Tag Archives: property tax appeal service

Why the Cook County Assessor Wants You to Appeal

Cook County Assessor's Office The National Taxpayers Union has estimated that as many as 60% of taxable properties in the United States are over-assessed, but fewer than 5% of property owners nationwide challenge their assessments.

The reasons for this include being too busy, lacking awareness and knowledge of the process, assuming that an appeal would be a waste of time because it likely would be unsuccessful, and not paying attention to deadlines. In actuality, appealing your property tax assessment might save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year – and the Cook County Assessor’s office wants you to appeal, even though they’re the ones assessing your property…
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As Cook County’s Big Property Tax Hike Is Felt, Kensington May Be Able To Help

Cook County Property Tax Relief On June 13, the Cook County Clerk’s office released 2015 property tax rate figures for the whole county.

On average, Chicago homeowners will have to pay 12.8% more in property taxes than they did at this time last year based on the new tax rates, which includes both the value of your home and the land it’s on.
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Appeal Your Commercial Property Taxes or Lose Big

Cook County Commercial Property Tax Appeal Commercial property owners in Chicago are still reeling from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s $588 million property tax increase, which will be phased in over four years. As Crain’s Chicago Business reported last October, the 18% rate hike will add millions of dollars to the taxes of Chicago’s largest downtown office towers.

But one billionaire real estate mogul from New York will likely find a way to minimize paying his share of the increase.
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Last Chance to Appeal Your Cook County Property Taxes for 2015

Give yourself a holiday gift in the form of a property tax reduction that can amount to hundreds or thousands per year, every year.

You still have time to appeal your property tax assessment if you live in one of the Cook County townships listed below – even if you’ve already appealed at the Cook County Assessor’s Office. However, the Board of Review windows are about to close for good for 2015.

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Commercial Property Tax Reductions for Recent Purchases

Commercial Steel Processor Success Story

You’ve just purchased commercial real estate: congratulations. This blog post explains how you can reduce your property tax payment in the first year (twice) and every year thereafter, often by $5,000 to $15,000 or more annually.

How Commercial Property Tax Reductions Work

If the sales price of your new property is lower than its assessed value, we can make a compelling case for a commercial property tax reduction. We have the sales data and assessed values for all commercial properties sold in Cook County, and we can quickly identify if we can make a successful sales argument with our proprietary property tax reduction algorithm.

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Why Have a Pro Review Your Property Tax Assessment

Why Have a Pro Appeal Your Property Taxes As always, Cook County property taxes are on the rise and the only way to combat that dreaded second installment tax bill is by lowering your property tax assessment.

In a perfect world, you’d have time to handle the stress of the job, family responsibilities and right on time drop off an expertly formulated argument for a reduction in total assessment without breaking a sweat.

The only problem: we don’t live in a perfect world and everyday demands come before we consider our property tax bills, until July first rolls around and it’s too late by then. Now you can get rid of the hassle and the frustration of this process by hiring a company to handle this annoying but necessary task.

Don’t Pay More than You Have To

Having a professional company review your property tax assessment annually is your best bet to ensure that you’re fairly assessed and aren’t paying more in property taxes than you have to.

When looking for a professional company to hire, consider:

How long they’ve been in business
Their success rate
Their reputation

Professionals with years of expertise will know the best strategy to use when appealing your property taxes and what exemptions you should be aware of for even more savings on the second installment.

No Risk

If you’re not sure whether there’s an argument to make for appealing your property tax assessment, it won’t cost you anything for most professionals to perform an analysis on your home or any additional properties you may own because they work on contingency.

All it takes is a few minutes to fill in some basic information and within 24 hours they will contact you with the results of our analysis. If there is an argument to be made, and you’re interested in using us, our property tax appeal service will appeal on your behalf on a contingency basis: no costs up front.

Avoid Wasting Time

Kensington is in the business of successfully appealing property tax assessments with special expertise in Cook County. We handle the paperwork and manage the deadlines so you don’t have to. No one wants to spend their precious free time tracking appeal deadline dates, finding comparable properties or “comps,” or waiting around in county offices.

Because property tax assessments and policies change annually, let a professional at least review your total assessment every year. Click on the link at the bottom for a free analysis from a company who is in the business of making sure you’re not paying more in property taxes than you have to and who wants to keep your free time free for what is really important to you.

Contact us to for a complimentary property tax assessment

Appealing Your Property Taxes at the Cook County Board of Review

Cook County Property Tax Appeal Did you miss your window to appeal your property taxes with the Cook County Assessor, or did you file an appeal with them only to have it denied?

You only have a month to appeal and the Cook County Assessor’s Office only sends out one assessment notice to a homeowner when the window to appeal opens for your township.

Don’t Panic

If so, remain calm: you can appeal when the Cook County Board of Review opens their window for your township in the second half of this year. Their purpose: “Ensuring Fair and Timely Review of Property Assessment Appeals throughout Cook County.” As it states in their mission statement, “The Board of Review serves to be an impartial judge of property assessments; a separate office to provide a check and balance to the Assessor’s Office which is responsible for initially determining your total assessment.”

The Board of Review has the authority to reduce your property tax assessment and our clients were successful 77% of the time last year with appeals through their office. Board of Review property results come 3-6 months after their appeal window closes. Have no fear: even if you receive results in the new year your new revised assessment will be applied to your second installment tax bill!

Why Appeal Twice, Each Year

Even if you did appeal your property taxes with the Cook County Assessor, an additional reduction is still possible by also appealing with the Board of Review. Our clients’ more than 10,000 successful appeals include many instances of achieving property tax reductions at both the County Assessor and the Board of Review.

