources said he would do so only for a “clean” bill that did not include the other issues.
Officials expect legislators to eventually approve an abatement extender retroactively.
Lawmakers are scheduled to return to Albany in January — when the next city property-tax bills are due to be sent out.
But there’s speculation that they’ll schedule a special session after the elections, when they could approve the tax-abatement extender — and vote themselves pay raises.