{"id":175794,"date":"2026-03-26T10:56:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/175794\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:56:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:56:25","slug":"residents-irate-after-long-island-town-sticks-its-homeowners-with-shock-7m-bill-after-losing-lawsuit-to-golf-course-theyre-f-king-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/175794\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents irate after Long Island town sticks its homeowners with shock $7M bill after losing lawsuit to golf course: ‘They’re f–king us’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Residents of one Long Island town are fuming<\/a> after learning they were being slapped with a sneaky spike on their property tax bills \u2014 since the suburb owes millions to a local luxury golf course.<\/p>\n

The town of Riverhead is leaving taxpayers on the hook<\/a> for over $7 million in refunds \u2014 roughly $6 million of which stem from a lawsuit the town lost after a shoddy tax assessment of the Friar\u2019s Head golf course, residents and sources confirmed.<\/p>\n

Some homeowners said they were left shell-shocked after noticing a roughly 160% hike in the \u201cNew York State Real Property Tax Law\u201d line on their property taxes with no warning from town officials.<\/p>\n

The town of Riverhead is leaving angry taxpayers on the hook for over $7 million in tax refunds. Dennis A. Clark for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have to suffer because of decisions made by a government agency \u2014 I mean, someone else misbehaves and I\u2019m the one who gets punished?\u201d resident Robert Olivella, whose home is adjacent to the golf course, told The Post.<\/p>\n

One resident said they saw their bill shoot up hundreds<\/a>, from about $150 last year on that line to now over $400.<\/p>\n

One resident told The Post they saw their bill shoot up from about $150 last year on that line to now over $400. Dennis A. Clark for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no notice, no warning, nothing \u2014 it feels almost like they said \u2018oh, we better not tell them. Maybe no one will notice,\u201d another resident, who only identified as Steve, said.<\/p>\n

But many locals did notice \u2014 and are vowing to take their fight<\/a> to the town board\u2019s next meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d Olivella, who just moved with his wife from South Carolina, groused.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t supposed to be like this, we\u2019re supposed to have open transparency,\u201d he said, adding that had he known the taxes were going to jump he may have purchased a cheaper home.<\/p>\n

The unexplained tax hike is the result of a longstanding feud between Riverhead and the luxury golf club<\/a> \u2014 which first challenged the town\u2019s sky-high assessment of its 350-acre property in 2008, according to county and town sources.<\/p>\n

The unexplained tax hike, according to county and town sources, is the result of nearly two decades of litigation between Riverhead and the luxury golf club sculpies \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Friar\u2019s Head accused the town of overvaluing the club by between $28 and $34 million from 2008 to 2015, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

A Suffolk County judge<\/a> agreed with the club in 2019, ruling Riverhead had botched the valuation by factoring in the potential for residential development on roughly 85 vacant acres of club property \u2014 and cut those appraisals by roughly 60% to about $10 to $11 million, court papers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be unfair to tax a property for a value that it does not have,\u201d Justice John Leo wrote in his decision.<\/p>\n

Riverhead appealed the decision in 2024 and lost again \u2014 but by then the tax refund had ballooned to almost $4.5 million plus an extra $1.6 million in accrued interest.<\/p>\n

A Suffolk County judge agreed with the club in 2019. Greatbass.com \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

And under Suffolk County\u2019s current municipal framework, those refunds get passed on to the taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The massive hike comes as Riverhead\u2019s taxpayers also saw an almost 7% tax rate increase, marking the fourth consecutive year the town board voted to pierce the state\u2019s tax cap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u2019s more expensive and now we got an increase in our taxes, again, because of what [the government] did \u2014 it\u2019s unfair \u2014 they\u2019re f\u2013ing us,\u201d Olivella said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of one Long Island town are fuming after learning they were being slapped with a sneaky spike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19777,3100,776,57,9,11,10,5592,7754,773],"class_list":{"0":"post-175794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-government-spending","9":"tag-lawsuit","10":"tag-long-island","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-property-tax","16":"tag-property-taxes","17":"tag-suffolk-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}