Grafton Assessor: A Letter to Residents

An important message from your Assessor William "Bill" Ottley:

Attention Taxpayers,

Grafton Township was revalued this year to restore uniformity due to last year's Board of Review decisions. After Grafton Assessments were turned in last year, the Board of Review announced that they would consider current sales as comparables and could be used in their decision process.

The Illinois Supreme Court has said that uniformity is paramount.

An example of why equity needed to be restored is shown in the following example:

In one subdivision there are 18 homes of the "Casa" model. Five of these homeowners filed an assessment appeal in 2011 based on comparable sales, seeking an assessment reduction.  The Board of Review lowered all five properties that filed an appeal. This left disparity in the assessments and disparity in the tax bills between these five properties and the remaining thirteen that did not file an appeal.

The Board of Review wanted to lower last years assessments by 7% across the board to determine assessments for this year. However, lowering all properties would not change the disparity in the Casa model because every Casa model would receive this 7% reduction including those that were already lowered by the 2011 appeal process. Homeowners of the Casa model would not be paying a uniform tax bill since there would still be a disparity in the assessed values.

Therefore, the only option was to lower all Casa model homes to a uniform amount and then adjust them based on their amenities, making the tax burden more evenly distributed.

Since similar reductions were given throughout Grafton Township, the above concept was replicated for each subdivision as well as individual homes as needed.

That being said, it is most likely, that the Board of Review will be assigning a substantial multiplier increase to the values that were turned in due to the reductions that were made.

If you have questions, please feel free to use the contact us form on this website, or call our office and speak to our staff.

Best regards,

William Ottley - CIAO-S