New York Full Property Tax Exemption for Permanently and Totally Disabled Veterans (Local Option)

Real Property Tax Law section 458-a, subdivision 11, is New York's newest veterans exemption and the most valuable one, and it has changed three times in nine months. Read the current version, not the news coverage. What the law says now. A county, city, town, village or school district "may adopt a local law or resolution providing that the primary residence of any seriously disabled veteran shall be fully exempt from taxation and special district charges, assessments and special ad valorem levies". The veteran must have been discharged under honorable conditions, or have a qualifying condition or be a discharged LGBT veteran with a discharge other than bad conduct or dishonorable, and must be "considered by the United States department of veterans affairs to be permanently and totally disabled as a result of military service, as evidenced by a letter, official form, or other document" from VA that says so. It sits on top of the other veterans exemptions, including the specially adapted housing exemption in section 458. Each adopting government must tell the Department of Veterans' Services within 30 days, and the Department must keep a public list of adopters. It is a local option. The exemption exists only for the taxes of a government that has adopted it. A county can adopt it for county tax while the school district, usually the largest line on the bill, has not. Ask the assessor which of your taxing jurisdictions have adopted it, and check the Department of Veterans' Services list once it is published. When it starts. It applies to assessment rolls based on taxable status dates on or after October 1, 2026, so in most towns, where the taxable status date is March 1, the first roll it can reach is the 2027 roll. The Department of Taxation and Finance says the application and instructions are still being prepared. How it got here, and why guides disagree. Chapter 672 of the Laws of 2025, signed December 19, 2025, created subdivision 11 as a local option and joined four tests with "and": permanent and total, rated 100 percent, rated individually unemployable, and eligible for VA housing assistance, which read literally almost no one could meet. Chapter 77 of the Laws of 2026, a chapter amendment signed February 13, 2026, rewrote it as a mandatory exemption and moved the start to October 1, 2026, and the sponsor announced it as a mandatory exemption for 100 percent disabled veterans. Part EE of chapter 59 of the Laws of 2026, the state budget, then restored local discretion and replaced the four tests with the single permanent and total letter. News stories and county notices from the first half of 2026 describe a mandatory or 100 percent rated exemption. Neither is the law now. A veteran rated 100 percent whose rating VA has not made permanent does not qualify on the current words, and a veteran paid at the 100 percent rate for unemployability qualifies only if VA's letter says permanent and total. Surviving spouses. Subdivision 11 speaks only of the veteran's primary residence and does not extend the full exemption to a surviving spouse, unlike the section 458 specially adapted housing exemption.