Milton Township
Understanding How Your Property is Assessed
Though many people think that the Assessor's Office taxes their property, nothing could be further from the truth.The fact is that the Assessor's Office neither sets nor collects taxes; rather, the Assessor is responsible only for the mass-appraisal and valuation of all real property in his or her jurisdiction. The Assessor is thus only one part of the property tax process.
You may ask what exactly the Assessor's role entails. The ultimate goal of the process is equity and accuracy in assessments, thus distributing the property tax burden fairly over all property owners. In doing this, the Assessor must:
- Assess all classes of property to meet the statutory overall assessment level of 33.3333% of market value
- Discover, inspect, and record all real property in the Township
- Assess properties accurately and uniformly with like properties
- Work with property owners on issues of value and, if necessary, defend assessments at appeal hearings
Performing the above duties involves a range of tasks. Field inspections, sales studies, database management, and statistical studies support the Assessor's functions, as do market research, trending, data analysis, and the development and application of uniform cost tables.
Every year, the Assessor's Office must inspect all new construction and assess it. New homes as well as additions, decks, and a range of other improvements require field work to record property characteristics and determine assessments. At the same time that new construction is being inspected, the Assessor's Office must also monitor the assessments of existing properties and, if necessary, reassess them.
Typically, all properties in the Township are reassessed every four years. However, issues of equity or accuracy may necessitate the reassessment of specific neighborhoods, property classes, or even individual properties outside of the four-year cycle. Additionally, once our books are closed each year, all assessments are finalized through application of the annual Township Factor.
All classes of property are subject to the annual Township Factor, which typically increases all assessments by several percent per year. The Township Factor is based on the DuPage Supervisor of Assessments' annual sales ratio study. Each year, the Supervisor of Assessments determines the overall median level of assessments using a three-year weighted average of sales. If the overall level is below the state-mandated level of 33.3333%, then the Supervisor of Assessments must recommend a Township Factor for the Township Assessor to apply to all assessments and increase them to the statutory level.
Following the application of the Township Factor, the County publishes all non-Factor assessment changes in a local newspaper and sends notices to the property owners in question. This annual publication date begins the 30-day appeal filing period during which property owners, if necessary, may appeal their assessments to the DuPage Board of Review. Note that only assessment changes resulting from reasons other than the annual Township Factor are published in the newspaper and have notices of reassessment mailed..Since most assessment changes in a typical assessment year result only from the Township Factor, this means that most homeowners will not receive a notice of reassessment nor will their assessments be published in the paper.
If you wish to know when the appeal period starts but you are uncertain that you will receive a notice of reassessment, call our office or click the Assessor's Latest News for when the appeal period begins for the year. Our office generally closes its books by the beginning of September or end of August in order to help ensure that the appeal filing period and the appeal hearings occur before the holidays, thus saving property owners the inconvenience of pursuing appeals throughout the holiday season.
The appeal process itself allows property owners to protest their assessments directly to the DuPage County Board of Review. The first place to start, however, is to request to speak with a Deputy Assessor to discuss your assessment. We welcome all inquiries and respond to them personally; we do our best to explain the process and are willing to make adjustments if mistakes are brought to our attention. However, if a property owner discusses their assessment with our office but still disagrees with our market value or our conclusions, they have the right to appeal their assessment to the Board of Review.
Property owners who file an appeal with the DuPage Board of Review receive a formal hearing before the Board at which they can present evidence supporting their claim; the Assessor's Office also attends the hearing to explain how the assessment was determined. The Board then decides the case based on the evidence presented. If the property owner disagrees with the decision, they then have the right to appeal to the State of Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board.
The above is merely a summary of the Assessor's tasks in fulfilling his or her assessment duties. Once the assessment process is completed, the property tax cycle sets the finalized assessments against local tax rates to determine individual property tax bills. By that point, the Assessor is already well into the work of the new assessment year as the assessment process continues anew.