Cook County Assessor Relied On Zillow, Trulia To Set Home Values

CHICAGO — Employees of Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios used online real estate websites as a shortcut while to determine home values for taxing purposes, the Chicago Tribune reported. According to testimony from his office's director of residential valuation, analysts performing manual adjustments of residential assessments would sometimes rely on data from sites like Zillow and Trulia for information about the homes they were evaluating. More than a fifth of all home values are changed by hand, about 20 times higher than industry standards, according to the Tribune.

The court documents were produced following a lawsuit filed by the Tribune last year after the assessor's office denied a public records request from the paper seeking records of adjustments made manually by analysts and commercial assessments. State district and appeals courts agreed with the paper that the denial was improper and ordered Berrios to turn over the requested records.

Cook County taxpayers are covering the cost of Berrois' legal battle to keep records of assessment practices secret. The unanimous June 29 appellate court ruling from a three judge panel affirming that factual data from records of tax assessments can not be hidden from the public also agreed with the lower court ordering Berrois' office to cover the newspaper's legal fees.

The outgoing assessor and ex-chairman of Cook County Democratic Party may still attempt an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, which could rack up further legal bills before he leaves office early next year.

A 2017 investigation by the Tribune and ProPublica Illinois and a subsequent independent investigation commissioned by the county revealed flaws in the county's property valuations resulting in overvalued homes in poorer neighborhoods and undervalued ones in richer ones. Effectively, the reports found, the tax burden is pushed off of the wealthiest parts of the county to the least affluent, with property tax attorneys profiting handily in the process.

Berrios was defeated by Oak Park financial adviser Fritz Kaegi in the Democratic Primary in March and was subsequently replaced as the chief of Cook County Democrats by Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

Read more from the Chicago Tribune

Related:

• Cook County Assessments Favor Wealthy At Poor's Expense: Study
• Berrios Fights Ethics Rules Restricting Cash From Tax Lawyers
• Cook County Assessor: Kaegi Captures Primary; Berrios Concedes