Are All Property Tax Appeal Services the Same?

As with many things, doing your homework is the key to success in appealing your property tax assessment, especially in Chicago and throughout Cook County.

Some homeowners receive mailings from lawyers and other services they never heard of. Others see billboards and other advertising from online services. Are they legit or is it a scam? Do they have the right experience or is it vaporware?

Here’s what you can do to determine whether to use a property tax appeal service and which one could be the right fit for you.

BBB & A+

The Better Business Bureau is a good place to start. You can determine fairly quickly if a service is reputable or not:

• Look for those with an A+ rating (the highest)
• See if there are complaints and if the service has resolved these complaints or not
• After investigating, the BBB sometimes sides with the business if it feels the complaint was made unfairly so keep an eye out for BBB comments

If you’re not sure what to make of a BBB entry because there’s limited or conflicting information, ask the property tax appeal service to explain what is reported there.

Buyer Beware: Mailings & Inaccurate Estimated Savings

Some property tax appeal services solicit clients through the mail. Some even include estimates of what could be saved. When you see an estimate, check to see if the Cook County Assessor has released the latest assessment values if your township is being re-assessed this year.

If you haven’t received your re-assessment notice but someone is providing you with property tax savings “estimate,” there is no way it can be accurate because they’re estimating a “savings” off of a home value re-assessed three years ago. You should be hearing that little “buyer beware” voice in your head in this situation: they’re just blindly prospecting for your business and may not be trustworthy.

Online Appeals & Internet Start-Ups

Some companies promote appealing online and imply that, with just a bit of information from you, the whole process is automated and you can expect a sizable reduction with a few clicks of a mouse.

Some of these services are start-ups backed by hedge funds or private equity. They spend a lot of money on advertising and PR, cite having made a questionable number of successful appeals considering their short time in business, and they don’t tell you that there is no way to automate the entire process.

Your tax appeal has to be made using one of these three arguments, backed up by well researched data – you don’t want to use the wrong “comps” or you could lose your appeal. The actual appeal documents then need to be printed out, signed, notarized, and mailed or delivered in person to the Cook County Assessor. And some online services only give you the option of appealing at the Assessor’s office, when appealing at both the Assessor and Board of Review may net you a much higher reduction.

DIY & Leaving Money on the Table

The Cook County Assessor and Board of Commissioners all encourage you appeal – but to do so yourself, online through their portal. This sounds appealing because then you won’t have to pay a portion of the property tax reduction to a third-party.

The Gotcha: you may leave hundreds or thousands of dollars on the table, as we covered here.

Never Pay Fees Up Front

If any property tax appeal service requires any payment up front, beware for sure! Reputable services only charge you a percentage of the reduction in your property taxes and, if there’s no reduction, there’s no fee.

The Kensington Research Approach

At Kensington, we only reach out to homeowners with a property tax reduction estimate once we’ve done our homework: we purchase all Cook County home assessed values, run this through our proprietary tax algorithm honed over many years that automatically compares your assessed value with the closest comps, and a reduction estimate is made. And we only recommend appealing with us if the savings is significant – we don’t want to waste your time or ours.

As a result, we have a 90%+ success rate on over 24,000 Cook County property tax appeals. You can view a few of our success stories: savings of $900 to over $40,000 for just one year (which may compound over time).

We’re not perfect and there is the occasional complaint and, as you can see by checking us out online, we do our best to resolve any mistake and/or misunderstanding with our clients.

If you feel that we might be the right property tax service for you, click the link below for a no-obligation property tax appeal estimate.

Get Your Free Property Tax Reduction Estimate