Owners of parking spaces sold or rented separately must pay property taxes in Boston, appeals court rules

The City of Boston has been taxing parking spaces as a separate piece of property since 2002. Globe Photo/File

The city of Boston can treat parking spaces in condominiums that are rented out or sold in the city like any other parcel of real estate and can collect property taxes from their owners, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled Monday.

Boston has been taxing parking spaces as a separate piece of property since 2002 and had applied that same thinking to 13 of the 19 parking spaces owned by Michael Rauseo at a high end condo on Broad Street in downtown Boston, according to court records.

Rauseo challenged the practice before the state Appellate Tax Board, arguing that the city should be satisfied with the money it collects by taxing the common areas of a condominium. A second payment was unjustified.

But the board and a unanimous three-judge panel on the Appeals Court sided with the city. Since the parking spaces are not linked to a condo itself and they can be sold or rented out, they are separate.

Where “the parking easements are physically located is a part of the limited common areas of the condominium, the easements themselves were reserved by [Rauseo] ...and are not (and never were) part of the condominium common areas,” Chief Justice Mark V. Green wrote.

According to city records, Rauseo’s parking spaces are assessed at $71,000 each and the tax bill is $372.04 per space.