An Illinois man living in an unincorporated suburban community outside Chicago got a ruinously high tax bill that threatened to drive him out of his humble 1950s home.
Darryl Lloyd bought the three-bedroom, one bathroom house in 2006, and according to him, the home’s current market value is just over $180,000.
But when Cook County valued the home at $1 million, officials demanded he cough up over $30,000 in property taxes this year, FOX 32 reported.
The previous year, Lloyd paid $1,800 – which means the county increased his tax bill by 3,811 percent from what it was twenty years ago.
‘I was literally devastated when I saw that increase,’ Lloyd said of the bill he received days ago. ‘I see 960 square feet. I don’t have a second floor. I don’t have a basement.’
The houses in his neighborhood are modest too, prompting even more confusion on his end.
‘Nothing over here is worth … $1 million,’ Lloyd said, adding, ‘I will have to move in with a relative or something. You know, I can’t afford it.’
But before throwing in the towel, Lloyd decided to fight it, believing there had to be some sort of misunderstanding or error.
He made the trek to the Cook County Tax Assessor’s Office, an effort that proved both fruitless and frustrating.
‘I said, “let me go to downtown city Hall, to the assessor’s office.” And, at that point, I showed them my taxes, and I told them that I had a substantial increase, and they were like, “everybody’s taxes increase”,’ Lloyd said.
The tax assessor’s office only admitted fault once Chicago’s local FOX affiliate contacted them on Lloyd’s behalf.
‘This property was given an incorrect assessment due to a permit that was unintentionally applied to the property. We will process a corrected tax bill for this property in the coming weeks, ensuring that the homeowner will ultimately pay the right amount in property taxes,’ a representative from the office told FOX 32.
Lloyd is not alone – he’s just one property owner that got the attention of the media.
The Cook County Treasurer’s Office produced an analysis finding that the county assessor miscalculated land values for more than 4,400 homes in the south and southwest suburbs of Chicago.
The overassessments were made on properties sitting on larger plots of lands, and the errors were discovered too late before tax bills were printed and mailed.
‘If it happened to me, it probably happened to other people. I’d like to see immediate action,’ Lloyd said.
Lloyd is now waiting for a certificate of error, though the assessor’s office gave no exact timeline.
The hidden cost of skyrocketing property taxes are forcing Americans in many states, red and blue, to pack up and move.
A Florida woman was left reeling when she received a 174 percent property tax hike on her dream home this year, from $2,700 a year to $7,400.
She had to put her house back on the market after sinking most of her savings into it.
And many longtime Colorado residents are also selling their homes as pandemic-era transplants send property values soaring – and tax bills climbing just as fast.