In the triennial tradition of Cook County, property values in the southern and western suburbs, including Brookfield and Riverside, have been reassessed.
What does that mean?
With Cook County being the second largest county in the country, it divides its townships into three groupings — the north suburbs, the city of Chicago, and the south and west suburbs — and reassesses the values of all the properties in one of those three regions on a rotating, annual schedule.
“The county is looking at data from the prior three to five years since the prior reassessment. Our last reassessment was in 2023. They’re compiling market data, and it’s a mass appraisal by a computer program,” said Mary Jo Miller, the assessor of Riverside Township. “They revalue everything according to that data. Because it’s mass appraisal, you as the taxpayer have a right to agree or disagree with it, and that process is the appeal.”
Miller said the county’s valuation of one’s property is one of three factors that work together to create your annual tax bills.
“The other factors that affect your tax bill are the tax rate, which is a combination of the levies of all the taxing bodies in your district, and also the state multiplier. That actually gives you the tax dollars you pay. This is one factor that we can affect in that calculation,” she said.
She emphasized that appealing your valuation will not affect the tax bill you’ll have to pay this year for 2025.
“We’re appealing in the calendar year; however, we pay our taxes in arrears. We’re appealing the valuation they give us for 2026, and this value will hold steady for three years until the next reassessment, unless you appeal it and have a success,” Miller said.
Single-family homes had an average valuation increase in Riverside Township of 22%, she said, while condominiums had an average increase of 39%.
Class 2-03 homes, “the most common home within the township,” which are one story and between 1,000 and 1,800 square feet, grew 20% on average, Miller said. Class 2-05 homes, older than 62 years with two or more stories and up to 2,200 square feet, grew 25% in valuation on average, she said. Class 2-06 homes, which are the same as Class 2-05 but have a footprint between 2,201 and 4,999 square feet, had 34% average growth.
“[The county is] not giving you a breakdown of your improved assessed value, which is the building and the land. There were very large increases in the land values of the properties,” Miller said.
Of the portions of each municipality that fall within Riverside Township, Miller said North Riverside’s land values grew 17.5% on average, Lyons and Riverside Lawn’s land values grew 29%, Brookfield’s grew 33% and the village of Riverside’s grew 75%.
What can I do about it?
The deadline to file an appeal with the county is 11:59 p.m. on Monday, June 8. If an appeal is successful, the county will reassess the valuation of a property once again in comparison with similar properties, perhaps resulting in the valuation going down.
A property’s valuation determines what proportion of the total tax levy it is responsible for in contention with all other properties within the taxing area, though a decrease in a valuation does not always mean the taxpayer will see a proportionate or equal decrease in the tax bill, Miller said.
If you want to appeal your property’s reassessment, Miller said the first step is to reach out to your township assessor’s office. For residents in Riverside Township, Miller’s office can be reached at 708-447-7700 or assessor@riversidetownship.org. But be warned — you’re not the only one.
“We’re incredibly busy. I think this is going to be a record reassessment compared to 2020 in the numbers of residents that we will help and service by providing data for them to appeal online,” Miller said. “We try to do everything by appointments to keep the workflow, but we do get several walk-ins every day. So far, we’ve been able to manage the volume.”
In 2020, Miller said her office assisted about 1,100 taxpayers. While she didn’t yet have data she could share about this year, she said the office’s emailing list in 2020 had about 1,200 people, which has since grown to 1,600, meaning the assessor could help a similarly increased proportion of people.
“I can help people with a lack of uniformity appeal, where it’s based on comparable properties,” she said. “I would say about 60% of the people, I can find evidence to support an appeal, and about 40% of the people that have made requests, I cannot find evidence to support an appeal.”
If you’re one of the 60%, your next step is to appeal online through the Cook County Assessor’s Office.
Miller said that new homeowners especially should pay attention to the reassessment process.
“If you think, ‘Oh, my mortgage or my escrow takes care of this,’ they do not. This is a homeowner’s responsibility,” she said. “Again, you’re appealing in the calendar year, but we pay our taxes in arrears. A lot of people think, when they get their tax bill, that’s the time to appeal, and those two cycles have nothing in common.”
