Selling a Long Island home means handling a property tax bill that doesn't end cleanly at closing. Here's how proration works on LI, what happens to your STAR check, what your escrow balance does, and the seller-specific surprises that show up at the closing table.
Long Island property tax years don't line up with calendar years, and they don't line up with each other across the two counties. That makes proration math tricky.
Nassau: the school tax year runs December 1 – November 30; the general (county/town) tax year runs January 1 – December 31. So a single closing date prorates into two separate tax cycles.
Suffolk: a single Suffolk tax year runs December 1 – November 30 covering both school and general. Simpler proration but the calendar math still confuses people.
The closing attorney calculates: (days owned in current tax cycle) / (days in cycle) × (total annual bill). That dollar amount comes out of your seller proceeds and credits the buyer for taxes already paid (or you pay if bills are unpaid through closing).
This matters because if you close in October on a Nassau property, you may be paying nearly a full year of school tax (Dec-Oct = 11 months) as a credit to the buyer for the just-issued bill. The line on the closing disclosure looks bigger than expected. It's not extra tax — you'd have paid it anyway — it just all hits at closing rather than spread out.
Example uses a typical Nassau median home with a $11,000 annual tax bill, closing October 15.
| Item | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Annual school tax (Dec–Nov cycle) | $7,150 | Just-billed October |
| Annual general tax (Jan–Dec cycle) | $3,850 | Already paid in two halves |
| Days seller owned in school cycle (Dec 1–Oct 15) | ~319 days | 87% of cycle |
| Seller's share of school tax | $6,221 | Credit to buyer |
| Days seller owned in general cycle (Jan 1–Oct 15) | ~288 days | 79% of cycle |
| Seller's share of general tax | $3,041 | Already paid |
| Net proration on closing statement | Credit to buyer: $6,221 (school) − already-paid amounts | Roughly $4,000–6,000 hit on closing |
STAR credit (most common since 2016). The STAR credit is tied to you, not the property. When you sell:
STAR exemption (older system, still applies to some long-time owners). The exemption is tied to the property and the homeowner. When you sell:
See our STAR exemption vs. credit guide for the difference, and STAR after buying a house for the buyer's side.
If your mortgage had an escrow account, you've been paying ~1/12 of your annual taxes + insurance into it every month. At closing, two things happen:
The escrow balance can be a few hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on when you sell relative to tax disbursements. If you sell right after the school bill paid out of escrow, your balance might be low. If you sell right before a tax disbursement, the balance is fuller.
Tip: at closing, the proration math should account for the school tax bill if it was already paid out of escrow. You shouldn't pay twice (once via the original escrow disbursement, once again via proration credit to buyer). Confirm with your closing attorney.
This trips people up.
Pending grievance at the time of sale. If your case is unresolved when you close, the contract typically specifies who gets the refund if the grievance wins. Standard NY contracts often assign refunds to the seller (since you're the one who filed and paid the over-assessed taxes), but negotiation varies. Get this in writing in the purchase contract before closing. If your grievance firm has an active contract, talk to them too — their fee is still owed if they win the reduction.
Recent grievance win. If your reduction was approved before sale and the refund / credit posts after closing, the contract again determines who gets it. Often it follows whoever paid the tax that was reduced — i.e., the seller for any pre-closing period.
Buyer-side perspective: a reduced assessment lowers all future bills, which the buyer benefits from automatically. So the buyer benefits from the lowered assessment going forward; the seller typically benefits from any refund of past overpayment. Both can be true.
See grievance firms compared for which firms auto-bill on sale and which don't.
Federal capital gains: under IRS Section 121, you can exclude up to $250,000 of gain ($500,000 married filing jointly) on the sale of a primary residence if you've owned and lived in it at least 2 of the past 5 years. On Long Island, where home prices have appreciated substantially since 2015, many homeowners do bump into this cap.
NY State also taxes the gain (whatever isn't excluded under § 121) at ordinary income rates. For high earners, that's 6.85–10.9%.
Property tax has no direct interaction with capital gains, but two indirect effects:
This isn't tax advice; it's the framing. For real numbers, ask a CPA. The IRS publication linked in sources below is the authoritative reference.
Generally yes — unpaid taxes are a lien on the property and the buyer will require them to be paid (or escrowed) at closing. Your closing attorney handles this. If your escrow account was funded for the bill, the servicer pays it; if not, the bill is paid from your seller proceeds at closing.
No — STAR requires the property to be your primary residence. The moment you stop using it as a primary residence, you should notify the NY Tax Department. Continuing to receive STAR on a rental property is fraud and the state actively audits this through tax-return cross-checks. If you move to a new NY primary residence, register STAR for the new one.
If the check was for a school year during which you owned and lived in the LI home, it's yours. For any future checks: NY State will stop sending them once they update your residency from your next tax filing. Make sure your forwarding address is current so you don't miss any final checks you legitimately earned.
No — unpaid taxes are a cloud on title that must be cleared at closing. They're paid from your seller proceeds before you walk away with the rest. If proceeds aren't enough to cover the debts, the deal doesn't close until you bring cash to closing or the buyer agrees to assume them (rare).
Tax year, not calendar year. Nassau's school tax runs Dec-Nov and general runs Jan-Dec; Suffolk's combined tax runs Dec-Nov. Closing attorneys use the actual tax-year start and end dates for proration math, not Jan-Dec.
You get a credit for the prepaid portion through proration. If you prepaid the full annual bill in December and sell in April, the buyer credits you for ~7 months of paid taxes (April-Nov that you no longer own through). That credit comes through the closing disclosure.
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Estimates and educational content only — not legal, tax, or financial advice. Verify with your county or town receiver, an attorney, or a CPA before making financial decisions.