What happens when you appeal your assessment

There's not a lot of pomp and pageantry in a hearing before the Kane County Board of Review when you appeal your property-tax assessment.

It's you, the township assessor, a recording secretary and the three board members all sitting around a table in a small conference room at the Supervisor of Assessment's office.

Hearings are scheduled for every 15 minutes, in sessions that began Oct. 29 and ended March 5. There are three permanent review members, and 11 alternates.

On Feb. 27, appraiser John R. Voreis chaired the morning hearing, with alternates Don Wolfe (a county board member) and Carol Schoengart also voting. Property information was projected by computer onto a white wall.

A property owner on Glenwood Drive in Geneva Township said there were inequalities in how the vacant land on her property was treated, compared to others near her. Geneva Township assessor Aubrey Pratte defended his assessment, noting the property she cited was located in a floodplain, making it less valuable. The other properties she cited were not in her neighborhood, so the board refused to consider them.

"I moved out here thinking I could afford to live here," she told the board.

"We can't grant a reduction on personal circumstances," Voreis said later.

After rejecting her appeal, Wolfe thanked her and said "I'm sorry." She replied, "I won't be able to stay here very long."

On another home, Pratte agreed it should be lowered because the property did not have a garage, unlike comparable homes in the neighborhood. The board took $2,000 off the assessed value of the building portion, knocking it to $56,726.

"That's fine. That makes me very happy," said Mary Riipi.

Another woman, in the Geneva East subdivision, got a reduction because her house does not have a fireplace, even though the assessor's records showed she did. But the board denied her request for an adjustment on the value of her land.

One complainant was angered by the process because he wasn't allowed to postpone the hearing to get more evidence than what he had already submitted in his application, or submit an analysis he had done of properties in a wider area than his assessment neighborhood. Nor would the board access, or allow him to access, the county or the township's property-information Web sites at that time to get information to make his point, even though he had brought along a laptop computer.

"Am I going to get railroaded out of this?" he asked.

Property owners are free to appeal the board's decision to the state property tax appeal board, each was told. That board conducts hearings in Kane County.

Even people in the business of levying taxes are sometimes shocked by their increases in their property-tax assessments.

Kevin and Terry Burns of Geneva were on the docket. Yes, that Burns, the mayor of Geneva.

The assessed value on their house at 746 Lincoln Ave. had gone up 30 percent between tax years 2006 and 2007.

Terry Burns presented their case, as the mayor was out of town on business.

And they were denied.

"Maybe I should sell," she said, laughing. "I didn't know I was in such a great house."