What do you think about your B.C. Property Assessement? Two Important Misunderstandings
The first week on January, or there abouts, always brings about lots of call for Vancouver real estate agents, and those across the province I assume. This is when B.C. Assessment mails about the property assessments of your property's value (as of August last of the previous year) upon which your property taxes for the present year will be based.
There are 2 common misunderstandings about these assessed values.
My assessed value has gone up. Does that mean my taxes will go up? The answer is no, not necessarily, but maybe. Your actual tax bill will be based on the the mill rate. The city will come up with a budget and in the budget they will decide how much money they need from residential property taxes this year. The math guys (accountants I would guess) then do the math to figure out what percentage of the assessed value of your home will be used to calculate your property taxes. This is the mill rate. It is roughly the total value of all the assessed property values in the city divided by the amount of money they need from property taxes. Expect it to be about one half of one percent, or 0.05%.
My assessed value went up/down. Does that mean my home is now worth more/less? The answer is probably not. Historically the BC Assessment's assessed property values have been very low. More recently BC Assessment has been making an effort to get assessed values more in line with market prices. This has in some cases lead to large increases in assessed values. Assessed values in the City of Vancouver are now often at or even above market value, but they are still will well below market value for other homes. I always tell people that "assessed values have only a loose connection to market value."
If you have any questions about your assessment you can contact BC Assessment or even check out their Youtube channel.
Or you can email me, or even call me at 604-916-4663.
Matthew Collinge: Vancouver REALTOR®
