I think my home was improperly assessed
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I think my home was improperly assessed
I think my home was improperly assessed for a number of years in Cook County. I
believe we underpaid assessments. The home next to us was sold and now our bill
went up 1200. By challenging the current real estate tax bill, will I open
myself up to having to pay retro tax bills for the assesor’s office error. Are
they allowed to retro bill me?
Asked on July 30, 2018 under Real Estate Law, Illinois
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 5 years ago | Contributor
They cannot retroactively re-assess you, unless it can be shown that you did something improper or illegal or fraudulent to cause the too-low assessment. Otherwise, you assessment was what it was, and so long as you paid it, you are good.
That, however, is the kicker: you must have paid whatever you were supposed to pay. If you paid less than your actual taxes were supposed to be at the time (for example: taxes should have been $6k/year, but you paid only $5k/year but they did not notice that for some reason), then they can now bill you for the amounts which you were supposed to pay based upon the assessment at the time but failed to pay.
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