Tax Rolls Miss Costly Burr Ridge House

BURR RIDGE, IL – The Cook County assessor lists the property at 8879 Johnston Road in Burr Ridge as vacant land.

In reality, a two-story house was built there.

Through a public records request, Patch obtained the building permit for the land. It was issued in October 2019 and lasted for a year, indicating the house was built more than three years ago.

According to the permit, the home's construction value was $842,100. Given inflation and other factors, it's likely more now.

Without a house listed in Cook County records, last year's tax bill was just $1,500. If the property were valued at $842,100, the tax bill would be at least a dozen times more, amounting to more than $18,000.

The Cook County Assessor's Office assessed the property's market value at $78,160 last year, up $10,000 from a year earlier.

In an email to Patch, Lyons Township Tax Assessor Patrick Hynes said his office asked Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi in September 2022 to add the house to the tax rolls.

"Still listed as vacant land," said Hynes, whose elected role is taxpayer advocate.

No taxing body lost any money because of the mistake. Instead, other property taxpayers picked up the slack.

Christian Belanger, an assessor's office spokesman, told Patch in an email that the office has now recorded the "new, permitted construction" on the property. He said the market value will be updated during the coming reassessment cycle.

"Since the height of the pandemic in 2020, the Assessor's office has transitioned from a paper-based system to one based on digital records," Belanger said. "In the past two years, the Office processed approximately 160,000 permits and inspected more than 28,000 properties throughout Cook County to ensure assessments are as accurate as possible."

Over the last couple of years, Patch has found repeated examples in Lyons Township of properties not counted in tax rolls:

• A well-known investigative reporter paid just a few thousand in property taxes for years on his $1.9 million house.
• A La Grange house was valued at $56,820, but it sold for $200,000 a few years before. The land was assessed, but not the house.
• Eighteen new townhomes were missing from tax rolls in La Grange.
• A Burr Ridge business paid no property taxes on its building for 13 years. The structure was not assessed.
• A Hinsdale house was sold for $3.9 million, yet its property tax bill was just $17,114. The assessment was based on a smaller house that was leveled years earlier.