How To Appeal Your Cook County Property Taxes - The Details

I'g finally getting around to finishing my serial on appealing your Cook County property taxes. Last time I covered the basics, such every bit the overall process, the levels of appeal and the deadlines. And dorsum in July I covered how your property taxes are calculated, how your assessed value impacts your belongings taxes, and the results of the 2012 Chicago re-assessment: 2012 Cook Canton Belongings Taxes: What Simply Happened To Chicago. This mail service goes into the finer points nigh putting an actual appeal together, including a few things I picked up in a seminar I attended last year hosted by Anastasia Poulopoulos, an attorney who specializes in holding revenue enhancement appeals, and my own experience appealing my Chicago property taxes.

Equally I've mentioned previously, you lot're not really appealing your property taxes but rather the assessed value of your abode, which is what drives your taxes and is the only portion of the equation that y'all MIGHT be able to control. So this whole process is nigh making a case that the county'due south assessed value for your dwelling house is too loftier and in that location are two cardinal means to approach this – y'all can either do information technology yourself or yous tin can engage an attorney to practice it for you.

You probably receive near x letters in the mail every yr from attorneys who want to file a property tax appeal for yous. Usually they but charge a portion of the savings from ane twelvemonth – typically I see 50% – so if you lot are going to go this route it's all-time to practise it in a re-assessment year so that you can go 3 years of benefits. In that example you would become to keep approximately 83% of the savings. But the do good of using an attorney is that you don't have to lift a finger.

I filed my appeal myself considering a) I wanted the learning experience b) I idea I would put more effort into my unusual state of affairs than an attorney looking for a quick hit would and c) I'chiliad cheap. A year afterwards my successful entreatment I authorized a police force house to appeal my taxes merely to meet what would happen. I never heard from them again, which I took to mean that they concluded that in that location was not a lot of opportunity there. In my heed that confirmed (b) above, though I had already washed the heavy lifting.

Although the process can seem overwhelming or intimidating information technology'due south not as bad as you might think. The trick is to follow the instructions and come up with a solid argument as to why your home is assessed too high and present it well. And the county is looking for 1 of 7 different arguments, which tin be broadly grouped as :

  • Lack of Uniformity – your dwelling is not in line with the assessed value of other homes in the expanse. This is the most common argument made.
  • Overvaluation – the assessed value is non in line with the market value of your domicile as suggested by what you paid for it or what like homes have recently sold for. I suspect this is a harder argument to brand than lack of uniformity.
  • Bad information – the county is incorrect in what they think you ain – east.1000. house is much smaller than they call back, damaged by fire, edifice doesn't exist, etc…

1 of the more surprising things that I got out of Anastasia'due south seminar was that information technology'south really hard to get the county to factor in the status of a property – i.eastward. if you lot live in a run down house you are probably going to exist over-valued. That was my challenge. I had bought a short auction that needed a lot of piece of work for a lot less money than the county had my property valued for. The homes they comped me against were much newer and in much improve status than my house. Fifty-fifty though I supplied them with interior photographs of my and several other homes and my closing statement they flat out rejected my appeal the first fourth dimension and so gave me a modest, just acceptable reduction at the second level of appeal.

Anastasia all simply said that the county just doesn't care about the condition of a holding. And they won't await at distressed sales for comparables even though these might be bringing down neighborhood values. Shoot. I think that if the city thinks that a firm is worth more than the homeowner thinks it'southward worth they should exist forced to purchase it from the abode possessor at that price. I think that would introduce a lot more than integrity to the procedure.

You can file your property tax entreatment online or you tin download the forms and submit the appeal by mail service. I opted to file the appeal by mail because I needed to submit a lot of documentation (photographs, closing argument) that I did not meet a way to submit online. The forms and guidelines are available under Cook County Property Descriptions and Entreatment Forms. Information technology's good to review the guidelines fifty-fifty if you are going to file your property taxation appeal online and note that at that place are different forms and guidelines for condos vs. single family unit homes.

When you file it online all they are interested in is the properties you are comping against. All yous have to do is type in the PINs for those properties – up to vi – and you are done. They will even pull up a list of what they recollect are comparable properties and y'all can check them off.

Information technology looks similar there is no minimum number of comparables required to file the appeal online (I think it will accept none but how well do you think that volition work?) but Anastasia suggests at least three in the same neighborhood, same course, and with the same features as yours – all of which are listed on the assessor's tax records for every property. Conspicuously the Melt Canton Assessor is single mindedly focused on RELATIVE values in the neighborhood, which results in entire neighborhoods being either over or under valued relative to market value.

You lot can rent a professional for $300 – 600 to produce a property tax appraisal (different from the kind done past lenders) simply Anastasia doesn't call back they are worth it. She only uses them 5% of the time when she needs a bit of actress aid and they exercise not help you lot defend the appeal.

As I mentioned terminal time I had to file an appeal with the Cook County Board of Review after my initial entreatment got declined. If you make up one's mind to go that route exist sure to follow these 27 rules of the Board Of Review Of Cook County. Yeah, 27. You can even make your statement in person at a hearing if y'all want but that is probably too intimidating for virtually people.

Anastasia pointed out that there are typically iv reasons that people don't get their property taxes lowered, all of which are code for "they should have gotten an attorney":

  • They miss the deadlines – the windows are fairly narrow
  • Their show is poor
  • Their presentation of the evidence sucks (my word)
  • They don't take the time to do the appeal at all or to do it right

If you lot live in a condo building it is possible for you to appeal the property taxes for just your unit of measurement merely that's actually difficult to practice since all the other units in your building are typically in line with your unit. Normally the whole building bands together and hires an attorney to file an appeal for the unabridged building.

And, as I mentioned last time, there is a 5th level of appeal bachelor to you through the Illinois Property Revenue enhancement Entreatment Board. Anastasia said that these guys tin take 2 – 5 years to hear your example simply if they dominion in your favor you volition get a refund for overpayment for all the time that has passed plus 5% interest. However, if these guys plow up additional data (and they tin come into your business firm) that suggests that your assessed value is too low and so they can actually raise your assessed value and hence your taxes.

One final indicate that Anastasia made is important for domicile sellers when they win an appeal and information technology's not still reflected in their historic revenue enhancement records. When it comes time to handling the belongings taxes for closing information technology is better to escrow coin for the past taxes than to do a standard proration based upon the historic numbers, which are likely higher than the taxes non yet paid. The heir-apparent is not going to give you full credit – maybe even no credit – for the forthcoming property tax reduction. By escrowing the money you pay exactly what yous should pay and no more than. And escrowing is also a ameliorate alternative for buyers who have reason to believe that the property taxes will be going up.

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago surface area'due south full service discount real estate brokerage. If you want to keep up to engagement on the Chicago existent estate market, get an insider's view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate manufacture, or you only recollect he's the next Kurt Vonnegut yous can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email.  Please be sure to verify your email address when you lot receive the verification notice.