Posts from September 2026.
Rhode Island has become the latest battleground in the ongoing fight between states and cities that want to tax high-value second homes and the owners who are stuck paying for it. On August 19, more than 50 plaintiffs—individual homeowners, trusts, and LLCs holding property in Newport, Westerly, Narragansett, Portsmouth, South Kingstown, Middletown, Charlestown, Jamestown, and other coastal communities—filed a complaint in Newport County Superior Court challenging Rhode Island’s new “Non-Owner Occupied Property Tax Act,” codified at R.I. Gen. Laws § 44-72-1 et seq.