Filing a complaint with the Assessment Review Board

A complaint is a form, a fee and a deadline. Most of what goes wrong goes wrong on the form.

Which board hears it

Residential property with three or fewer dwelling units, and farm land, goes to a local assessment review board. Non-residential property, and residential with four or more dwelling units, goes to a composite board. The two boards run on different fees and different deadlines, so getting this wrong is expensive.

The fee

$50 for residential with three or fewer dwellings and for farm land, reduced to $40 if the board receives your complaint before January 31. $650 per roll number for non-residential and for residential with four or more dwellings. $20 for a local improvement complaint.

If the board decides in your favour, or if the assessor corrects every issue under complaint and the complaint is withdrawn before the hearing, the filing fee is refunded to you.

A complaint without its fee is not heard. This is the second most common way a complaint dies.

The matters, and the mistake everyone makes

The form asks you to tick which matters your complaint is about. There are ten:

1. the description of the property or business
2. the name or mailing address of an assessed person or taxpayer
3. an assessment amount
4. an assessment class
5. an assessment sub-class
6. the type of property
7. the type of improvement
8. school support
9. whether the property is assessable
10. whether the property or business is exempt from taxation under Part 10

Here is the mistake. A board panel must not hear any matter in support of an issue that is not identified on the complaint form. That is mandatory language, not a preference. If you did not put it on the form, you cannot raise it at the hearing, and you cannot add it afterwards.

So put every issue on the form when you file, including the ones you are not sure about. It costs nothing to list an issue you later drop. It costs the whole argument to leave one off.

What the form requires you to say

A complaint must do four things:

1. indicate what information shown on the assessment notice is incorrect
2. explain in what respect that information is incorrect
3. indicate what the correct information is
4. identify the requested assessed value, if the complaint relates to an assessment

That fourth one is a specific number, in a specific box. A complaint that does not comply with these requirements must be dismissed.

Disclosure, if it goes to a hearing

Evidence that is not disclosed on time cannot be heard. For a local board, your evidence is due 21 days before the hearing, the City's is due 7 days before, and your rebuttal is due 3 days before (MRAC s.5(2)). For a composite board it is 42, 14 and 7 days (MRAC s.9).

Disclosure is not just documents. It includes a summary of anything you intend to say as testimony, and a signed witness report for anyone who will speak.

Using an agent

You can have someone file and appear for you. They need the official Assessment Complaints Agent Authorization (form LGS1405) signed by you, and without it they cannot act at all.

Agents in Alberta are not licensed or regulated. The authorization form asks an agent to disclose their qualifications "if any", which tells you everything about the standard. Ask anyone you hire what they have actually done.

Doing it yourself

Entirely possible, and for a simple record error it is often the right call. Our screener is free, and the Evidence Report gives you the comparables, the wording and the deadlines to file it alone.