Homeowners to get Assessment Facts
By Louise Kiernan in the Chicago Tribune

The one certainty about tax assessments in Cook County is that the procedure is far from simple. But County Assessor Thomas Hynes said Wednesday that will change because of reforms that will make it easier for homeowners to determine whether they should appeal assessments to lower their tax bills.

The first changes will be newly designed assessment notices that will be sent to 423,000 homeowners in Chicago being reassessed this year.

The notices will not only list the old and the new assessments, but will also list the information the assessor uses to make those judgments, such as the number of bathrooms in a home and whether the attic is finished.

While homeowners don't need a government agency to tell them how many lavatories are in their houses, the disclosure on the notice will help the taxpayer determine whether mistakes might have been made in placing a value on the property.

The notice will also include the last day a complaint can be filed seeking to lower the assessment, and will note the edition of the local newspaper that will publish a list of all assessments in the area.

The published lists can provide evidence for homeowners who want to prove their houses are overvalued when compared to similar properties.

The assessor's program also calls for making copies of the assessment lists available in local libraries.

That would answer a complaint by suburban officials and some taxpayers that the records needed to appeal an assessment weren't readily available except in the assessor's office in the Loop.

As properties in the rest of Cook County are revalued-every property is reassessed every three years-the new notices will go to those homeowners as well.

"Overall, this program is the most significant change in our approach to taxpayer services that has ever been made by this office," said Hynes.

"The two most common questions that are asked by taxpayers during the time of reassessment are first, what does the assessor know about my house?" Hynes said. The second question is "how do I compare with my neighbors?  We think this package of changes answers both of those questions very directly."

Andrea Raila, a property tax consultant and a leader of an advocacy group, Citizens for Fairness in Taxation, praised the changes, but said they fell short of what is needed.

While she said the new notices will provide more information to taxpayers, homeowners will only be getting half the story.

For instance, she said, some homeowners have a false sense of how much their assessments have increased because they don't take the multiplier into account.

The multiplier is the number used by the state to ensure properties throughout Illinois are assessed at the same levels. In Cook County in recent years, the multiplier has doubled the values set by the assessor.

Consequently, Raila said, the notices should include both the market value of a home and the value after the multiplier is applied.