Cook County’s maze of property taxes – must it be this way?
Homeowner values are a hot potato at the core of politics in this town, as shown by a June 12 article by the Chicago News Cooperative
Homeowners have been far less successful than businesses in winning appeals for lower property tax assessments, a Chicago News Cooperative analysis shows — a discrepancy that strikes at a key issue in the race to replace James Houlihan, the retiring Cook County assessor.
The News Coop’s investigation found that appeals on residential parcels were granted 17% of the time between 2006 and 2008. Non-residential property appeals were granted more than 40 percent of the time. The News Coop looked at 671,000 parcels and found that successful residential appeals received a reduction of 15% vs. the 25% for non-residential appeals.
The Chicago News Cooperative goes on to discuss some of the influences behind two candidates facing off in the Assessor’s Race.
Joseph Berrios, who won the primary in February, is chairman of the county Democratic Party and a lobbyist in Springfield. He’s also the longest-serving member on the three-man Cook County Board of Review, which reviews assessments and can reduce values, the News Coop says.
Forrest Claypool, who served as Chief of Staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley for a short time early in the mayor’s first term, is collecting 25,000 signatures to run as an independent against Berrios in November. Claypool has until June 28 gather his support.
Claypool says Berrios has received about $3 million from property tax lawyers in the past decade for his campaign chest. Claypool says he will not take any campaign donations from tax-appeal lawyers.
As an advocate for people buying and selling real estate, I simply want to see people buy a home and call it their own for as long as they want to live there. But high residential property taxes in Cook County work against the aspirations of lifelong home-owning Chicagoans.
With Cook County Assessor James Houlihan retiring, Cook County voters have an opportunity to take a stand and advocate for their rights to live affordably in their homes. That means voting for the candidate who will push for a fair property tax and reform this murky, torturous and maze-like system of appeals. Why do we all have to appeal in the first place? Is it like this everywhere?
Because I consider myself to be — above all else — an advocate for Chicago’s homeowners, I urge you to get informed about the upcoming Assessor’s race.
I’ll be holding forth from my humble position as a home inspector and advocate for homebuyers rights as the politics play out over the next several months.
Until next week,
Tom