Form TC107: How Do You Appeal the NYC Non-Primary Residence Surcharge at the Tax Commission?

Updated September 9, 2026. Form TC107 is the New York City Tax Commission’s application to appeal a Department of Finance non-primary residence surcharge notice. For the 2026/27 and 2027/28 tax years it is due March 1, 2027 for a property in tax class 2 and March 15, 2027 for a property in tax class 1, or 30 days after the date on DOF’s final determination notice if that is later and the residency appeal went to DOF first. A market value challenge has to meet the March date either way. The DOF exemption application, the simpler route for a residency dispute, is due October 6, 2026. Only one surcharge appeal may be filed with the Tax Commission for any one year.

Check your property in MGNY’s app using the address or BBL. The free lookup shows public DOF records and available surcharge estimates; sign in for review and document steps. MGNY prepares Tax Commission appeal filings where appropriate. The filing route depends on the determination and the issues being challenged; the lookup does not file an appeal.

Form TC107 is the paper application, five pages of instructions and one page of form, that takes a non-primary residence surcharge dispute out of the Department of Finance and puts it in front of the New York City Tax Commission. The two are separate agencies with separate deadlines. DOF decides who owes the surcharge and hears the first appeal of its own residency determination, filed through its electronic portal or in person at a location the Commissioner of Finance designates; the Tax Commission hears the appeal on Form TC107, and its determination is what a court reviews afterwards. The instructions open with what the form is not: it “cannot be used to protest the assessed value of your Property,” and it cannot be used to protest “a denial or revocation of any real Property tax exemption (e.g. senior citizen, STAR).” Those run on the Tax Commission’s other forms, TC106 for a classification or exemption claim and its personal exemption forms, not on the TC107.

Most owners with a residency case never need it. If the property is somebody’s primary residence and the DOF window is open, the exemption application on DOF’s portal, due October 6, 2026, is the shorter road, and it keeps the Tax Commission route in reserve. Form TC107 is for three situations: the number on the notice is wrong, DOF has denied the residency appeal, or the owner wants the Tax Commission to decide residency and value together from the start, knowing what that choice gives up at DOF. The rest of this page is the mechanics, taken from the Tax Commission’s own July 15, 2026 instructions and from the adopted rule. The surcharge itself, its rates, its thresholds and the exemption paths, is on the pied-a-terre tax page.

Who may file Form TC107?

The Tax Commission’s page answers in one line: owners are “Natural persons and legal entities with an Ownership interest.” The form’s own list of ownership types is the practical version: an owner, which covers a one- to three-family home and a condominium unit alike, a tenant-shareholder of a cooperative, the beneficial owner of a trust that holds the property or the shares, and a majority interest holder in a partnership, corporation or limited liability company. A cooperative corporation may file on behalf of a unit owner, and the form has a box for exactly that. If a property has more than one owner, a completed Form TC107SUP goes in for each owner, and the form warns that failing to answer the co-owner question “will result in an automatic denial of your appeal.”

The unit of appeal is the property, not the owner: “A separate Application is required for each Property, including separate Applications and supporting documentation for each unit in a condominium or cooperative.” A notice that lists several lots can be appealed on one form. If the notice covered one apartment that is physically combined with another into a single residence, the appeal is for the combined residence.

What can the Tax Commission review on Form TC107?

Section 4 of the form is a set of check boxes, and the grounds fall into two families the instructions define. A surcharge is “Excessive” if the market value DOF used “exceeds the Full Value of the Property or co-op unit,” and an applicant claiming that has to state the market value on the notice, the claimed full value and the reduction sought, for each year appealed. A surcharge is “Unlawful” on any of five grounds: DOF’s initial determination that the property is not a primary residence was wrong; DOF’s final determination, the one issued after an exemption application was denied, was wrong; the property never met the value threshold, more than $5 million for a one- to three-family home or $1 million or more for a condominium or cooperative unit; the property is wrongly treated as a covered property rather than an excluded one; or the property cannot be identified from the assessment roll, sits outside the city, or was assessed by someone without authority.

Two lines on the Tax Commission’s page decide a lot of strategy. An owner may contest DOF’s initial residency determination at the Tax Commission only “when also challenging the Market Value at the same time,” while a market value challenge may be brought on its own, “without challenging DOF’s primary residence Determination.” Residency alone, before DOF has ruled, is not a Tax Commission case.

When is Form TC107 due?

Those dates cover both the 2026/27 and 2027/28 tax years, and one application can carry both years. “Ultimately, only one Surcharge Appeal may be filed with the Tax Commission for any one year.” An application filed by mail is “not considered filed until received,” and one that arrives after the deadline “will not be reviewed even if they were mailed before that date.”

How does Form TC107 interact with the DOF exemption application?

