March, 1936] Rural Real Estate Tax Delinquency in N. H. 13 



Delinquency Classified 



When filling out the schedules the field employees were required to 

 record the type of property and whether or not there were any buildings. 

 With this information lands were classified into three general groups : farm 

 land with buildings, farm land without buildings, and forest land. Table 6 

 shows the relative importance of these three classes of delinquent lands for 

 92 percent of the delinquents in 1932. The remaining records were omitted 

 either because the type of property could not be ascertained from the brief 

 description or because the acreage or assessed value was lacking. Although 

 delinquency in Merrimack and Sullivan Counties is calculated on a different 

 base, the percentage distribution of classes of property has been assumed to 

 be similar. Since these percentages do not appear out of line with those for 

 other counties, it might be assumed that the percentage distribution of the 

 different classes of delinquent properties at the time of advertising is similar 

 to that when taxes come due. 



More than three-fourths of the delinquent properties in each county 

 except Strafford were classed as farm lands with buildings. In Strafford 

 County slightly less than one-half of the delinquent properties were of this 

 class, the remainder being about equally divided between farm land with- 

 out buildings and forest land. Farm lands without buildings included such 

 properties as fields, pasture lots, cut-over lands, marshes, swamps, wild 

 lands and the like. Many of these were doubtless a part of a farm but 

 assessed and taxed in a town other than the one in which the owner was lo- 

 cated. This is also true of some of the forest lands and woodlots. Only two 

 counties, Cheshire and Strafford, had more than 20 percent of their delin- 

 quent properties in farm lands without buildings. Three counties, Grafton, 

 Hillsboro and Strafford, had more than one-tenth of their delinquent prop- 

 erties in forest lands. 



Acreage was distributed in these three classes of lands in a similar man- 

 ner. Considering all counties, a somewhat larger percentage of the acreage 

 was in the classes of farm land with buildings and forest land and a smaller 

 percentage in the class of farm lands without buildings. Nearly nine-tenths 

 of the assessed value of tax-delinquent lands was represented by farm land 

 with buildings, the remainder being nearly equally divided between forest 

 land and farm land without buildings. Over 90 per cent of the delinquent 

 lands in Merrimack, Rockingham and Sullivan Counties had buildings at- 

 tached. Although less than one-half of the delinquencies in Strafford County 

 were of this type, the assessed value of this group of lands comprised about 

 three-fourths of the assessed value of all the delinquent lands. 



Table 7 shows the acres per property, assessed value per property and 

 assessed value per acre according to the type of land, for the same delin- 

 quencies as were included in Table 6. Delinquent forest lands were of a 

 greater acreage than other classes of land, averaging 102 acres per prop- 

 erty compared with 96.5 acres and 72.3 acres respectively for farm land with 

 buildings and without buildings. Delinquent lands with buildings averaged 

 the smallest acreage in Hillsboro and Strafford Counties, but in each case 

 the average size of property exceeded that of either the land without build- 

 ings or forest land. Coos County showed the highest acreage per property 

 for farm lands without buildings and for forest land. This acreage was 

 heavily weighted by a few large tracts. 



