FAQs

Each assessment district is reassessed every three years. The County is broken up into 3 assessment districts: The city of Chicago, North/Northwest and South Suburbs.

Hyde Park, Lake, North, South, West, Jefferson, LakeView and Rogers Park.

2021

Barrington, Elk Grove, Evanston, Hanover, Leyden, Maine, New Trier, Niles, Northfield, Norwood Park, Palatine, Schaumburg and Wheeling.

2022

Berwyn, Bloom, Bremen, Calumet, Cicero, Lemont, Lyons, Oak Park, Orland, Palos, Proviso, Rich, River Forest, Riverside, Stickney, Thornton and Worth

2020

Our office will review your assessed value versus other homes in your area to determine if your property is over assessed. We employ a proprietary program using current data to compare the market value of your property versus comparable properties. With the help of our program and our over thirty expertise, allows us to maximize the potential tax savings

For homes to be comparable to each other they must be similar in Class, Exterior Construction, Age, Square Footage and Neighborhood Code.

All Residential properties are required to be assessed at 10% of the fair market value of the home.
Commercial properties assessed values equal 25% of the fair market value of the property.

The P.I.N. is also known as the property index number of your property. You can locate yours by checking your tax bill or property deed. If you cannot locate either of these documents, you can enter your address on the Cook County Assessor’s website

If you just purchased your property you will have to fill out an application. Once filled out, the Assessor’s office should apply the exemption to your tax bill automatically each year as long as you own and occupy the property as your residence.

No, you must occupy the residence as of January 1st of the tax year in question. You will be able to qualify for the Homeowner’s Exemption for 2021.

You must be at least 65 years or older at the beginning of the tax year in question. You will have to fill out the application and once filled out, the assessor will apply the senior citizen exemption as long as you own and occupy the property as your residence.

All exemptions are reflected on your 2nd installment tax bill at the bottom of the bill.

The 1st installment tax bill is ALWAYS 55% of the total of the previous year’s tax bill.
The 2nd installment tax bill is where all changes in the assessment tax rates and exemption are shown.

We will review and have the opportunity to further file an appeal before the Board of Review and if that appeal is denied, we can the final option to file an appeal before the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board “PTAB” or the Circuit Court of Cook County.

Our proprietary database allows you to search from over 300 homes at a time that are available in connection with the subject property. This free analysis is completed in minutes, and we are adamant about responding to all inquiries within 24 hours. When assessing your property tax, we look at everything from neighborhood code to similar properties to yours.

Our analyses are completed based on the current assessed value of your property. As we complete your property tax assessment, we look at comparable properties to see if there is a significant difference in value between them. If your property tax value is much lower than the similar properties, we can go ahead and appeal the assessed value.

You can obtain your property index number by going to the Cook County assessor webpage. When you enter your address into the portal, you will not only obtain your property index number but your township and tax code. These are important to keep in mind, as sometimes tax codes can be different within one block or even across the street!

This will be based on the assessor webpage and your property index number.

We will send you an application to fill out that we can submit on your behalf. All you need to do is sign the application and a photo of your Driver’s License/State ID. Applications can be submitted as a hard copy or digitally.

Absolutely. All corrections are made on the Cook County Treasurer website.

A PIN, in this context, is your Property Index Number; also known as your permanent real estate index number. The best way to find your PIN is on your deed or tax bill. If you do not have either of these documents, you can enter your address into the Cook County Assessor’s website.

We look at the property’s income and expenses over the last three years together with the rent roll to determine the property’s fair market value.

If the property is owner occupied, we will send it out for a free appraisal quote and let the property know what the potential savings would be based on the appraised value.

We are asking our clients for any and all information as to how it has impacted your property from reduction in rent to tenants leaving due to business closing. For owner occupied buildings we are looking to see how specifically it has impacted their business.

The best way to lower condominium units’ assessments is to file with the entire association. The analysis is based on the sales in the building for the last three years. For an individual unit, we would need a recent sale or appraisal.