Lyons Woman Pays Taxes On Neighbor's Home: Official

LYONS, IL – Lyons resident Josephine Daniels pays property taxes for the house next door, not her own. That cost her an extra $2,922 last year, the local assessor says.

Daniels, who lives in the 4500 block of Center Avenue, said this has put a financial bind on her and her husband.

"I'm on a fixed income," she said in an interview earlier this month. "My husband retired a year ago because of a health issue."

In an email to Patch this week, the Cook County Assessor's Office said it expects to have more information soon on Daniels' situation.

On Wednesday, Lyons Township Assessor Patrick Hynes, who advocates for taxpayers, said the county placed the wrong house on Daniels' property in its 2022 assessment, causing a large spike in her bill.

She appealed the amount in November and is waiting for a response from the county assessor's office, Hynes said.

"She just wants her money back," Hynes said in an email.

As for the county's latest statement, he said it was "fantastic" and that his office would move on to the next case if the error is corrected.

In a February email, he said County Assessor Fritz Kaegi's office was "unwilling to admit a mistake," so Daniels had to fight to get her money.

"Josephine can’t understand why she has to pay for the county’s error and why the mistake hasn’t been rectified," Hynes said.

Hynes has repeatedly criticized the performance of the county assessor's office. He said the office is slow to act on problems, even when he points them out.

Over the last couple of years, Patch has found repeated examples in Lyons Township of properties that are uncounted or under-assessed in tax rolls, among other errors:

• 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 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.
• A La Grange house sold for $675,000 in 2016. But eight years later, Cook County's assessment remains far lower.
• A woman lives in one house in Willow Springs. But the Cook County Assessor's Office is taxing her as if she has three, more than tripling her tax bill, the local assessor says.