Every three years, Cook County does the triennial reassessment of real estate tax bills. Notices were just mailed to Barrington township. Evanston township notices were mailed July 15, 2010 and Barrington on July 8, 2010. These will be followed shortly by notices sent to other northwest suburban townships like Palatine, Schaumburg, Wheeling and Elk Grove. Why [...]
Estate planning and real estate in the Land of Lincoln
Category Archives: Real estate tax
How to protest Cook Co. real estate taxes now
Real estate taxes have remained level or increased while home prices have tanked. With lower home values, clients reasonably expect that they will be able to lower their real estate taxes to reflect the lower home prices. Cook County real estate taxes can be protested at two levels, the Cook County Assessor and the Board [...]
Check your Cook Co. 09 tax exemptions online
If you bought a home in 2009, refinanced your mortgage in 2009 or recorded a deed into your living trust in 2009 please be sure to check to make sure that the county didn’t take away your homeowner’s exemption. This video, Tax Exemptions , explains that the county was yanking the homeowner’s exemptions of homeowners [...]
Cook Co. 09 senior freeze and homeowner exemption forms are here
The forms to apply for the Cook County homeowner’s exemption for real estate taxes and for the senior freeze are now available on the Cook County Assessor’s website. The senior freeze has to be applied for every year and the applicant has to be 65 or older and have an income of less than $55,000.00. [...]
Cook County tax first installment 5% higher
I got my first installment of 2009 tax bill in my mailbox on Saturday. To be honest, I didn’t even open it. The first installment of taxes was always 50% of the last tax bill. There are no big increases in the first installment. It’s kind of dull. Many are complaining (rightfully) that the installments [...]
Foreclosure and deficiency judgments
One sign of a terrible economy, to me, is how many times per week I discuss with a client how foreclosure works. Clients are worried about foreclosure, but they are especially fearful that the foreclosing lender will obtaining a deficiency judgment against them. If you check any real estate advice website like Trulia, there are [...]
The gnarley Cook 7% Expanded Homeowner’s Exemption
Talk about confusing. The expanded homeowner’s exemption in Cook County is really hard to understand and worse to explain. The expanded homeowner’s exemption was the county’s way of gradually phasing in the increase in the assessments from the last triennial reassessment. Basically, the homeowner’s exemption was increased so that, for example, in Palatine, we have [...]
Cook Co. Senior Freeze applications mailed
The senior freeze exemption applications, available to homeowner’s over age 65 with income of under $55k, were mailed at the end of January 2009. The exemption application has to be completed every year.
