In Michigan, the appeal is not a lawsuit. It is a short meeting with your community’s Board of Review: three to nine residents appointed to hear owners who think their home has been valued too high. You fill in a one-page form, bring your evidence, and the board decides. It costs nothing to file.
What makes it hard is timing and evidence. The board meets for only a few days in March, and it lowers values on proof, not on opinion. Most people who are turned down either missed the window or arrived with a complaint about their tax bill instead of evidence about their home’s value.
First: is an appeal worth it for you?
You appeal your assessed value, which should be half of what your home would sell for. Whether a lower assessment cuts your bill depends on your taxable value, the number the bill is actually calculated from. (If those terms are new, our plain-English guide to assessed, state equalized and taxable value explains them.)
- If you bought your home in the last few years, your taxable value was reset to your assessed value the year after you bought. Every dollar the assessment is too high reaches your bill, every year. This is where an appeal pays off most.
- If you have owned your home a long time, your taxable value is probably well below your assessed value, held down by the yearly cap. A lower assessment may not change this year’s bill, though it can matter in later years.
Long-time owners can still come out ahead. An appeal is worth a look if:
- The two numbers are close. After years of rising values the gap usually grows, but where prices have flattened or fallen, the assessed value can drift down to meet the capped figure. Once they touch, an assessment that is too high sets the bill, just as it would for a recent buyer.
- You added on or renovated. An addition, a finished basement, a new garage or a large deck is added to your taxable value at its full assessed value, outside the cap. If the city valued the work too high, that excess goes straight onto your bill, and stays there.
- The city’s record is wrong. If the record card shows something your home does not have, such as a finished basement or an extra bathroom, and it was entered as new work, it may have been added to your taxable value the same way. Fixing the record can lower the bill even when the cap is in place.
A quick test: look at your notice. If the taxable value and the state equalized value are the same number, or close, the assessment is setting your bill and an appeal could lower it.
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1
Late February
Read your assessment notice
Your city or township mails a Notice of Assessment at least two weeks before the board meets. Check four things on it: the assessed value against what you think the home would sell for; the taxable value; the principal residence exemption, which should read 100% if you live there; and whether the property is marked as transferred. The notice also gives the dates, times and place of your March Board of Review. Keep it; you will need the parcel number on it.
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2
Right away
Check the city’s record of your home
The assessor values your home from its property record card: square footage, year built, quality grade, number of bathrooms, basement and how much of it is finished, garage, condition. Most communities post it on their online property lookup; otherwise the assessing office will give you a copy.
Compare every line with the real house. A basement recorded as finished when it is bare, an extra half bath that does not exist, or a few hundred square feet too many will each raise your value. Errors like these are the easiest case to win, because they are facts, not opinions.
Resource Most Michigan communities publish their records on BS&A Online. Choose your city or township, search your address, and open the property’s record. If yours isn’t listed, check the assessing page of your community’s website.
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3
Early March
Gather your evidence
The board lowers values on proof, not opinion. It wants to see why the market says your home is worth less than the city does, usually through recent sales of similar homes and anything the city’s record gets wrong.
Knowing which sales a board will accept, and how to set them against the assessor’s own numbers, is most of the work, and it is exactly what our appeal packet does. We check your home against your community’s own sales study, choose the comparable sales that support a lower value, and assemble the case in the form your board expects, for a flat $350.
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4
Early March
Decide what value to ask for
Ask for a specific number, and make it one your evidence supports. The petition asks for your estimate of the home’s true cash value, meaning its market value. Your requested assessed value is half of that: if your comparable sales point to $380,000, you are asking for an assessed value of $190,000. A board is far more likely to grant a figure backed by sales than a round number that simply feels fair.
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5
Before the deadline on your notice
File your petition and book a time
The form is Michigan Treasury Form 618, Petition to Board of Review (also numbered L-4035). Your assessing office and most community websites have it. Most boards hear owners by appointment, and the deadline to book is usually the week before the board meets. Call or email the assessing office early; slots fill.
If you cannot attend, many communities let residents appeal by letter or email instead of in person. Your notice says whether yours does. A written appeal needs the same evidence, laid out so the board can follow it without you there.
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6
Second week of March
Present your case
Hearings are short, often ten minutes or less. Bring copies of everything for each board member and one for the assessor. Lead with your number and your strongest evidence, keep to the value of the home, and be brief. The assessor or a staff member may be in the room and may respond; that is normal.
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7
Spring to July 31
Get the decision, and appeal further if needed
The board mails its decision. If it lowers your value, the new figure goes on the roll and your summer and winter bills are calculated from it. Because next year’s capped taxable value grows from this year’s, the saving carries forward while you own the home.
If the board says no, or not enough, you can take the case to the Michigan Tax Tribunal’s Small Claims Division. For a home, the deadline is July 31 of the same year. Filing is free if the home has a principal residence exemption of at least 50%. You can only go to the Tribunal if you protested at the March Board of Review first, which is the main reason never to skip it.
What the board will not consider
The board rules only on what your home is worth. These arguments, however reasonable they feel, will not move it:
- “My taxes went up too much”
- A neighbor paying less tax, which is usually the cap, not the value
- What you paid ten years ago
- Online estimates such as Zillow’s, on their own
- Hardship, which has its own separate exemption
Missed March? The July and December boards
The Board of Review also meets in July and December, but those sessions cannot reconsider your home’s value. They correct clerical errors and mistakes of fact, such as square footage recorded wrong, and they can grant a principal residence exemption you missed, with refunds for what was overpaid. If your problem is a record error rather than a disagreement about value, you do not have to wait for March. For a value appeal, you do.
Mistakes that sink appeals
- Missing the appointment deadline. It is printed on the notice and comes before the board meets.
- Arguing about the tax bill. The board has no power over tax rates. It only rules on value.
- Using sales that don’t match. A house twice your size across town, or a sale from five years ago, will be set aside.
- Asking without a number. “Lower” is not a request the board can grant.
- Skipping March. Without a March protest there is no appeal to the Tax Tribunal later.
Not sure it’s worth appealing?
Not every high-looking assessment is worth a trip to the board. We will look at yours against your community’s sales study first, at no charge, and tell you plainly.