Why we built Good Grieves

We bought our first home on Long Island. We’d looked at New Jersey, Westchester and Brooklyn, but Long Island won on good schools, safe streets and being close to family. We knew what the taxes were going in, but not how they were worked out.

Then the mailers came. Grievance companies started writing as soon as we moved in, and the neighbors said they grieve every year, some with the same firm for a decade. They’re typical: about 6 in 10 homes filed for the 2028 roll.

One of us is an engineer and a data nerd, and we both pay the bill, so we thought: how hard can it be? Every record is public. It’s just spread across the County’s roll, its Land Records Viewer and the State’s sales files.

Most firms keep a quarter to half of what you save. They help a lot of people, and for many those savings really matter. Some owners would rather do it themselves, if only the records were easy to read.

So we put it all in one place. Look up any home to see its County record, nearby sales, and how the bill splits between the schools, the police and everything else. It’s what you need to grieve on your own, free.

Some people are short on time or worried about getting it wrong. For them we’re planning a flat fee to file for you, the same whether you save $500 or $5,000.