Kendall County property tax assessments appear to be on the rise this year for the first time in about five years.
Andy Nicoletti, Kendall County’s supervisor of assessments, anticipates the average increase in assessments to be about 4.5 percent compared to last year.
The county is required to publish all property assessments this year in what is known as a quadrennial or general reassessment year. Property owners should find their new assessment in this week’s paper printed among the roughly 53,000 other properties in the county. Property owners will also receive a notice of their new assessment in the mail soon.
Assessments for properties in Oswego and NaAuSay townships are printed in this week’s edition of the Ledger-Sentinel, while assessments for properties in Bristol, Kendall, Seward, Lisbon, Big Grove and Fox townships have been printed in this week’s edition of the Kendall County Record. Little Rock Township assessments have been published in the Plano Record.
According to state law, properties must be assessed at one-third their fair market value and based on a three-year average of property values. This year’s assessments are calculated using data collected by assessors from 2012, 2013 and 2014, which Nicoletti says were stable years for assessments.
Nicoletti reminds property owners that if they are not happy with their new assessment they can appeal to the county's Board of Review within 30 days of the date of publication of the assessments. The final date to file an assessment appeal with the Board of Review this year is Oct. 13. All assessments and links to filing with the Board of Review can be found at the county's website at www.co.kendall.il.us/assessments.
The assessments you see this week will be what the county will use to calculate your property tax bill next year. Typically the county mails the bills in early May. The bills are payable in installments in June and September.
“As the assessments increase, the tax rate will actually decrease and so it may not mean that your taxes are going to go down; it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to go up either,” Nicoletti said.
Officials use assessments to calculate tax bills each year by multiplying the value of each property by the tax rate for each government agency, minus any exemptions.
Despite a lower assessment, tax bills in the county may not automatically go down, Nicoletti points out.
Two factors control the amount of your tax bill, your assessment and the tax rate. If one increases, the other is usually going down, Nicoletti said.
Referring to the rising assessments, he said, “It means your property is going to be worth more than it was before if you’re going to sell. It’s also going to cause the tax rate to decrease. When people are looking to buy, they do look at what that tax rate is and if they can get a similar house for similar money and lesser taxes they’re going to go where the lesser taxes are.”
The total equalized assessed value (EAV) for the county is projected at $2.9 billion, an increase of five percent from last year, when the value was $2.76 billion.
“We’ve had five years or so of decreasing property values, so we had lost about $900 million in EAV in that period,” Nicoletti said.
The value faded away over five years, Nicoletti said, as foreclosures and short sales were affecting the real estate market, which in turn affected the assessments. However, Nicoletti explained that foreclosures are not counted in an assessor’s study as part of the general assessment. Foreclosures, however, indirectly affect assessments by driving down the price homes are sold for on the market.
Fewer foreclosures and short sales on the market and more new home building appear to be driving the rise in assessments. In fact, Nicoletti pointed out that in looking at the data even the “bad sales” (foreclosures and bank-owned sales) are selling for more than they are assessed.
“We’ve got some decent sales coming through, so we’re probably looking at increases again, I would imagine, next year,” he said.
Little Rock Township saw the biggest increase in total assessments at about 9 percent and Big Grove saw the smallest increase at 2 percent. Elsewhere in the county the average assessment increase was 3.4 percent in Kendall Township; 4.3 percent in Oswego Township; and 2.07 percent in Bristol Township. The average increase in Lisbon, NaAuSay and Seward, known as the multi-township district, was 7.14 percent, and Fox Township saw an increase of 1.39 percent over last year.
Marie Bracken, assessor for Little Rock Township, noted the 9 percent increase in her township is based on a few factors.
“Some of these foreclosed sales are starting to flip now and the property sales are going up and the market value is going up and it’s causing the ratios to be higher and that means we got to increase the assessment,” she said.
Plano School District 88 is located entirely in Little Rock Township and is not spread across multiple townships, Bracken noted, as some other districts are. What happens with the school district deeply affects the tax rate in the township, she said.
“They have lesser equalized assessed valuation to work with,” she said.
Additionally, the Lakewood Springs subdivision affects a lot of Little Rock because it makes up the majority of the township. She noted that out of about 5,700 total parcels in the township, 1,900 parcels are in Lakewood.
Consequently, Lakewood had most of the foreclosed sales during the recession and now is seeing most of the sales, she said.
Bracken expects to hear from many residents in the coming days once assessments are published. She stresses that assessors just value the property – they do not have anything to do with the taxes.
“There’d be no tax if there were no levies against the valuations,” she said. “It depends on what’s levied and what different taxing districts ask for.”
In Oswego Township, assessor Dave Maher believes this is the start of trend of an uptick in property values. Maher anticipates assessments to increase around 3 percent next year, which is consistent growth.
“I would consider that stable,” he said. “That’s better than the large fluctuations that we’ve had.”
Meanwhile, new construction as of August was at $12 million this year for Oswego Township compared to about $10 million last year, according to Maher.
Susie Brusveen, assessor for NaAuSay, Lisbon and Seward Townships, said she hopes the tax rate falls enough that the rise in assessments won’t significantly impact tax bills.
“The home sales are starting to go up and we’ve got new construction going on down here and it’s picking up pretty good,” she said. “I hope it pushes the rate down.”
The township assessors in Kendall County include: Marie Bracken, Little Rock Township: 630-552-3328; Dan Pickert, Bristol Township: 630-553-3940; David Maher, Oswego Township: 630-554-3214; Dick Whitfield, Fox Township: 630-553-9084; Michael Hardecopf, Kendall Township: 630-553-6525; Susie Brusveen, NaAuSay, Lisbon and Seward townships: 815-475-4609; and Ray Eddy, Big Grove Township: 815-695-5866.
The Kendall County Assessor’s Office can be reached at 630-553-4146.