The property was a commercial building sitting in a highly regarded Lake County school district. Like a lot of office space across Chicagoland right now, it had gone largely vacant. The building was still standing, but it was not producing the income, or the value, that the county's assessment assumed it was.
The owner came to Lake County Appeal frustrated with a tax bill that did not reflect the reality of the property. Our first step was to get the valuation right. We helped the owner secure a qualified appraisal, and that appraisal did something most assessments never bother to do…It looked past the building's original use and asked what the property was actually worth today, given everything about its location and condition. The appraisal concluded that the property's highest and best use was no longer as an office building. Sitting on land in a strong school district, with the structure largely empty, the site's greatest value was tied to its potential for residential redevelopment, not to the office space sitting on top of it.
That appraisal became the foundation of the appeal. Using it as evidence, we argued that the county's assessment was built around the wrong premise entirely, valuing the building rather than the land it sat on. The Lake County Board of Review agreed. The total assessed market value was reduced by more than $9.2 million in that tax year alone, resulting in more than $252K of property tax savings.
We did not stop there. We carried the appeal forward to the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board, seeking an even greater correction at the state level. That case is currently pending, and we are waiting to hear whether the state board will grant a further reduction.
This case is a good example of what “highest and best use” actually means in practice. It is not an abstract appraisal concept. For an owner sitting on a vacant or underperforming building in the right location, it can be the difference between a tax bill built on what the property used to be, and one built on what the property is actually worth today.
Ron Kingsley
Attorney at Law
Master of Laws in Taxation
Lake County Appeal
About the author
Ron Kingsley leads Lake County Appeal, one of the most successful property tax appeal firms in Lake County. He earned his Juris Doctorate from Loyola University of Chicago in the early 1980s, his Master of Laws in Taxation from DePaul University in the late 1980s and has run Lake County Appeal since 2014, with a focus on commercial property tax appeals.