Chicago homeowner says she worked tirelessly to get property tax bill mistakes fixed, and got nowhere
CHICAGO (CBS) -- An average work week for most people is 40 hours – and they get a paycheck for it.
But one Chicago homeowner said she has easily put in 40 hours of work trying to get mistakes on her property tax bill fixed – and all she has gotten is a headache.
She turned to CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov for help.
Leslie, who wants to keep her name private, is a North Side condo owner.
She spent months trying to fix exemption and address mistakes on her Cook County tax bill. She has a full file folder with the massive amounts of paperwork.
"So we did all of this work. I went in three different times, and on one of those occasions, I was bounced from the Treasurer to the Assessor, back down to the Treasurer, and then back up to the Assessor," she said.
Leslie said her tax troubles began more than a year ago when she didn't get a bill. She went online and saw a big red box saying it was undeliverable.
She dug further and found the last four numbers of her expanded ZIP code were wrong – and so were the senior freeze and senior exemptions, which she never applied for, but which reduced her bill.
"Being a good citizen, I saw the exemption, and I paid the extra $500 or whatever it was," Leslie said.
But Leslie quickly found out she couldn't do that, and got a pink letter telling her so.
"It's pretty nasty," she said. "It says, 'You took an exemption you're not entitled to.'"
Despite Leslie's best efforts, the saga continues. Problems persist – except for one.
"The only thing that changed in all of this in a year and a half was they got my mailing address right," Leslie said.
A spokesperson for Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas said the ongoing issues are up to the county assessor's to fix. Leslie said an assessor's office employee even told Leslie she is not alone.
For a while, one exemption Leslie tried to remove actually did disappear. But on the last bill, it came back again.
"They're sort of cherry-picking what stays on and what comes off," Leslie said.
Kozlov asked Leslie how much stress this has caused her.
"So much," Leslie said.
Cook County Assessor's Chief of Staff Scott Smith looked into the issue, and said for some reason, some of the information wasn't updated on the change of deed when Leslie bought the condo in 2019. But he says it is now fixed – so hopefully, no more headaches.
