Your voice may be part of the collective groan has been rolling through Chicago neighborhoods this summer as homeowners open their mail and read greetings from the Cook County assessor’s office. Not just a mere salutation, the communication brings sobering news: a proposed property tax reassessment.
But that groan can give way to a sigh of relief if you launch a successful challenge to the reassessment. It takes a little patience and know-how, but if you invest some time and find an error you might be able to save hundreds of dollars on your tax bill.
What’s more, the form that Chicago residents have been receiving-residents of north and northwest suburbs will get theirs next year, and west, southwest and southern suburbanites in 1996-has a new design that is the result of a two-year effort by a special task force to give homeowners more easy-to-understand information about their property tax reassessment.
New forms, revised rules for filing a complaint and more help getting information are all part of a program recently unveiled by Cook County Assessor Thomas Hynes. The new procedures are “a definite improvement,” notes Roland Calia, senior research associate for the Civic Federation in Chicago, a taxpayer watchdog group.
While it may be easier to make a challenge, whether or not you are successful in knocking dollars off your tax bill depends on finding significant errors and an assessment that’s out of line with your neighbors’. It’s worth some time investigating, though. In Cook County, “there is such a mass appraisal process for the assessment that there is plenty of room for errors,” Calia says. “People spend time and effort making sure their income tax is correct; they should do the same (for property tax).”
If you’re a Chicagoan who already has received a reassessment notice, formally known as a proposed assessed valuation, you probably spotted the most obvious new improvement right off: The forms are now letter-size rather than a pint-size postcard. The form contains key information that you will need to realize a reduction in your tax tab.
“The assessor’s office is giving (homeowners) better tools to challenge their property tax reassessment,” Calia says. Here’s a guide to using the tools to build your case for a tax reduction.
– Time constraints. In the upper left corner of the new proposed assessed valuation notice is the date the notice was published, and in the right corner is the date by which you must file a complaint with the assessor’s office. The two dates are about 30 days apart.
If you can’t find the time within the month to file your challenge-one expert likens the time involved to complete a comprehensive challenge to the time it takes to file a very simple tax return-you have a second chance. “The Cook County Board of (tax) Appeals has another separate filing period that runs for about 25 days a few months later,” says Thomas Jaconetty, chief deputy commissioner for the board. Call the Board of Appeals, suggests Jaconetty, at 312-443-5542 to be put on a mailing list to be notified when it is time to file with the board, and to receive the appropriate paperwork.
You can challenge directly to the Board of Appeals, but it increases your chances to win a reduction to first file with the assessor’s office. “We encourage people to take two bites at the apple,” Jaconetty says.
And as with income taxes, you can hire a professional to do the job for you. Expect to pay about one-half of one year’s tax savings won by the professional, and there may also be an upfront fee. To find the pros, look in the Yellow Pages under “Taxes-Consultants and Representatives.”
– Error check. The first step in making a challenge is to review the description of your property in order to spot any errors. Sometimes, homeowners do no more than point out errors when they file a complaint, says Bill Martello, who owns Real Estate Tax Consultants in Wilmette. But to be better assured of winning a reduction, you should search for errors and also make a case for “lack of uniformity.” (See below.)
The new notices show an estimated market value, which is the overall worth the assessor’s office is placing on your house. Both the previous market value, determined in 1991, and the new proposed market value are listed in the upper-left hand portion of the notice. “In Cook County, they almost always understate the market value,” says Martello. “I think it is a little game they play, because people will say, `Oh, my house is worth more than that, I better not protest.’ ” If you find, however, that the market value is overstated-perhaps you recently bought your home at a lower price than the stated market value-then you’ve found a signficant error.
Now, the notice also contains a detailed property description, listing the age of your home, square footage, land square footage and other attributes. “Some errors in the property description are important, and some aren’t,” Martello explains. “The important thing is square footage. If you don’t know it, measure the length and width of the outside of your house and multiply it, and do the same for your front and back lots.”
– Lack of uniformity. Pointing out errors in your complaint gives you ammunition in bagging a reduction, but you’ll bring out the real big guns if you make a case for “lack of uniformity.” In fact, finding mistakes will only work to reduce your assessment if they lead the assessor’s office to conclude the errors caused them to overvalue your home, and the original valuation is out of step with similar homes in your neighborhood, Martello says.
Very simply, finding a “lack of uniformity” means that you can point to homes in your neighborhood that are very similar to yours but are assessed lower than yours. The new assessment notices should make it easier for you to prove lack of uniformity if it exists, Calia notes.
For one thing, the bottom of the notice lists when area newspapers will publish information about the assessments of your neighbors’ homes.
The assessor’s office promises publication in local newspapers before the 30-day deadline expires for area residents to file a complaint with the assessor’s office. “Everybody can go to the newspapers and see what all of their neighbors are assessed at and it will instantly give them a feeling of whether they are over- or under-assessed, and that is a big part of the equation,” says Holly Spence, director of communications for the assessor’s office.
The newspaper listings will detail addresses, the taxpayer’s name, the permanent index number (PIN), the neighborhood code, classification of the property and the propossed assessed valuation. Assessed valuations are determined by multiplying the market value by 16 percent. All of these figures are also on the notice from the assessor that you receive individually about your own assessment.
The length you go to prove lack of uniformity is up to you. “You can just put `lack of uniformity’ on the complaint form,” Martello says. “But your chances are better if you list specific PIN numbers that have lower assessments than your property, but are similar to your property. Sometimes, you can even add photos of your home and the comparables if the comparables are clearly better-looking properties.”
And to scope out even more information than is on the local newspaper listing, you can call the assessor’s office at 312-443-7550 and ask for property descriptions to be sent on five PIN numbers. Then you can compare exact square footage and other property attributes.
– The odds. All of this may sound like a daunting task, but it could pay off. The assessor’s office doesn’t keep figures on the number of homeowners filing complaints who then receive reductions. But the Cook County Board of Appeals has statistics that show that 57.8 percent of the homeowners who complained to the board themselves from 1989 until 1993 received a reduction, and that reduction averaged $300 annually.
Personal help is available from representatives at Taxpayer Assistance Offices throughout the area. These offices and their phone numbers are listed on the reassessment notice you receive. “We are now open some evenings and earlier in the morning,” says Spence of the assessor’s office.
You’re hoping to win a reduction, but can filing a challenge backfire, with the assessor’s office determining you should pay more in taxes than it originally determined on the reassessment form? “This almost never happens,” Martello says. The only conceivable way it could, he speculates, is if you point out an error indicating the square footage on the reassessment is much lower than your actual square footage. And don’t neglect other avenues for lowering your property tax bill.
“People should make sure they get their homeowner’s exemption,” Chicago attorney Jack Boehm cautions. Although all homeowners are eligible to have $2,000 knocked off their assessed valuation, many are missing the savings because they didn’t send back the appropriate card to the assessor’s office or because of other bureaucratic slipups. Call 312-443-7500 if you think you are not receiving the homeowner exemption. Seniors can qualify for an additional exemption. They should call 312-443-6151.
