Home market down, but assessments up

While researching the Cook County assessor's Web site to get an idea of what my second installment for property taxes would be, I found something very disturbing.

My land was assessed 58 percent higher than last year, my house was assessed 35 percent higher than last year and my market value was assessed 34 percent higher than last year.

I also, noticed that there needed to be corrections in the make-up of my house. With this information and comparable houses, I found that all the houses similar and larger than mine increased by only 28 percent.

Schaumburg Township assessors were made aware of this and they told me that I should have appealed last November. Problem is, I was working out of town until the first of the year.

I then asked for help in resolving this, which they coldly replied, "You should have appealed last November."

The bottom line is this, how can the Cook County taxing body justify this type of increase with absolutely no explanations? And the values have sharply dropped over the past year, so how can my property appreciate so much?

No house in the Schaumburg area has appreciated 28 to 34 percent over the past year. And nobody who I know has received a 34 percent increase in pay.

Tom Klemm

Schaumburg