appeal bc assessment

I appealed my BC Assessment… and I lost

My Assessed Value has been too high since roughly 2018. This year I decided to appeal because we reached a point that it was 15% higher than it should be. I had my hearing with the Property Assessment Review Panel in February and the BC Assessment recommendation was upheld. I was shocked.

I provided a depth of evidence that should be irrefutable. The explanation given?

The Assessor provided a range of value that spanned $307,000. My Assessed Value (although near the high end of the range) was within this massive range so it was deemed acceptable.

I’m upset by many things. The Assessor provided little evidence, but made a statement that she wanted to lean heavily on one high-valued sale near me. I thought I had demonstrated how and why that home was superior to mine in all categories, however they used that as the foundation for the high end of their scale. It’s better than my home in every single way, but one. The one: My home is 200 square feet bigger (1,800 vs 2,000). That 200 square feet is apparently worth a whole lot of money in their eyes.

The path I chose to prove my point seems to have been the wrong one. I have learned that my process is so different from theirs. They would have been quite happy to do a deep dive on just one or two properties and consider the job done. I looked much broader to prove my point across the marketplace.

I will be appealing, which takes it to the Property Assessment Appeal Board (some time in April).

How I Interpret my BC Assessment Notice

High or low. Right or wrong. The first thing you want to remember is that if your assessment is genuinely off by $50k you’re not out of pocket a ton of money. Property tax rates in New West are roughly 0.4% so a $50k difference equates to $200 in taxes. We all like saving $200, so what are we looking for?

When and why does it make sense to appeal the assessment? You definitely want to take a close look if you’re increase is higher than the average. Unfortunately my home was in a huge growth sector in 2020 so my 2021 assessment was way above the average. The assessed value was accurate and sadly, that meant my taxes went up. This year, my increase was below average and that kept me away from thoughts of appealing my assessment.

Regardless of your increase, you might feel that your assessment missed the mark. The first thing I do is check on my neighbour’s assessments. I search up addresses that look like my home. I’m looking for big variations, and especially if it seems that the assessment hasn’t properly accounted for updates. This is where BC Assessment gets it wrong. They pull data from municipalities. The formula accounts for (and depreciates) the value of building permits associated with the address. No permits, means no data to increase their value for improvements. However, appraisers do look at MLS photos. They also call me at least once per year to verify property information when using one of my sales as part an appeal.

Read more: How I Interpret my BC Assessment Notice

Some of you have already reached out regarding your assessment and those that I’ve found to be inaccurate looked to be using a small sample-size (usually from within a condo building) to justify their price per square foot. Those sales were outliers in the overall market and inflated the assessment. These were situations where an appeal was probably worth pursuing. They were off by about $40k, or about $160 per year.

Thinking of appealing? Your deadline is January 31st

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