Residential properties include single family detached, single family attached (condos and co-ops, apartment buildings with six or fewer units), assisted living, and retirement facilities.
There are about 1.5 million residential tax parcels in Cook County. That sounds like a lot because that is a lot. Every third year the Cook County Assessor adjusts the values on about 1/3 of these parcels. This is what by law the Cook County Assessor is supposed to do.
Cook County does not come out and take a look at each individual parcel. Rather, Cook County uses complex computer software that takes a number of factors and characteristics into consideration. Comparable sales are the most significant factor. Comparable in the sense of size, location, age and condition. The most significant characteristic is value per unit of size.
The County does not use the sale of a 5,000 square foot house that is three years old to estimate the value of a 1,000 square foot house that is sixty two years old. The County does not use a house in Winnetka to value a house in Blue Island. And so on. You get the idea.
The question in a residential appeal is whether or not the County has placed the correct value on your house. The definition of “correct value” is no where as simple as it sounds. The law says that properties must be valued uniformly. That is, by the same process and in a similar fashion. Uniformity requires that the property fit within a range. Uniformity does not require that the value of one property precisely match the value of another.
In a residential appeal I determine the range of similar values and then demonstrate for the County why this is the range and why a particular property should be valued at the lower end of that range.
I would not mean here to intimate that Cook County gets it way wrong, or even just regular wrong, or that the valuation process lacks controls. What I do see is that there are values that are off. And that is why we get to appeal. The County allows more than adequate opportunity to correct a claimed valuation error on appeal. While most appeals happen at the Cook County Assessor and Cook County Board of Review levels, there is opportunity to appeal to the Property Tax Appeal Board or the Circuit Court.
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