Property Tax FAQs

Each of Cook County’s 38 townships open twice a year for appeal filings, at the Assessor and Board of Review. Filing windows typically last 30 days, commencing on reassessment years after the County mails property owners their notices. Whenever our savings calculator returns a projection, our professional opinion is you have a chance, likely a strong one, of seeing your assessment reduced, if you act. Sign up anytime. If you miss one of your windows, our smart system will simply setup an appeal for the next possible opportunity. 

No. Your taxes can only remain exactly as they would have been in the appeal year or go down.

Property Tax Solutions works on contingency alone, meaning we charge insofar as we deliver. Our standard fee is half of the first year’s savings. Any successful appeal delivers between 1 and 3 years of savings, and most people appeal on reassessment years, when any reduction results in compounding savings, for three years.

We run a constant online promotion which reduces this fee to 40% of the first year’s savings. Owners who entrust us with multiple properties or want to appeal commercial, industrial, or rental property assessments receive special, custom-negotiated rates. 

No. Property Tax Solutions handles residential, commercial, industrial, rental, and condominium property tax appeals throughout Cook County. Residential includes all single-family homes up to six units. If you own a commercial, industrial, or rental property, your property's assessment is based on its estimated income-earning potential, as opposed to its brick-and-mortar value. We therefore must look at Schedule Es tax record before providing any savings projection. Register the property using our savings calculator and PTS will get in touch requesting income-and-expense documents. Once we view these documents, we will follow up with a savings estimate.

No. Property Tax Solutions specializes in the Cook County property tax and that alone. A future expansion is not out of the question. 

The Cook County Homeowner Exemption reduces the equalized assessed value of the property you occupy by $10,000, invariably lowering your tax bill. The exemption renews automatically once approved. Receiving it does not prevent you from also filing a property tax appeal—the two work independently and the savings stack. Property Tax Solutions focuses on the appeal side but will notify you if you are missing the homeowner exemption to which you are entitled. Savings from the homeowner exemption depend on the local tax rate—the higher the rate, the more the exemption saves the owner.

The most reliable way is to file a formal property tax appeal challenging your assessed value. In Cook County, appeal opportunities include the Assessor's Office and Board of Review—with the latter issuing more favorable decisions on average. You may also qualify for exemptions such as the Cook County Homeowner Exemption or the Senior Freeze. Property Tax Solutions handles the full appeal process at no upfront cost, earning a fee only when we reduce your taxes.

Our base contingency fee is 50% of your first year's tax savings, with no charge unless we win. But PTS runs a perpetual discount (promo code always TaxSave followed by all four digits of the appeal year) for online sign-ups. Some firms in the Cook County market charge around one-third (33%) of the first-year savings. Ours is modestly higher, but winning a reduction in the first place is, of course, the most important thing. A third-party analyst hired to gauge appeal success in Cook County over multiple years found that PTS wins over 63% of its cases while the average win rate among all other County competitors hovers around the 30% mark. As with most other goods and services, you get what you agreed to pay for, and hunting for the lowest representation fee is often a precursor to a losing appeal, which carries an opportunity cost of hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.   

Absolutely. Every year, PTS uploads a massive spreadsheet of all the County’s local tax rates and all official County assessment data is downloaded live onto the site. Your savings projection is a genuine analysis of these numbers. Our system also tracks recent sales. In most cases, we will fight for your assessment to be reduced to exactly the amount needed to produce the savings advertised. However, appeals are a negotiation with County analysts, so the process often results in the County granting a portion of the reduction as opposed to the full amount. But we exhaust every argument available to justify the full amount.  

Averaging just two or three minutes end-to-end per new user, PTS’ entirely online sign-up process is the easiest available in Cook County. Online users also receive a service fee discount and can later login anytime to check appeal status, view their service agreement, and pull result letters, which we upload as soon as they become available. 

No, we do not share or sell your information with other companies or groups.

No. Savings achieved at appeal show in your Second Installment Tax Bill, which comes due Aug. 1. The First Installment Tax Bill, due March 1, is always 55% of your prior year's bill.

No, but it does always mean your bill will be lower than it would have been had you not appealed. 

Most people appeal on Triennial Reassessment years, when assessments generally increase dramatically. After a reassessment, the homeowners fight is no longer to reduce the tax they paid they year prior. The Assessor usually deems property selling prices increased anywhere from 10% to 40% over the past three years in a given Township. It adds this new value to tax across homeowner's properties during the reassessment. Therefore, the prior year's bill is history. The reassessed homeowner's fight is to reduce the new bill that's coming, based on their home's increased assessment. That fight is often entirely winnable. As mentioned earlier, while the Assessor's mass appraisal formulas genuinely shoot for accurate assessments, mass appraisals of dynamic market cannot be squared with the Illinois State Constitution's demand for uniform taxation. 

