Use code is how assessors classify property (or describe a property) under department of revenue guidelines. Property classification codes are uniform throughout the State. 100 class is residential use, 300 class is commercial use, 400 class is industrial use, 500 class is personal property use. Each class is than further broken down. For example under the residential class, 101 is a single family home, 102 is a condo, 104 is a two family, 105 is a three family, 130 is residential vacant land and so on….again, they all start with the 100 code which denotes some type of residential use. Commercial, Industrial, personal property work the same way. For instance commercial office building is use code 340, retail store is 325, gas station is a 334…

…sooooo what’s all this mean to the average person???… not much…. To the Assessors the use code is important in developing assessments. We need to be able group similar type properties for various types of sales analysis and use code allow us to extract and sort data that is of similar use from our database. Use code also comes into play if the Selectmen opt for a split tax rate. The use code of a property would determine if its taxed at the commercial/Industrial rate or residential rate.

So now you know!