This is the part that costs owners money when they get it backwards, so the rule and DOF’s own sentence belong side by side. DOF’s program page says: “You can also ask the NYC Tax Commission to consider whether the property is used as a primary residence, but only if you are also challenging the property value. If you ask the NYC Tax Commission to consider primary residency, the Department of Finance will not consider any submission to the Department for the same property, and will defer to the NYC Tax Commission’s decision.” The adopted rule, 19 RCNY 62-06(e), puts it as an instruction to DOF: once an owner files a residency challenge with the Tax Commission under Administrative Code section 11-3206(b)(2), “the department shall not consider any appeal filed pursuant to this section and any determination of the commissioner transmitted to such owner shall have no effect.” DOF’s preamble to the rule names the purpose: “to prevent forum shopping by property owners and avoid the issuance of multiple[,] potentially inconsistent[,] administrative decisions regarding the same matter.”

The trap runs the other way too. Under 62-06(c)(2), an owner who neither appeals to DOF within its window nor files a residency challenge at the Tax Commission is left with DOF’s initial determination, which “shall constitute a final determination of such department and shall not be subject to challenge pursuant to section 11-3206 of the administrative code.” A law-firm alert of July 1, 2026 read the clause the same way, as “significantly limit[ing] the owner’s ability to challenge the primary residence determination at the Tax Commission, except as otherwise permitted under 11-3206 (including where a valuation challenge is raised simultaneously).” The market value challenge is different, and the Tax Commission says so: “If you do not appeal the DOF’s residency Determination you may still challenge your Market Value at the Tax Commission by the applicable March 1, 2027 or March 15, 2027 deadline.”

Read together, the order of operations for most owners is plain. A residency case goes to DOF first, by October 6, 2026, with the documents its rule lists, which are set out on the surcharge explainer; a denial there is a final determination that Form TC107 can take to the Tax Commission on its own ground, on the later of the March date or 30 days after the date on the denial notice. DOF’s page states the value-challenge condition without qualification, but the Tax Commission attaches it only to the initial determination, and Section 4 of the form carries the final determination as a separate check box. A value case goes straight to Form TC107 by March. Filing residency at the Tax Commission at the outset, together with a value challenge, is a real option for an owner who would rather have one decision maker, but it switches DOF off for that property and that year.

How is Form TC107 filed, and what has to be attached?

On paper, with an original signature, sworn before a notary. The Tax Commission says applicants are “strongly urged” to file in person at 1 Centre Street in Manhattan, on the 24th floor, Room 2400, and it also accepts the form at any Department of Finance business center. Mail goes to the same room, and the only proof of timely filing the Tax Commission accepts is its own date-stamped receipt, Form TC10: “Proof of mailing, or a return receipt from the post office or an express delivery service, is not acceptable proof of timely filing with the Tax Commission.” Fax and email are out for the application itself, because the signature has to be original; the instructions say later supporting documents may be emailed to [email protected], and say on their first page that attachments may not be, so file the proof with the paper application.

The DOF surcharge notice for each year appealed has to be attached, whatever the ground. For a residency claim the proof is the same set DOF’s portal asks for, and the Tax Commission says it “requires/accepts and considers the same documents”: the sworn certification of primary residence, the New York State resident return showing the property address, STAR exemption or credit documentation, occupancy documents such as utility bills and leases, and a bona fide arm’s-length lease of at least a year where the resident is a tenant. The 2025 return is the one that matters for 2026/27 and the 2026 return for 2027/28; an owner who was not required to file has to say so and prove residency another way, because “Proof that no tax return was filed in 2025 or 2026 is insufficient.” Attach everything even if DOF already has it; in the instructions’ words, DOF “is a separate agency.”

For a value claim the burden sits with the applicant. The Tax Commission’s page: “Under the law, DOF’s Market Value Determinations are presumed to be correct. The burden is on the Applicant to prove the claims in the Application. You need not prove that DOF’s methodology or calculations used to make the assessment were wrong and offering such proof will not necessarily establish your claimed Full Value.” Appraisals, comparable sales and valuation analyses are the evidence it names. Number the pages and state the total on the form.

Why is the co-op unit valuation the open question?

The surcharge on a cooperative unit is computed from a value DOF never looked at directly. The Tax Commission’s definition of full value for class 2 is “an approach based on income capitalization of comparable rental properties,” and for a unit, “the portion of the co-op building’s Full Value attributable to a co-op unit is imputed to such unit based on the portion of the shares in the co-op building that represent an interest in such co-op unit.” A shareholder disputing the number is disputing a building valuation and a share allocation at once. Akerman’s July 15, 2026 client alert put the difficulty plainly: “The Tax Commission has never handled individual co-op apartment valuation protests of this kind, and it remains unclear whether the Tax Commission has the capacity or procedural framework to adjudicate a wave of unit-level disputes arising from building-level assessments.” An August 19, 2026 appraisal-industry analysis added that “neither the statute nor the implementing regulations specify: what evidence must be submitted to challenge market value; whether independent appraisals are required or permitted; the degree of deference that will be given to the Department’s valuation methodology.”

