Shane Keating — Councillor Ward 12

If you want to skip the long version of this post, the quick details are at the bottom. With that being said, here’s hopefully all the information you need during the property assessment Customer Review Period.

Property assessments for your 2019 property taxes were sent out on January 3, 2019. Keep your eyes peeled for their arrival and make sure you look at it closely. With 532,000 accounts, our assessment team does a great job, but there may be corrections that are required. You have until March 12, 2019 to make use of the customer review period and appeal your assessment at no cost. If you wait until your tax bill arrives, it’s too late so please make use of this period. I have been assured by our assessment team that their phone line is well staffed and well trained with targeted wait times of just a couple minutes, but most calls will be answered by a representative within 30 seconds. The line is open from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday . The number is 403-268-2888 . After hours, you can still call 311. Before calling, please continue reading as I’m hoping the information I provide will make things much easier for you to go through the customer review period!

When looking over your property assessment, make sure you check the factual information the City has on record for your property. If you believe your assessed value is incorrect, please utilize the assessment website and take a look at comparable properties – I have more information on this in the paragraphs below. It’s also important to note that the assessed value is based on what your property would have sold for on July 1, 2018 and not the end of the year . Any change to your assessed value in the second half of 2018 will be factored into next year’s assessment.

Our assessment team is encouraging all property owners to go over the details included in your property assessments – they want to make sure that they’ve got it right. There is a ton of information available on the website at www.calgary.ca/assessment . Through your secure myID account, you can review all of the details of your assessment, as well as view sales in your neighbourhood between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2018. Additionally, the public has the ability to view the assessed value of any property in the city so you are able to do a comparison with comparable homes on your street and in your neighbourhood .

If you don’t currently have a myID account on the city website, you can create an account here: https://myid.calgary.ca/idm/Login.aspx

On the right hand side of the page, it will say “New to myID?” and will allow you to create an account, either for your residence or your business. Click the relevant button. Once there, you can register an account with one of your social media accounts, or register with your name and email address. Once in, you will be able to add a property account using the Roll Number and the Access Code found on your property notice. Once you have added that, you will have access to the Sales Search and the Community Summary on the left hand side of the page. This information will be very helpful in determining if your assessed value is accurate and an assessment representative will likely ask you if you have gone through these steps. Doing your homework and providing the representative with good evidence will make your case for a change in assessed value much easier to go through!

Through your myID account, you can also choose to go paperless with eNotices. Taking advantage of this will save paper and get you your information faster.

Residential property owner information

For residential property owners, the average change in the market was a decrease in value of 1%. If your property value decreased by 1%, your property taxes will remain relatively unchanged. If your property decreased by more than 1%, your property taxes should decrease. If your property lost less than 1% of its value, stayed flat, or increased in value, your property taxes will experience an increase. Here is a great visualization that the assessment team shared:

Non-residential property owner information

For non-residential property owners, the average change in assessed value was a decrease of 12%. Similar to above, if your property value decreased by 12%, your property taxes will remain relatively unchanged. If your property decreased by more than 12%, your property taxes should decrease. If your property lost less than 12% of its value, stayed flat, or increased in value, your property taxes will experience an increase. Here again is a visualization:

For 2019, there will be no business assessment notice as the business tax amount has now been fully transferred into non-residential property taxes.

While I know the tax shift out of downtown is creating a significant strain on businesses located in Ward 12 and throughout the rest of the city, Council has directed the creation of a working group to try and improve the situation. There is collaborative work taking place between Administration, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, the Commercial Real Estate Advisory Committee of Calgary, Calgary Economic Development and other interested stakeholders. I’m hopeful that we can find a solution to reduce the burden on our local businesses and entrepreneurs.

Hopefully that provides you with the information you need to go through your assessment and decide if you should utilize the customer review period. If you have any questions, give the assessment team a call, or feel free to contact my office .

So to sum it all up:

• Property assessments were mailed out January 3, 2019;
• Customer review period is open until March 12, 2019 . There is no cost to have your assessment reviewed;
• If you do not initiate a review BEFORE March 12, it will be too late for changes to be made;
• Before calling the assessment team, carefully review your assessment for factual accuracy ;
• Do your homework and utilize the information available on ca/assessment , including sales history in your neighbourhood , looking up assessed values for comparable properties , a market report, and a neighbourhood summary;
• If you believe there is an error in your assessment, call 403-268-2888 between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday . Wait times are targeted at less than 2 minutes; and
• For non-residential property owners, business taxes have been completely shifted into non-residential property taxes in 2019.