Overwhelmed by your property taxes? Got your tax bill in the mail and don’t know what to do?
Property taxes are used to fund state and local government programs, including public education. Illinois is known for its high property taxes, ranking eighth in the nation for heaviest reliance on the tax, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
In Cook County, properties are reassessed every three years. The assessor’s office splits the city of Chicago into several townships. The area of the West Side of Chicago, which includes Austin, West Garfield Park and North Lawndale, was reassessed earlier this year.
Your reassessment comes from the Cook County Assessor’s Office, while your annual tax bill — which comes in two installments, one due in March and another in August — comes from the Cook County Treasurer’s Office. In Illinois, property taxes are paid in arrears, meaning if your property is reassessed in 2024, you won’t see the new value reflected until the second installment of your tax bill in 2025.
Salvador J. Lopez, a practicing consumer rights attorney at Robson & Lopez LLC, advises homeowners to be aware of any notices they receive in the mail and to familiarize themselves with their township’s tax timeline.
“People say, ‘I’m going to appeal my tax bill.’ That’s incorrect. You can’t appeal your taxes. Your tax bill is what it is. It’s calculated based on the numbers that are provided from the state, the county, and municipalities, as far as how much they need,” Lopez said. “The sticker shock is too late. You can no longer appeal that bill. You can only appeal in 2024, which is paid in 2025.”
What you can appeal is the state-assessed value of your home. Once you receive your reassessment notice, you typically have 30 days to file an appeal with the Cook County Assessor. You may want to appeal if the property’s assessment appears too high or your reassessment notice includes incorrect property characteristics, among other reasons. This year, the deadline to appeal with the assessor’s office was June 20.
The second level of appeal is with the Cook County Board of Review. Homeowners on the West Side have until September 24, 2024 to file a complaint with the Board. Those in other townships should check the county’s website for deadlines. You can then appeal a Board of Review decision in circuit court or file with the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board, though that process can take several years before a decision is made.
In between each triennial reassessment, homeowners can re-appeal if any of their property’s characteristics have changed drastically.
“There’s a lot of avenues for reducing and managing your taxes,” said Greg Hilton, attorney and founder of Property Tax Solutions. “You can’t make them go away, but chipping away 10% over time can make a big difference in a family’s budget.”
While the first level of appeal is generally a manageable process for a homeowner, Lopez and Hilton recommend turning to a professional for help with a Board of Review complaint.
The property tax experts also have a key piece of advice for prospective homeowners: Ask about the tax bill before purchasing a property. While a real estate agent cannot guarantee how much your tax bill will be, you can inquire about the property’s history, and tax records from previous years can typically be found online.
“There shouldn’t be any surprises,” Hilton said.
Lopez stresses that the assessed value of your home does not impact your actual property value. An appeal will not decrease your property’s market value.
Because the reassessed value of a home is impacted by the assessed value of nearby properties, Lopez encourages homeowners to communicate with their neighbors about the assessment and appeals processes. If your neighbor’s assessed value is going up, yours is likely to go up as well, he said.
If you live in an area where surrounding property values have increased significantly since the last reassessment, Lopez recommends you be “uber-aware.”
“A lot of this is planning. If the tax is going to be unaffordable, maybe it’s time to put the property up for sale. I want to be clear, it is horrible that that’s a lot of the only option for a lot of people. But, you know, I say, ‘Look, I’d rather you sell it than lose it to foreclosure or lose it in a tax sale,’” Lopez said. “The more information you have, the better.”
