AFTER struggling to fix up a brownstone in Harlem for the last 16 months, Meyghan Hill, a model and actress, and her husband, Daniel Scarola, a ballroom dancing instructor, are thinking about giving up and moving out. But what may drive them away is not the neighborhood, which they have come to love, nor their four-family house, where they have painstakingly stripped a century of varnish and paint from doors and balusters, but the shock of a tax notice they received last month from the New York City Department of Finance.

The notice indicated that the taxes on their 19-foot-wide house, only $4,100 when they bought it, would be going up in July to about $23,600, a fivefold increase of $19,000 - more, they say, than they can possibly afford after paying their hefty mortgage. Right now, they have no tenants

I cannot believe that happened to them. They are both such nice people.
- anonymous (guest) 2-24-2005 8:57 am [add a comment]

a thread on this story at brownstoner. looks like they could convert their sro to a 3 family instead of a 4 family and avoid much of the tax hike. this comment was interesting:

"Well, reducing your C of O to three families doesn't necessarily mean a drop in income. Take the couple in Harlem featured in the Times story. They were only planning on renting two apartments. They changed the c of o to 4 fams rather than 3 so they could tell the bank they'd have three rentals, so that they could qualify for a mortgage. In other words, they were scamming the bank for a mortgage they could not actually afford (at least by the bank's qualifications). So I have a little less sympathy for them -- tho that doesn't make the system any more fair."


- bill 2-25-2005 4:04 pm [add a comment]