What Recourse measures
Recourse is not a prediction that an owner will win an appeal. It measures the info around the ability to challenge or correct a potentially unfavorable assessment. In the current property score, the direct input is the latest county filed-appeal win-rate info available to Watchdog.
Why it belongs in the score
Two properties can show similar assessment pressure and still face different practical review environments. Watchdog treats that correction info as a modest part of the overall score rather than letting it dominate the property result.
Current evidence
- County appeal outcome history.
- Filed-appeal reduction or win-rate info where available.
- Property and assessment evidence used elsewhere in Watchdog to determine whether review is worth investigating.
Supporting Watchdog markers
Production also includes checked markers such as appeal evidence strength and appeal opportunity index. Those markers can deepen the Recourse experience, but they do not silently replace the current 10% score input without a versioned Watchdog Score change.
Illustrative only. A county statistic cannot tell a homeowner their personal chance of success.
What Recourse does not mean
Research direction
Watchdog should continue testing whether county outcome info deserves to remain a top-level 10% component or whether future score versions should rely more heavily on property-specific evidence strength while keeping county outcomes as explanatory info.
Primary sources
- New Jersey Division of Taxation · property tax appeals
- County boards of taxation and published appeal outcome records where available.
- How the Watchdog Score works and how we check it