And, because so much changes from year to year, we recommend that you appeal every year with both the Cook County Assessor and Board of Review, especially in the first year of each township’s triennial reassessment.

What Are You Waiting For?

Since there are no costs and absolutely no risk, all Cook County homeowners should consider appealing their property taxes at these offices. Consider also using a service like ours: no upfront costs, no risks and we track all the deadlines at both offices so you don’t have to.

Contact us for a free estimate on what your property tax appeal reduction could look like if appealed with the Cook County Board of Review

What Is My Home’s Assessed Value in Cook County?

If you’d like to know how much Cook County thinks your property is worth, which is what they use to calculate your property tax bill, just follow these steps:

Go to the Cook County Illinois Property Tax Portal here
Enter your 14-digit property index number (PIN)
If you don’t know your PIN, you can also enter your address
Click on your property on the search results page
Note the “Estimated Property Value” listed towards the top right of the results page
Click the “Tax Calculator” icon and link to see what you potentially owe the county
You can see historical values by clicking the “Assessed Value History” button

How Can I Reduce My Property Tax Bill?

If you’d like to pay 100% of the amount calculated here, be our guest.

If you’re a homeowner and you haven’t appealed your property taxes yet this year, you could potentially save hundreds or thousands with our residential property tax appeal service.

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How Are Property Taxes Calculated in Illinois?

how-illinois-property-taxes-calculated If you’ve noticed that your property tax bill increases at a rate that doesn’t correspond with changes in home prices on the market, you may wonder how your county assessor determines your annual property tax bill. This blog post explains the process of how your property tax assessment is calculated.

You may get more out of this post if you read it with a copy of your latest property tax bill handy.

It All Starts with Government Spending

The first step in determining how much you owe in property taxes is based on how much revenue your county needs to generate to fund the budgets of all of the taxing bodies. Most property tax revenues go towards funding local school districts, followed by the other taxing bodies such as the fire department, police department, libraries, water reclamation districts, forest preserves, park districts, mosquito abatement districts, etc.

Aggregate Rate & EAV

After the total amount of the property taxes to be levied in a given year is established, the taxing authorities determine the property tax rate that must be applied to the total value of real property in each taxing district in order to raise the required property tax revenue. In a simplistic example (ignoring adjusting factors such as levels of assessment, exemptions, state equalization, etc.), if a taxing district needs to generate $5 billion in property tax revenues to cover its budgeted spending and all of the real property located in the taxing district is valued at $100 billion in the county, then the tax rate would be 5% or $5B/$100B.

The market value of your home is estimated by the assessor using sales information of homes similar to yours in your area, and then used in determining your home’s assessed value. Your home’s assessed value is then equalized along with all other properties in accordance with applicable law. The tax rate is multiplied by the equalized assessed value (EAV) of your home net of any exemptions applied to your property.

Property Tax Exemptions

You may qualify for one or more of several property tax exemptions. Exemptions are available to certain taxpayers who may qualify on the basis of:

Residing in the property
Senior citizen status
Veteran status
Disability

Property Tax Fairness

Thus, whether the market value of your property goes up or down in any given year, may have no effect on your property tax bill because your county needs to fund its budget regardless of home prices and there are other non-market forces that determine your property tax bill.

Because your county is using macro/aggregate information, there are inherently discrepancies in fairness for what you may be asked to pay in property tax relative to other properties.

Ascertaining whether the assessed value of your property is fair or should be appealed can be time consuming and difficult, as there are many factors that determine what properties are actually comparable to yours.

Cook County homeowners: click here for more information on how to read your tax bill.

Contact Kensington to learn more or for a free property tax appeal estimate if you live in Cook County

Why You Pay Higher Property Taxes If You Don’t Appeal

Why You Pay Higher Cook County Property Taxes If You Don’t Appeal One of the most unpleasant and unspoken aspects of paying property taxes is that, if you don’t appeal for reductions, you may be paying more in property taxes than you should – perhaps even $1,000 or more. Why?

Again, It Starts with Government Spending

As we covered in our How Are Property Taxes Calculated in Illinois? blog post, the first step in determining your property taxes is the property tax levy. How much revenue is required to support your local government spending on schools, fire departments, police departments, libraries, etc.?

It Ends in a Zero Sum Game

Once the total valuations for each taxing district are certified it is the County Clerk’s job to “back into” the tax rates needed to meet the levies for each taxing district. If your property is not assessed fairly you will pay more than you should when your district’s tax rate is set and multiplied against your assessed valuation. Property tax rates are set once a year.

As many property owners seek a fair assessment through the appeals process, those property owners not appealing an unfair assessment are going to pay more than their fair share of the overall tax burden. This can easily amount to thousands of dollars.

We believe every property owner can best protect their interests in such a system by consistently evaluating their assessed value and appealing when unfairly assessed to ensure they are paying no more than their fair share.

Why You Should Evaluate Your Assessment Annually

Every property in Cook County is reassessed every three years. If you appeal in the first year of a reassessment, the new assessed value of your home should hold until it’s reassessed again three years later. Thus, a property tax appeal in year one can offer three years of reduced property taxes.

This does not mean you should only appeal once every three years. Many property owners appeal in non-reassessment years for a variety of reasons, such as an unfair assessment, property description error, recent purchase price below market value, etc. Since property taxes are a zero sum game you should review your assessment against similar properties annually to ensure a fair assessment and that you pay no more than your fair share every year.

Contact us for a free fair assessment estimate today