How do illinois property taxes work

Finding these sales prices may take some doing. Some online resources such as Zillow can be useful, though bear in mind that the evaluations found on such websites are generated by a computer, which has obviously never visited the home.

Try to avoid transactions in which the buyer has purchased a home from a relative, or at a foreclosure or property tax sale. The sales prices in such transactions may be artificially low and won't be convincing evidence of true market value. Also consider asking an experienced real estate broker to give you information about recent home sales in your area, based on data found within the Multiple Listing Service.

You may need to pay a modest fee for such assistance. If the stakes are high, you can hire a private appraiser to provide a written report, though this will be more expensive. A local lender or real estate broker may be able to recommend a qualified appraiser. If not, check out the Appraisal Institute website for referral.

Tip: If you recently refinanced your home or took out a home equity loan, the lender probably ordered a professional appraisal. Get a copy of it. It may give you ammunition in your quest for a reduced taxable value. After investigating the taxable value of your home, you might conclude that the figure set by the assessor is too high.

To find out what measures you can take to reduce the taxable value, see the companion article, Procedures for Challenging Your Property Tax Assessment in Illinois. This document provides a helpful summary of the state's property tax statutes available at 35 ILCS The information provided on this site is not legal advice, does not constitute a lawyer referral service, and no attorney-client or confidential relationship is or will be formed by use of the site.

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Please reference the Terms of Use and the Supplemental Terms for specific information related to your state. Grow Your Legal Practice. Meet the Editors. How Your Illinois Tax Bill Is Calculated In Illinois, two factors determine your tax bill: first, the taxable value of your home, and second, the tax rate that is, the percentage of the taxable value that the local tax authorities use to compute your property tax.

How to Check the Official Tax Record for Your Illinois Home The tax record for your home may contain inaccurate or incomplete information that leads the tax assessor to place too high a value on it. Review the tax record for errors. Among other things, check the following: Is your home correctly classified as residential property?

Is the size of your home and the lot it sits on correctly stated? Does the record accurately list the number of bedrooms and bathrooms? Does the record list improvements that were not actually made? Are defects in your home, such as a leaky basement or an aging roof, mentioned? Is the age of your home accurately stated? Is the purchase price accurate? Does the record give you the benefit of all the tax breaks that you may qualify for, such as those that might apply based on your income, age, disability, or military service?

Taxable Values of Similar Homes Review the assessment records for homes in your community that resemble your own. The average annual effective property tax on a single-family house in Illinois is 2. Property taxes pay for essential government functions — emergency response, public safety patrols, water, sewer, infrastructure, education — and amenities that define quality of life, like libraries, parks and social services. Taxes affect property market values and siphon off money that you could potentially direct toward building equity.

Count on property taxes to be the second-highest cost of homeownership, right after the mortgage. Property taxes are so important, says Blomquist, that they are one of the key indicators of likely profitability for real estate investors who buy Attom's reports.

On the other hand, he adds, low-property-tax states, such as Nevada and Arizona, tend to be more susceptible to extreme swings in property values. In a way, high property taxes insulate Illinoisans from the worst of market cycles, though that's cold comfort to many. One way to analyze the value you get from property taxes is to "unbundle" the amenities and services from the quality of life in that neighborhood, says Blomquist. With an a la carte approach to municipal amenities and corresponding taxes, you can identify where you get the most for what you are paying.

For instance, if you're looking to buy a home and you want access to a top-quality library, but don't have any children in public schools, you might consider buying in an area that channels a healthy revenue stream to its library, even if its public schools are not highly rated. If you do not think you are getting what you are paying for, know how the system works before you lodge a complaint. Your tax bill starts with how much the county and municipalities expect to spend, not with the value that the assessor places on properties.

People often assume that assessors start with the assessment of property and proceed from there, says Robert Ross, chief assessment officer for McHenry County. That's logical — but wrong. The way taxes are actually calculated is that the taxing bodies — the county, municipality, water district, library district, school district and various other districts — figure out how much they are going to spend.

They are generally allowed to base their budget on their prior year's budget plus an increase based on the consumer price index. Then, after figuring out how much money the state might kick in through revenue sharing, and assessing the current taxable value of the property in the districts, the county clerk figures out the tax rate. The clerk calculates the tax rate based on the amount that the taxing districts are allowed to receive reconciled with the assessed property value — in other words, how much they need, based on what they can get.

But that's not the case that when your property values go down, your taxes go down. Nobody likes seeing or paying their tax bill, but simply being mad about your bill in general is fruitless, says Ross. The Cook County Assessor's Office uses mass appraisal to produce property values. Instead of appraising property one-by-one, mass appraisal looks to the real estate market to detect local trends in property values based on location and characteristics.

Those trends are used to estimate the fair market value of each property based on its location and characteristics. Mass appraisal is a way to put fairness into the assessment system.

Learn how different types of property are valued and how assessments fit into the overall property tax system of Cook County. The overall amount of real estate taxes to be collected in your community is determined, not by the Assessor nor any single government official, but by all local taxing bodies providing services in your community, such as schools, parks, pensions, and library districts. The assessed valuation of your property does determine your share of those taxes.

It is important, therefore, to you and to our office, that your assessed valuation be accurate and fair. Appeals may only be filed during certain periods of time. Please read the general information about appeals for important information about rules for filing and deadlines for your area.

You do not need to hire an attorney to file an appeal and filing is free at our office.