If you receive our marketing, you should definitely consider appealing. PTS solely identifies properties whose assessments show a clear lack of uniformity, and can be knocked down.   

Reassessed homeowners may receive a significant reduction of their newly proposed assessment and still end up with a higher tax bill. But that bill will still be less, often far less, than it would have been without the appeal, in every case. 

Appealers in years two and three of the assessment cycle do see their annual tax bill reduced compared to the year before, but for a small number of cases where the County only granted a small reduction and the local tax rate went up. 

One, two, or three years, depending on your Township’s position on Cook County’s Triennial Reassessment cycle. Most people appeal on reassessment years, when most reductions result in three years of savings. If you appealed on grounds other than lack of uniformity—such as vacancy, recent sale, or natural disaster—your reduction may apply for one year. Property Tax Solutions will advise any user of the service who receives a partial-cycle assessment reduction on next steps and may reduce its fee in the year of appeal.

It takes the Assessor and Board of Review each roughly 125 days from the filing date to issue decisions. If you sign up at the start of the year, budget for two 125-day decision cycles, plus the monthlong Township opening windows. The process is a marathon, not a sprint.

Using mass appraisal formulas. For residential properties, these formulas extrapolate from current selling prices of comparable properties in the neighborhood. For income-earning properties, these formulas extrapolate from estimated levels income and expense among businesses in the neighborhood. The County does this on a Triennial rotating schedule, with the city of Chicago, the North suburbs and the South and West Suburbs comprising the County’s three parts.

Every three years, the Cook County Assessor’s Office updates taxable values across its 38 townships, operating on a rotating schedule. In 2026, the South and West suburb townships are under reassessment. A reassessment can significantly increase your assessed value, even if nothing about your property has changed. That new value sets your tax baseline for the next three years. Reassessment years are the most important time to appeal. Property Tax Solutions monitors every township’s open window and notifies property owners and clients when it is time to file.

The Illinois Constitution requires equalized assessments among properties nearby one another and that are of comparable size, age, build, and characteristics. If properties like yours in your neighborhood carry lower assessments—on a tax per square foot basis—you have a constitutional right to an assessment reduction. This is the most common and effective basis for a Cook County appeal. Using official County data, downloaded live to our site at the time of issuance, Property Tax Solutions identifies five to twelve comparable properties with lower per square foot assessments to build your case. Properties should also be assessed at no higher than their selling prices, if they recently sold in an arm's length transaction. No formulaic estimation of market value can possibly supercede the evidentiary value of a real market transaction.

The Board of Review is independent body governed by three elected officials responsive to public concerns about property taxes. It's the Assessor's Office proposing these estimated market values across all Cook County's 1.8 million properties. The Board of Review acts as a secondary line of defense to ensure fair and uniform assessments, under the law. The Assessor's Office is the first avenue for appeal, the Board, the second. Based on the structure, one can assume the Board to be the more favorable level of appeal, and they would be correct. Don't panic if your Assessor appeal is turned down. The best opportunity is yet to come. 

PTAB is a state-level agency that hears property tax appeals after the Cook County Board of Review issues decisions. The advantage of the PTAB is firm adherence to the letter of state assessment laws. The drawback is, PTAB operates on a perpetual backlog of three or more years. If a reduction is granted, the property owner will receive a reimbursement for taxes overpaid but won't see it for at least three years. PTS takes less than 1% of cases before PTAB, and never if the appeal is based on simple lack of uniformity. 

Multiply assessed value by the state equalization factor, subtract exemptions, and multiply by the local tax rate. Performing that equation will get you precisely to the amount you owed in taxes that year, to the dollar. If your assessed value is inflated, a successful appeal with Property Tax Solutions reduces the starting number. A lower starting number always results in a lower bill.

It may sound crazy in light of recent tax bills, but it's done to prevent mass appraisal models from causing sudden tax spikes. In Cook County, residential property is assessed at 10% of market value and commercial property at 25%. Therefore, a residence assessed at $31,000 is estimated to be worth $310,000 on the market, while a business assessed at $100,000 is estimated to be worth $400,000.

This is a complicated question. If you claimed your senior freeze years ago, then you already hold the most valuable exemption in the property tax code, and should not appeal. In this case, your property's assessment was frozen years ago at far below current-day selling prices. An appeal would lack good evidence of over-valuation to draw upon. 

If you only just claimed the freeze, then an appeal is a very good idea. Here's why: If a successful appeal reduces your property's assessed value below your frozen base value, your freeze base is permanently reset to the new, lower figure. Filing an appeal will never cause you to lose your Senior Freeze or increase your tax bill. Property Tax Solutions can review your assessment and advise on whether an appeal makes sense.  

Send your lender a copy of the County’s official assessment reduction notice (we mail out copies of both the Assessor and Board of Review decision letters for every case) and our invoice, then request a payment audit to lower your monthly amount.