Despite decreased home values, the collective total tax burden for Cook County property-owners will rise approximately 4.2% for the 2008 tax year. It appears that overall, the city's taxes will increase more than suburban taxes, because the collective tax burden for city property-owners will be about 6% greater than last year. Because of the way real estate taxes are calculated, collective property values (for tax purposes only) increased 9.96% in the city and 8.23% in the suburbs.
Both the suburbs and the city are comprised of multiple taxing bodies, such as schools, libraries, park districts, governmental bodies, etc. Even though the value of your home may have gone down, and you may have even had a successful assessed value appeal, the various factors that go into determining your tax rate may have gone up. For example, the Chicago Board of Education increased its tax requirements by over five percent, and the City of Chicago government needed a 1.6% increase. The Forest Preserve District and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District increased their budgets by 4.5% each.
Is there any good news in all of this? Well, taxes going up is seldom good news. However, as the bills are coming out late, homeowners can hold on to their money a little bit longer.
One more tidbit: Typically, the first installment tax bill of any given tax year in Cook County is exactly half of the previous full-year bill. Starting with the 2009 first installment tax bill, however, this is going to change. The 2009 first installment tax bill will be 55% of the total 2008 tax bill.
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9 comments:
Is there any thing I can do. I got my 2 bedroom for 245,000 in 2007 and now the similar units are sold in my area west side chicago for 150,000.
My real estate tax was 2,400 and now i am paying 3,200.
I dont think so it should increase when the value is decrease exponentially..
Yes, you can appeal your taxes going forward (it's probably too late for the bill you already got). Of course, since you describe your home as a "unit", I assume you are referring to a condominium. Your likelihood of success will increase if your entire association applies.
Naheed, I purchased a foreclosed home for $270,000 in June 2009 in Palatine. My new tax bill came in and was up nearly 80% (the previous owners did not have a seniors exemption and never appealed the taxes). The accessed value of the property is $450,000. I have heard that the accessor will not necessarily adjust my accessed value to $270,000 if an appeal is filed. Is that true? If so why not?
That's true, the assessor won't necessarily reduce your assessed value to your purchase price. There can be many reasons for this, but one of them is that assessors sometimes take into account that your property was foreclosed and you likely got the property for far less than it's worth. Also, even if your assessed value was lowered, that does not necessarily mean that your tax bill will go down, because the tax rates might have gone up.
Hi Naheed. The second installment of my property tax bill for 2008 was nearly 3x the first installment (2007's homeowners exemption was $900, but 2008 is only $276). I purchased the unit new in May of 2009, so this is for time I did not own or occupy the unit (and we did not account for this much of an increase in the pro-rated taxes that were part of my closing).
Are my hands tied, or do I have any options with the county here? Are my taxes really increasing 3x the amount they were for 2005, 2006, and 2007 due to the 7% cap going away? (The increase from 2007 to the 2009 estimate is almost 136%!)
Hi Laura,
You could check and see if you had any kind of reproration agreement with the developer. Other than that, if you've already been billed, then it's probably too late for an appeal of the 2008 taxes. You can appeal the taxes going forward, but if you live in a condominium, your association will have to appeal as a whole.
Naheed
Hi Naheed,
We purchased our home in Schaumburg in May 2009 and at this time the first installment of the 2008 taxes was paid. The second installment bill was more than twice the amount of the first one. It was paid out of our mortgage escrow account. It was a foreclosed home and there was no homeowners exemption applied for 2008. The first installment for the 2009 taxes was also paid this March and it is based on the taxes for 2008. Of course we came up with a huge escrow account shortage. Do we have the right for any amount of homeowners exemption for 2009 since we moved in in June 2009? I am not sure, but I think that the home was not occupied as of Jan 1, 2009. Also, at closing, the taxes for 2008 were calculated for around $4300 and we end up paying more than $6400. Are we responsible for that difference having in mind that we did not own the home in 2008? Thank you so much.
If you moved in June of 2009 and the home was foreclosed and vacant at the start of 2009, then the first time you can claim the homeowner's exemption is for the 2010 tax year.
Since the home was foreclosed, most likely you received a tax credit based on the 2007 taxes (which was the last full year tax bill available at that time). Assuming you received a tax credit based on 100% of the 2007 taxes, and that no reproration agreement was signed, you would be liable for the entire 2008 tax amount. FYI most banks only provide 100% tax proration credits, and they do not enter into reproration agreements.
Thank you so much for your response.
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