A buyer touring a Devonwood contemporary this month is looking at an MLS sheet that shows the current annual tax bill. That number is anchored to an assessment set on October 1, 2022. It is about to become one of the least reliable figures in the transaction.
Connecticut requires each municipality to revalue every five years, and Farmington's next reset lands on October 1, 2026. Tyler Technologies is already collecting data across the town's roughly 11,000 real estate parcels. The new assessed values, at 70% of fair market value as of that October date, will drive tax bills for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2027, and will remain in force for five years. For anyone buying or selling in Farmington between now and next summer, the reval is not a background administrative task. It is the number the closing costs, the seller's disclosure conversation, and the appeal calendar all bend around.
The reset date, in plain terms
Assessed values in Farmington today still reflect the October 1, 2022 grand list, when the last town-wide revaluation was completed. Since then, the local single-family market has moved sharply. Farmington's single-family median sat near $589,000 in July 2026 with sixteen days on market versus eleven a year earlier, and William Raveis's local data put the year-over-year median gain around 26%. The gap between a 2022 assessed value and a 2026 sale price is the gap that the reval is designed to close.
Because the revaluation is revenue-neutral by law, the town does not automatically collect more tax. What it does is redistribute the burden. Owners whose properties appreciated faster than the town-wide average since 2022 will carry a larger share of the total levy after July 2027. Owners whose properties trailed the average will carry less. The current mill rate of 29.32 will not survive the reset in its current form; it will be recalculated against the new grand list, then applied to each newly assessed value.
Why the burden shifts unevenly across Farmington's pockets
Farmington is not one market. The historic center along Main Street, Devonwood's custom-built enclave, the Farmington Woods condominium community, and Unionville village each have their own buyer pool and their own supply constraints. Between the 2022 grand list and today, they did not move in lockstep.
Devonwood's inventory skews toward larger custom homes on wooded lots, and 2026 listings there range from the high $700,000s for smaller contemporaries into the mid-seven figures for estates. Unionville, denser and closer to the Farmington River, carries a mix of mid-century single-family and older village housing where median prices sit well below the town figure. Farmington Woods and the Tunxis Village condominiums serve a different buyer entirely, and condominium medians have run near $242,500 in mid-2026 per Raveis data.
Tyler's models will pull recent arm's-length sales, physical characteristics gathered through the current data collection, and neighborhood adjustments. Where a pocket outran the town, the new assessment will rise faster than the town average and, once the mill rate is set, the property's share of the levy will grow. Where a pocket lagged, the reverse happens. A Devonwood buyer using the seller's current tax figure to underwrite carrying cost is almost certainly underestimating. A buyer in an older Unionville cape may find the current figure roughly holds, or eases.
The math a buyer should actually run
The formula the Farmington Assessor's Office publishes is straightforward. Market value multiplied by 0.70 gives the assessed value. Assessed value divided by 1,000, multiplied by the mill rate, gives the annual tax. What matters for an offer written today is not the current bill but a defensible estimate of the July 2027 bill.
A working example on a home the market treats as a $900,000 property in mid-2026:
| Line | Under 2022 assessment | After Oct 1, 2026 reval |
|---|---|---|
| Assumed market value | $700,000 (2022 basis) | $900,000 (2026 basis) |
| Assessed value at 70% | $490,000 | $630,000 |
| Applied mill rate | 29.32 (current) | Reset by Town Council, illustrative |
| Approximate annual tax | ~$14,367 | Rises with assessment; final depends on new mill rate |
The mill rate itself will fall on paper once the grand list expands. That drop is what preserves revenue neutrality. It does not, however, offset a large assessment jump for a property that outperformed its neighbors. The number worth stress-testing in an offer is not today's tax but the ratio between this property's likely reassessment and the town-wide reassessment average. Anything meaningfully above that ratio is a tax increase in disguise.
What sellers listing before July 2027 should prepare for
A Farmington seller going to market this fall or in the first half of 2027 will be showing homes while Tyler is still finishing fieldwork, then while owners across town are receiving preliminary assessment notices. Sophisticated buyers, and their inspectors and attorneys, will ask.
Three things are worth having ready before the first showing.
First, the property's own recent history. A 2023, 2024, or 2025 arm's-length purchase price on the subject property is the strongest single piece of evidence for what Tyler will conclude, and it belongs in the listing narrative rather than buried in the disclosure packet. If the home has been improved since the last purchase, permits and receipts document the delta.
Second, a candid view on the direction of the reassessment. A seller who acknowledges that the new assessment will likely rise, and who has done the arithmetic against a plausible new mill rate, controls the conversation. A seller who lets the buyer discover the reset independently loses leverage at inspection.
Third, a plan for the informal Tyler review window. Farmington has scheduled one-on-one informal review meetings for December 2026. A seller who is still the owner of record in December can attend, and any successful adjustment travels with the property. A buyer closing in January or February 2027 inherits whatever the seller did or failed to do in that window.
The December window most owners miss
The single most cost-effective step in the entire reval cycle is the December 2026 informal meeting with a Tyler reviewer. It is direct, brief, and does not require an attorney or an outside appraiser. Owners bring their property card, recent sale evidence for comparable homes, photographs of any condition issues Tyler's exterior data collection may have missed, and, if applicable, a private appraisal tied to an October 2026 valuation date.
If the informal meeting does not resolve the value, the formal appeal window opens with the Farmington Board of Assessment Appeals. Written applications are due to the BAA in February 2027, hearings are held in March, and a further appeal to Superior Court remains available for two months after the BAA decision. Missing the BAA deadline generally forfeits the right to challenge the value until the next annual grand list, and, under the five-year cycle, the assessment set on October 1, 2026 will otherwise stand through the 2031 revaluation.
For anyone whose Farmington property carries an assessment that will not survive scrutiny, this is a compressed and unforgiving calendar. Preliminary notices in Connecticut revaluation years generally arrive in December or January, and the informal review often runs only two to four weeks after that.
What this means for a decision in the next ninety days
For buyers, the practical takeaway is that the current tax line on any Farmington listing sheet should be treated as a floor, not a forecast. Underwrite the offer against the property's likely 2026 market value assessed at 70%, then apply a mill rate that reflects a modestly expanded grand list. Ask the seller directly whether they intend to attend a December Tyler review.
For sellers, the reval is a reason to accelerate, not to delay. Homes that close before the new bills arrive in July 2027 transfer under the current assessment. Homes that linger into the second half of next year will be negotiated under the shadow of a fresh, larger number. In a town where recent months have shown median days on market around sixteen and the Connecticut market at large recorded 57% of homes selling above list in May 2026, the pricing and preparation choices made this fall have a direct line to net proceeds.
The Farmington Assessor's Office at 1 Monteith Drive maintains property record cards for every parcel and will answer questions in person without an appointment. The Town's own revaluation notice page lays out the December 2026 review process and the February 2027 BAA window in the town's own words. Both are worth reading before signing a listing agreement or writing an offer this season.
Every reval cycle sorts Farmington's owners into three groups: those who prepared, those who reacted, and those who found out at the mailbox in July 2027. The next ninety days determine which group a current seller or buyer joins. If you are weighing a listing in Devonwood, a purchase in Unionville, or a sale of a Main Street antique before the reset lands, Ellen Sebastian and The Sebastian Group would be glad to walk the arithmetic with you. Let's connect.