The instructions carry one answer of their own. A surcharge determination cannot be used in any other Tax Commission or court proceeding about another issue, with one exception: “A Determination of Market Value for co-op units will be considered in Determining Value for other units in the same building for the same fiscal year.” A unit-level value ruling reaches the neighbours, which is a reason for a cooperative board to settle the building’s position before individual shareholders file separately. The board’s side of the notice is covered on the firm’s surcharge service page.

What happens after the Tax Commission decides?

There are no personal hearings on a surcharge appeal, which the instructions name as one of the two differences from an ordinary assessment challenge; the other is that review is limited to the year appealed, apart from 2026/27 and 2027/28, which may be decided together on one application. The determination arrives in writing at the contact the applicant named in Section 3, and it goes to DOF, “which is responsible for applying the Surcharge to your account”; the Tax Commission “does not issue notices of remission, refunds or tax credits.” An applicant with no determination by October 1, 2027 is told to write in with a copy of the application and the TC10 receipt.

The surcharge itself is billed on the ordinary schedule. DOF’s page: “If your property is subject to the surcharge, charges will appear on your property tax bill that is due January 1, 2027.” Neither DOF’s page nor the Tax Commission’s says that a pending appeal delays that bill.

A Tax Commission determination “shall constitute a final Determination and is appealable by seeking judicial review pursuant to Article 7 of the Real Property Tax Law,” and the petition has to be filed within the time limits of Charter section 166, which the instructions gloss as before October 25 annually, “even if you did not receive a notice of Determination from the Tax Commission.” The Tax Commission filing is the prerequisite for that court case, the same structure as an ordinary tax certiorari proceeding.

One more number belongs beside any residency paper signed under oath. The adopted rule lets DOF audit any certification or documentation of primary residency submitted to it within six years of submission, with subpoena power, and where a submission is both material and “submitted negligently or in bad faith” the penalty is 50% of the surcharge if it would have produced an exemption, or “300% of the amount of the difference in surcharge that would result from such lower valuation,” capped at 50% of the surcharge, if it would have produced a lower one. The Tax Commission’s own warning on the TC107 is separate: false statements on an application and failure to make required disclosures “are against the law,” and false filings “are subject to all applicable civil and criminal penalties.”

Frequently asked questions about Form TC107

Is Form TC107 the same as the Tax Commission’s annual application?

No. “The TC107 cannot be used to protest the assessed value of your Property.” The annual protest of an assessment, the one that starts with the January Notice of Property Value, runs on the Tax Commission’s regular application forms, TC101, TC108 and TC109 on its forms page. A surcharge notice and a Notice of Property Value are different documents on different clocks.

Can one Form TC107 cover both 2026/27 and 2027/28?

Yes. Section 1 has a box for each year, each year’s surcharge notice has to be attached, and the instructions say the two years “may be determined at the same time under the same Application.”

Can a co-op shareholder, or the cooperative corporation, file Form TC107?

Both are listed. A tenant-shareholder files for the unit, a cooperative corporation may file on behalf of a unit owner, and each unit needs its own application and its own documents.

Does the Tax Commission hold a hearing on a surcharge appeal?

No. “No personal hearings are held for Surcharge review.” The application is decided on the papers and the determination is sent in writing to the contact named on the form.

Can an owner file Form TC107 and still apply to DOF for the exemption?

Not for the same property and year once residency is put to the Tax Commission: DOF “will not consider any submission to the Department for the same property.” A value-only Form TC107 does not carry that consequence, because it does not ask the Tax Commission to decide residency.

Where do questions about Form TC107 go?

To [email protected], with five days allowed for a reply; staff may not give legal advice, and a question does not extend a deadline. Questions about the DOF side, including the portal’s security PIN, go to 311.

What does it cost to ask MGNY?

Nothing. A real person answers at (212) 343-1111, right away, and the consultation is free. You engage us only if you want the filing handled for you. MGNY has worked NYC property tax since 2008, with $50M+ in tax refunds secured for owners, 900+ developments with tax abatements secured and $30B+ represented in appeals.

Sources, all read September 9, 2026: NYC Tax Commission, Surcharge Appeal information page (last updated July 15, 2026), the TC107 Instructions (Rev. 7-15-2026) and the TC107 Application; NYC Department of Finance, Non-Primary Residence Surcharge; NYC Rules, Rule Relating to Surcharge on Certain Non-Primary Residences (19 RCNY Chapter 62, adopted rule effective July 14, 2026, sections 62-04 and 62-06 and the preamble) and its emergency amendment effective August 3, 2026 (which added the in-person filing route and set the fiscal 2026-27 window); Akerman, client alert on the new tax (July 15, 2026); Cole Schotz, The Pied-à-Terre Tax: New Rules, Exemptions, Appeal Deadlines and Penalties (July 1, 2026); Miller Samuel, Can Property Owners Challenge the Department of Finance’s Market Value? (August 19, 2026). MGNY Consulting is a private consulting firm and is not affiliated with the NYC Department of Finance or the NYC Tax Commission.

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