What the board can and cannot do

Worth reading before you file, not after.

It can raise your assessment

The Calgary Assessment Review Board states plainly that it can lower, raise, or leave your assessment unchanged. The power to change an assessment roll is not limited to changing it downward.

We are not going to tell you how often that happens, because we would be guessing. It is on the record as a possibility, and anyone selling you an appeal who does not mention it is not being straight with you.

What it is required to consider

The Calgary Assessment Review Board's own procedural rules reproduce the statutory test this way: a panel must not alter an assessment that is fair and equitable, taking into consideration the valuation and other standards set out in the regulations, the procedures set out in the regulations, and the assessments of similar property in the same municipality.

That wording is quoted from the board's procedural rules, which reproduce the Municipal Government Act, and not from the Act itself. We say so because it is the difference between a citation and a paraphrase of a citation.

That last one is the door most residential complaints walk through. If similar properties in your community are assessed lower than yours, your assessment may not be equitable, whatever it says about market value.

What it will refuse to hear

• Any matter in support of an issue that is not identified on your complaint form. Mandatory, not discretionary.
• Any evidence you did not disclose by the deadline.
• A complaint that does not comply with the statutory requirements, which must be dismissed.

What it has no power over at all

• The tax rate. That is set by Council in a bylaw, after the provincial budget, and the board has nothing to do with it.
• How much tax you can afford.
• How much your assessment went up in percentage terms.
• What the City spends money on.

How a residential hearing actually runs

Residential complaints are heard in writing or by video before a local assessment review board panel. You disclose your evidence 21 days beforehand, the City responds 7 days beforehand, and you may reply 3 days beforehand. It is not a courtroom and nobody is cross examined for an afternoon.