How Businesses and Homeowners Can Lower Their Taxes

While Cook County has increased property taxes for over 30 consecutive years, there are mechanisms in place to help manage costs. While these methods cannot lower tax rates or keep the equalization factor at bay, they can challenge the values created by the Cook County Assessor’s Office (CCAO). Since values are used to calculate taxes, correcting or lowering these values usually leads to decreased tax bills. This makes these techniques invaluable when it comes to protecting properties and allowing people to stay in their homes.

Appeals Help the People of Cook County and Oak Park

Thanks to a long history of computer errors and other issues, property tax bills have become late in arriving across Cook County, causing delays across the board. These have often arrived much larger than expected, including a county-wide housing spike of 16% to end 2025. With many of the CCAO’s recent problems tracing their origins back to the 2023 reassessment, Oak Park is more familiar with this than most. The township was one of the first to jump on the current bandwagon for property tax appeals.

Appeals have become so important in Cook County that even the CCAO encourages their use. Appeals can challenge incorrect assessments based on either lack of uniformity or overassessment. If successful, appeals can lower property values significantly, leading to much lower taxes. They are also useful for correcting factual errors, such as the wrong owner, incorrect square footage, the wrong classification, or nonexistent improvements. All of these issues can usually be spotted by reviewing the notice of assessment, which is typically mailed in May.

O’Connor Provides Support, Evidence, and Analysis

Property owners in Cook County face many challenges, and Oak Park sees more than most. Thanks to being one of the hottest places to live in all of Chicagoland, the value of homes and businesses will continue to increase. This means the stakes for appeals have never been higher. However, for these protests to be successful, there needs to be a whole portfolio of evidence on the side of the taxpayer. To prove overassessment, several sales records of comparable properties must be collected, dating back three years. To show a lack of uniformity, assessments from the taxpayer’s location need to be put together to demonstrate how their property is being assessed at a higher value than comparable real estate.

O’Connor is here to aid in the arduous task of gathering evidence. We use data-driven techniques to analyze assessments for any issues, while our patented databases find comparable sales and assessments that perfectly match the needed criteria. This evidence is carefully curated and assembled into portfolios that meet all the requirements of the CCAO and the BOR. After that, we coordinate an appeal with an expert law firm, which can use our evidence to the fullest. With our evidence ready to aid you, you and your legal team will have the best chance to win. There are no upfront costs for evidence, data, or analytics, and you will only need to pay a contingency fee if you and your lawyer can reduce your taxes.