Cook County Property Tax Exemptions (and the Refund Most People Miss)

If you own a home in Cook County, there is a decent chance you are paying more property tax than you have to. Not because your assessment is wrong (that is a separate fight), but because an exemption you qualify for is not on your bill. And here is the part almost nobody knows: if you missed one, Co

How to Appeal Your Property Taxes in Cook County (From Someone Who Did It)

A couple of years ago I opened my own reassessment notice and my stomach dropped. The county's estimate of what my house was worth had jumped, and I knew exactly what that meant for the tax bill coming behind it. So I did something most people never do. I appealed it myself. No attorney, no firm, no

Illinois Property Taxes: The Number That Changes Everything in the Chicago Suburbs

I have a friend, I will call him Perry, who bought a home in a Chicago suburb that had not been reassessed for property taxes in quite a while. His first year of ownership, two things happened at once: his individual property got reassessed, and the entire county went through a reassessment at the s