$17 million in property taxes returned

North Vancouver District  had to dig deep into its reserve funds with $ 6.8 Million refund. Seaspan appealed the assessments for a large waterfront property for the years 2013 to 2019, when the assessed value grew from $22 million to $222 million. After Seaspan argued, in part, that the land was too polluted for it to be assessed at fair market value, the appeal board substantially lowered its assessed value for each of those years.

City of Coquitlam had it a bit easier in 2020 for example they refunded $ 1.8 in property taxes.  One large appeal could have a huge impact on City operations. In 2019 Saputo dairy plant on Lougheed Hwy that sold the year before for $ 209M appealed the tax bill that resulted in assessed value lower by $11M. That meant minus hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes.

Derek Holloway, a retired accredited appraiser who worked for B.C. Assessment for three decades and handled appeals, predicts this challenging situation will worsen before it gets better. He said his former employer is excellent at assessing house and condo values, but increasingly doesn’t have enough staff or expertise to properly assess more complicated commercial properties or to handle the large number of appeals in recent years.

“Thousands of complicated ICI (industrial, commercial and investment) properties under appeal is crushing B.C. Assessment,” said Holloway, who continues to track the assessment business closely. “It’s getting worse every year.”

Despite reduction in transaction volumes and rising capitalization rates in 2023 BC Assessments continue to rise.