New Assessment Model Doesn’t End Need for Property Tax Appeals

Cook County homeowners who worry they are paying too much in property taxes may have been encouraged by the news that the county has adopted a new model for setting a property’s taxable value.

Assessor Joseph Berrios’ office says the new model corrects many of the flaws of the old system, which was shown to have disproportionately over-assessed properties in economically-challenged neighborhoods.

But trying to figure out if the new model is any fairer than the old one is likely to confound the many property owners whose latest reassessment notices suggest that, for them, the new method carries a bigger price tag.

The assessor’s office offers some reassuring adjectives in press releases describing the “defensible methods,” “superior performance measures,” and “state-of-the-art technology” used to create the new assessment models.

Um, What?

But the accompanying details are a little daunting:

Among the new method’s features: “Coefficient of Dispersion (COD), Coefficient of Variation (COV), Price-related Differential (PRD), and Price-related Bias (PRB) are all well within IAAO standards.”

The assessor’s office goes on to describe the “multiplicative model structure” and “geostatistical methods.” For added comfort, taxpayers are assured that “multicollinearity issues” have been removed.

That’s a relief, possibly.

But what does any of that mean for your “neighborhood binary locational variables”?

Best Strategies for Appealing Your Property Taxes

The only way to be certain that your property has been assessed fairly is to appeal your assessment. An appeal ensures that your property’s value will be considered individually, based on the specific characteristics of your home. As an added bonus, you don’t have to understand multicollinearity to file a successful appeal of your assessment. Here’s what you do need to know:

• Know what township you are in and keep track of the deadlines for your township. You can find out what township you are in here. You can find a schedule of the appeal deadlines here. There is a 30-day window for filing appeals with the assessor’s office and the deadlines are different for each of the county’s 38 townships.
• File a timely appeal every year. An appeal may take hundreds or even thousands of dollars off your assessment – reducing your tax bill for years. Your assessment is the starting point of the taxes you will pay to a long list of taxing agencies.
• Do your homework to find the comparable properties that will form the basis of your appeal based on lack of uniformity.
• You can use real estate sites like Zillow or Redfin to search for recent sales of homes that share key characteristics with yours including similar square footage, lot size, location, construction type and number of bedrooms and bathrooms. If the assessor has valued your home higher than the recent sales prices of comparable homes, you can make an argument for reducing your assessment based on comparable sales.
• Appeal again to the Board of Review, regardless of the outcome of your initial appeal. This step may result in additional reductions to your assessment. Keep track of Board of Review deadlines for your township here.
• To make your case stronger at the Board of Review, do additional research for comparable properties. If comparable homes near you won reductions at the first stage of appeal, you may have new grounds for appeal.
• If you do nothing else, take advantage of a free, no-obligation assessment of your property tax situation. Kensington Research and Recovery will do an analysis of your bill and comparable properties at no cost. There is no obligation to use our services to assist in your appeal. You can file your appeal online or you can turn the process over to us. You pay nothing unless you receive a significant reduction in your assessed value.

Your home is likely the most significant investment you will make in your lifetime. Protect it by ensuring that you’re not paying more than your fair share in property taxes.

Chad Rothrock is Director of Operations at Kensington Research and Recovery, a Chicago-based company that helps businesses, homeowners and investors appeal their property assessments.

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