Cook County Assessor And Tom Sawyer Have Much In Common

Since taking office, the Cook County Assessor has issued new appeal rules and made many additional demands on taxpayers for financial information. Even armed with all of this data, the assessments and decisions remain erratic and inequitable. In fact, the Illinois Department of Revenue just issued the tentative 2020 multiplier for Cook County assessments, and it is now over 3, one of the highest multipliers ever. This means that for every $1,000 in assessed value placed on your property, that value will be tripled by way of the application of the multiplier, and you will actually pay taxes based upon an equalized value of $3,000. A high multiplier is generally recognized as an indicator of greater inequity in the assessment process.

To add insult to injury, the Cook County Assessor now wants you to paint his fence for him. He has recently introduced House Bill 3529, which, if enacted, would require the owners of all income producing property valued at more than $500,000, including the owners of apartment buildings exceeding 6 units, to file physical descriptions of their properties with his office within 120 days of receiving that request. This bill also requires annual updates of any material changes in that physical description. Failure to submit this documentation could lead to fines equal to 0.025% of the market value of your property, with a $1,000 maximum fine for each property, payable to the Assessor's Office.

Physical descriptions must include site size, construction type, age, total development size, number of buildings, the number of stories in each building, and on-site parking availability. For apartment buildings he wants to know the number of stories, the size and use of the basement area, the number of rooms for each apartment, how many are subsidized, and the availability of amenities such as pools, or fitness centers; for office properties he also wants to have the net rentable area, ceiling heights, whether or not any unit is used for medical services, and whether the building or buildings share a central HVAC system; for commercial properties he further wants to know the size and use of any lower levels and total customer capacity; for industrial properties, the description must also include ceiling heights, the size and location of office areas, the size and location of docks, the size and number of loading bay doors, and the name of the primary tenant or business entity(s) that occupy the space; and finally, for hospitality properties he wants the size of all conference rooms, the room count, the suite count, the size and location of all lounge areas and restaurants, the franchise affiliation if any, the size and location of pool areas and lower level uses and amenities.

I would point out that under current Illinois, law, 35 ILCS 200/9-155 assessors in counties having more than 3 million inhabitants, whether in person or through deputies, are required to actually view and determine the value of properties during a reassessment year. Under 35 ILCS 200/9-160, during non -reassessment years, the Assessor is required to list and assess all new or added buildings, structures or other improvements of any kind, the value of which had not been previously added to or included in the initial valuation process. In other words, he is being told that he is directly responsible for doing the job that he now wants you to do for him.

It would appear that each property owner who would be subject to this proposed mandate will become, in effect, an involuntary deputy assessor for Cook County. Historically, all other assessor's have utilized their staffs to actually view and obtain the information that the Assessor now wants you to become responsible for, and under penalty of fine for non-compliance no less. Much of that information has always been stored on and been available from existing property record cards, which describe the physical characteristics of the property as entered by assessor field staff. Additionally, the office already has access to thousands of appraisal reports that provide much of the information he is seeking. Yet now he is insisting that you do his work for him, while he sits back and watches, just like Tom.