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Filing an Assessment Act appeal on time is an essential step in challenging the assessed value of your property or seeking other property tax relief. Ontario has a fairly complicated appeal system that we will help you understand.
Assessment Appeals
If you want to appeal MPAC’s assessment of your property, you first need to know how the property is classified. If the property is in the residential, farm, or managed forest property class, you cannot appeal directly to the Assessment Review Board. Properties in those property classes must first file a request for reconsideration with MPAC. All other property can have an appeal filed directly with the Board by March 31 of the tax year. That includes industrial and multi-residential properties. But any owner can file a request for reconsideration, instead of appealing directly, if they wish to do so. This is an opportunity to try and convince MPAC that they are wrong.
A request for reconsideration must generally be filed with MPAC by March 31 of the tax year. There are a few exceptions to that filing deadline, so you should always check the deadline set on your notice of assessment. Once your request for reconsideration has been filed, MPAC has 180 days to respond. MPAC can extend that time to 240 days if they notify you of the extension before the 180 days are up.
If you have filed a request for reconsideration, the Assessment Act sets two potential filing deadlines for an appeal to the Assessment Review Board. First, if MPAC sends you a response that you disagree with, you must appeal within 90 days after the date printed on MPAC’s response. However, if you don’t receive a response, your filing deadline is 90 days after MPAC should have responded to the request for reconsideration. The Board has called this second deadline the “ultimate filing deadline” and it is 270 days after you filed your request for reconsideration. It is important to make a note of this deadline so that you know when you should appeal if you have not heard from MPAC.
If you are not required to file a request for reconsideration and choose not to do so, the filing deadline to appeal to the Board is March 31 of the tax year.
Assessment Act appeals have a complicated series of filing deadlines. NextGenLaw LLP has the expertise to help you navigate that web of rules. Contact us with your assessment concerns.
