Property assessments gone wild
Homeowner Gordon Harris is convinced that there’s something wrong with the process for appealing property assessments in B.C.
That’s because, as Harris has learned, the province’s Assessment Act allows non-owners of a property to appeal its assessment.
“I think it’s just wrong, wrong, wrong,” Harris told the Georgia Straight.
B.C. Assessment, a Crown corporation, determines the market value of all real-estate properties for taxation purposes. There are two levels of appeal. The first is with the Property Assessment Review Panel. That panel’s decision can be appealed to the Property Assessment Appeal Board.
In a ruling dated November 14 this year, an appeal board chaired by John Bridal increased the 2008 valuation of Harris’s Vancouver property to $1,115,000 from $1 million, the figure previously established by the review panel.
The board issued the decision following an appeal by Thomas B. Winkler, a person who isn’t known to Harris. The appellant claimed that Harris’s property at 901 West 23rd Avenue should instead be assessed at $1,198,050.
Harris said that it’s his understanding that he was not the only property owner who had to go before the appeal board because of the actions of an appellant with the name of Thomas B. Winkler.
Actually, on the same day that Bridal ruled on Harris’s assessment, Bridal issued a separate decision involving another Vancouver property based on an appeal by a Thomas B. Winkler.
The Kitsilano property, at 2736 West 6th Avenue, was assessed at $992,200. However, the appellant claimed, as summarized in Bridal’s decision, that the property’s assessed value is “below its actual value”. The same appellant argued that it should be assessed at $1,189,000. In his decision, Bridal wrote that the property’s value should stand at $992,200.
In both cases, the area assessor of B.C. Assessment’s Vancouver Sea to Sky region office was the respondent.
Talking to the Straight by phone, area assessor Jason Grant said that appeals cost B.C. Assessment money in terms of legal fees. However, he didn’t have specific dollar figures. Grant said that, as far as he knows, there is no limit to the number of appeals a person can file.
In another decision by the appeal board last January, a Thomas B. Winkler was ordered to pay Marie-Claude Brunet $500 in costs in connection with an appeal brought forward by Winkler.
Brunet owns a Vancouver property on 2752 West 6th Avenue that the appellant claimed was undervalued. According to the ruling written by appeal board member Kenneth Wm. Thornicroft, the appellant “lives about four doors down from Ms. Brunet”.
When reached by the Straight, Brunet declined to comment.
In his decision, Thornicroft noted that the case involving Brunet’s property is “at least the third occasion when Mr. Winkler has appealed a neighbour’s assessment”. He added: “since 1993, he [Winkler] has filed 20 appeals regarding his own properties’ assessments”.
Winkler couldn’t be interviewed by deadline.
In June 2005, the appeal board ruled on an appeal filed by a Thomas B. Winkler on a judgment by the Property Assessment Review Panel on his property located at 2726-2728 West 6th Avenue. The appellant had argued that his property should be valued at $547,000. In this particular case, the board accepted the Vancouver assessor’s recommendation to change the 2004 assessment for the property from $700,000 to $607,000.
In another appeal he filed concerning his property in 2001, Winkler, according to a board ruling, described himself as somebody with a real-estate background and who “was trained as an architect in Switzerland”.
In a phone conversation, Harris said he plans to do one of two things: he’ll either write his MLA or have a conversation with the minister responsible for B.C. Assessment to raise his concerns about allowing third parties to appeal somebody else’s property assessment.
“I think the appeal process has to be seriously reconsidered when somebody cannot only appeal”¦you know, a third party can appeal your property assessment, but somebody can do it on multiple properties, and do it year after year after year,” Harris said. -
Comments
1 Comments
Henry Wang
Aug 7, 2010 at 4:25pm
From a taxpayer’s perspective, I completely disagree with the message of this article. First of all, let's define “fairness” for a property tax system. According to Assessment Act, taxable value of a property must reflect the market value of this property on a certain fixed date. For BC, this date is July1st every year. BC Assessment is responsible to value this market value of each property and present to the municipality government as a tax base. The municipal government will then figure out a tax rate base on the total tax base and its fixed budget of the year. Thus, those properties with higher market value will pay more to contribute city’s budget and those with less market value will pay less for city’s budget. This is the ideal “fairness” of our property tax system. So, what happens if my neighbour’s taxable value is below market value? It means I will have to pay more tax! The reason is that since the tax rate is drawn base on a total tax base, if the tax base is larger, then the tax rate is smaller and vice versa. Another word is that if my neighbour’s market value/taxable value is larger, it should contribute to a larger tax base which creases a smaller tax rate for me and everyone else. On the other hand, if the tax base is smaller, it contributes to a smaller tax base that results a larger tax rate for me and everyone else. BC Assessment’s residential property appraisal is based on a direct comparison approach from similar properties sold at the similar times. Market sales are limited to only indicate market value at a given time. Thus, the bottom line is if a person’s property already reflects market value, he/she should not be afraid of third party appeals as market evidence can only indict the market value. On the other hand, if I think my neighbour’s taxable value is below the market value, I should have every right to appeal because why should I pay tax for my neighbour? In addition, when I sell my house, if my neighbour’s assessed value is lowered than market value, it might affect buyers’ perception of my property value. Furthermore, unlimited numbers of appeals indeed costs money for the government, but people are not likely to appeal for irrational reasons because an appeal process takes a lot effort and time. Appellants have to attend the court on a fixed date and they have to research the comparable properties and clearly present them to the judges. Put it this way, many government services cost a lot of money, but it doesn’t mean we have to limit it. For example, a 911 call also costs money and it’s much easier to do than an assessment appeal. Should we limit number of 911 calls that a person is allowed make?