The Plot Thickens in Grant Twp, Part 2

We received another open letter to the Grant Township Assessor. It is reproduced, unedited, below. The attachment referred to by the doc is the PDF that was posted here yesterday.

May 13 2015 letter to EOLC and GTA Office and States Attorney

Until new information is brought to the attention of this blog, I've said about all I can say, here.

The Plot Thickens in Grant Township

Yesterday I reported what I interpreted to be a claim made by the Grant Township Assessor: That the Assessor does not take into consideration lake restrictions when valuing lake-front properties.

It now appears that my judgement was wrong. I have received a document, signed by the Assessor, regarding four lakes in Grant Township:

Grant Township Assessor Chart of Lakes

This document appears to evaluate the lakes based on a number of criteria, including "Leads to Chain" and "Restrictions on Lake". By all appearances, this document is used for the purposes of evaluating comparable properties on or near these lakes.

If I was wrong in my conclusion that lake restrictions are not factored in how homes get assessed in Lake County, then my original questions remain: What authority governs and controls how our inland lakes are restricted? What guidelines must our Assessors follow when evaluating our homes -- in particular lake-front properties?

I am getting the feeling that these are things that just get made up as we go along.

The Grant Township Assessor Replies

The Grant Township Assessor e-mailed a reply to the property owner's letter that I posted here yesterday:

Mr. Rowden,

Land values have not changed on Wooster Lake and your overall value was reduced in 2014. I noticed on your tax bill mailed last week that your property taxes went DOWN approximately $1,000. By law, properties are valued based on sales in the previous 3 years of similar properties in the same neighborhood and we will continue to value your property in this manner. I hope you and your neighbors on Wooster Lake are able to reach an agreement on how Wooster Lake should be used but my understanding of the current use is that some owners treat the lake as non-motorized while others jet-ski and boat as they please. My office does not determine how lakes are used, only what the property on the lakes are worth.

I've already addressed the Tanneron Bay accusations. You can not compare your 3500 sq.ft. home on over 2 acres built in 2006 to a condo or townhouse.

Jeri Barr, Grant Township Assessor

If not directly, the Grant Assessor seems to have answered some of the questions I asked yesterday. I may understand this incorrectly, but the law requires our homes to be assessed based on how they compare with similar homes in the same area. Of course, the word "similar" is vague and open to interpretation. This I am sure is the basis for most appeals filed against our home assessments.

In the case of Wooster Lake, the question of how the lake is restricted seems to be irrelevant to this Assessor's purposes. What matters is that homes are assessed against similar homes. Of course, "similar" is in the eye of the beholder. There still seems to be a lot of arbitrariness baked into the whole system.

Another Open Letter to the Grant Township Assessor

We received another open letter to the Grant Township Assessor:

Assessor Barr,
Almost 12 years ago in July 2003 I bought 3 Wooster Lake properties in the Village of Fox Lake.
05-23-100-026
05-23-100-027
05-23-100-034

When I bought, I bought into lake restrictions which were since January 2003 recorded in recording 5094179. As you know and can plainly see, the 5094179 recording is an official recording at the Lake County Recorder of Deeds Office, a Declaration that Cambridge at Holiday Park HOA not only says I am legally bound to but one which the HOA relied on in recent law suits they filed against me. The judge unfortunately did not provide a Declaratory Judgment towards 5094179 or its restrictions in either of these cases. To this day the HOA contends I am legally bound to this Declaration, sending me a bill as recently as February 2015.

**** See pages 33-34, 46 of 5094179 recorded at Lake County Recorder of Deeds Office listing and claiming my above PINs are part of the Cambridge development and also as part of the Wooster Lake Conservation & Control Association. See pages 5, 7-9, 35-47 about the lake properties' restrictions.****

After buying my lake properties I had growing concerns about this recording that are still not fixed today and that is the problem. When States Attorney Nerheim was elected, I met with him in Waukegan in 2013. Nerheim said his Office and every other Office were by law not capable of nullifying anything in 5094179 because it is an official recording active with the Lake County Recorder of Deeds Office. Nerheim said "only a judge with a Declaratory Judgment" could nullify the recording. Now 2 years later I see your Office is off acting as if it is nullifying these recorded restrictions and is supposedly changing the lake to not restricted after all these years being restricted, per the recordings and per the Assessor's Office.

I want you to immediately provide me with a copy of the Declaratory Judgment that issues a judge's opinion of the recording 5094179, a Declaratory Judgment that supposedly gives you the power to have changed my lake properties.

Eye On Lake County,
Can you post my response to Assessor Barr?

Don Rowden

As far as I can tell, this owner has properties on Wooster Lake. At issue is whether or not Wooster Lake is bound to boating restrictions. The homeowner is charging the Grant Township Assessor with valuing his properties against comparable homes on unrestricted lakes. Apparently these homes are assessed at higher values, when compared to homes on restricted lakes.

Wooster Lake had for many years been used as a restricted lake. Furthermore, there is a quasi-legal document filed by a Wooster Lake home-owner's-association with the Recorder of Deeds that purports to establish this.

Since, from a legal perspective, Wooster seems to be a restricted lake, the homeowner objects to the Grant Township Assessor valuing his property against other (higher valued) properties on unrestricted lakes. And he wants the Grant Township Assessor to produce a legal authority as a justification.

I'm going to admit that I understand very little about the guidelines that control how our homes get assessed. And I understand even less about how and under whose authority our inland lakes become restricted. But Wooster Lake just seems to demonstrate to me that there is a lot of arbitrariness baked into both processes.

A Response to the Grant Township Assessor

Yesterday I posted some documents provided by the Grant Township Assessor. The documents are a response to criticisms made by a Grant Township homeowner, that were posted on this blog earlier this week.

I received a response today from the same homeowner, which is embedded here ...

April 26 2015 letter to EOLC

At issue is how homes on Wooster Lake should be assessed, and specifically, whether or not the lake is subject to no-wake restrictions. Properties on no-wake lakes are typically assessed at lower values than comparable homes on lakes without restrictions.

The Grant Township Assessor currently regards Wooster Lake as unrestricted, and gives properties there higher assessed values than comparable properties on other lakes. Prior to 2014, Wooster Lake properties were valued the opposite way -- as restricted.

The Grant Township Assessor cites a 2014 court ruling (in favor of the aforementioned homeowner) as the reason for the change in policy. Because of this court ruling Wooster Lake is now assessed as an unrestricted lake:

DENZ VS WOOSTER LAKE CONSERVATION
JUDGEMENT ORDER

Readers may notice that the court ruling in question is actually a civil judgement. The court awarded the homeowner some $4000 in damages over a Wooster Lake related dispute.

I am not certified to assess property nor am I an attorney. But it seems to me very questionable that a stated policy of a Township Assessor's Office could be based on the outcome of a civil lawsuit.

This is the question that the aforementioned homeowner raises. Wooster Lake has traditionally been appraised as being restricted. The Grant Township Assessor recently changed that policy, and now appraises Wooster Lake as having no restrictions. Does the Grant Township Assessor have a court ruling to justify this change in policy? Or is the change in policy based solely on the outcome of a civil lawsuit?

A Letter from the Grant Township Assessor

Earlier this week, my colleague Barney Baxter and I posted stories about the Grant Township Assessor. At issue were apparently conflicting statements made by the Assessor's Office regarding wake restrictions on Wooster Lake.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from the Grant Township Assessor in response to the stories:

Response to Blogs Regarding Grant Township Assessor

I pulled out some relevant passages:

As a reader of your blog, I was surprised to find myself and my office as topics on your site and wanted to correct some of the "factual errors" you've shared with your readers.

In June 2014, the property owner made us aware that he had won in court and sent us documentation confirming that Wooster Lake is not restricted (see documents provided). In September 2014 the property owner appealed his assessment with an appraisal dated 9/23/2014 which claimed restricted water use when in fact the property owner has been disputing this and won his court case clarifying the use of the lake as unrestricted prior to having the appraisal done.

The time frame and court decision are the factor that lead to the two different responses by my office NOT any other implied reason.

The second letter did not "deny the homeowner's tax appeal" it was in response to the appeal filed with the Board of Review in Waukegan disputing the appraisal submitted by the property owner and pointing out differences in the comps that were not adjusted for.

The "documents provided" can be seen by clicking this PDF link:

WOOSTER LAKE.pdf

As I understand the Grant Township Assessor, the two documents in question were produced during different time periods. The first document was written during a time when it was generally accepted that Wooster Lake was governed by no-wake restrictions. The second document, on the other hand, was written after a Court had ruled that Wooster Lake is not subject to no-wake restrictions. This alone accounts for the discrepancy.

If anything I have written, or that has appeared on this blog, is misleading or factually incorrect, I regret the error.

A final note about comments:

Anyone is welcome to post comments here. The standard disclaimers apply. Comments posted here do not necessarily represent the opinions of this blog. The comment section is largely unmoderated. But comments that do not meet a certain threshold of propriety will be removed.

Second Opinions from Grant Township

The only thing I like about my property tax is appealing my assessment and winning. For that reason, I am grateful that I do not live in Grant Township.

A property tax appeal is mostly a matter of finding homes comparable to yours which are taxed less. These COMPS may be accepted or rejected by your Assessor on a number of grounds. For example, are all of the homes equivalent lakefront properties? Whether or not there are no-wake restrictions on your lake can make a difference in value.

Bearing that in mind, I thank heavens I don't live on Wooster Lake, where you can't win a tax appeal no matter what.

We've obtained a copy of a letter from the Grant Township Assessor's Office, where it is stated that they evaluate Wooster Lake as subject to no-wake restrictions:

Q: The reason(s) your Office officially indicates Wooster Lake's private properties currently have restrictions.

A: Certain homeowner association covenants and the fact that it has been historically no wake. I believe it goes back to when Wooster Lake Park was in full operation many years ago.

We've obtained another letter from the Grant Township Assessor's Office, which denies a homeowner's property tax appeal. The comps cited in this appeal are rejected, in part, because the homeowner lives on Wooster Lake, which according to the Grant Township Assessor's Office is NOT subject to no-wake restrictions:

#8 There are no restrictions on Wooster Lake.

Forgive me if I'm scratching my head here. But I don't have property in Grant Township, for which I am grateful.

Appealing Your Assessment in Lake County

If you're like me, you paid your property taxes this week and your pocketbook is feeling a lot lighter. This is a good time to remind everyone about our friends at the Citizens Action Project. Here's what they have to say in their latest press release:

"As we do every year, Citizens Action Project releases a "do-it-yourself guide" to lowering property assessments in Lake County. This is based upon exhaustive discussions we have with township assessors, board of review, and the chief county assessor to gauge how best citizens can appeal. This year, we created a free multimedia presentation. It is available on facebook, or for those who are not on facebook, our blog. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have."

They have also a new video you can watch ...

Appealing Your Assessment
in Lake County 2011

Or visit their website ...

Citizens Action Project

I've met people who have appealed their property taxes and had their assessments lowered, many times. This really works!