Many Saguenay citizens have consulted their assessment role published two days ago on the city’s website. Many were surprised to learn that the value of their home increased by 37% on average.
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Saguenay’s new assessment role is far from going unnoticed. Others even had a higher increase. Some are worried about the upcoming tax notice.
“For me, it’s around $130,000 increase for my house. It was really a surprise to me to see property values increase like that,” said a Shipshaw resident.
He is not the only one, since the value of residences in Saguenay has increased on average by 37%.
“I’m not happy, it’s too much,” said another citizen of Saguenay.
TVA News verified the evaluation of a randomly chosen residence. Its value jumped from $308,000 to $414,000, or $106,000 more.
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Strong reactions to Shipshaw
Some people who live on the outskirts of Shipshaw have difficulty explaining why their assessment was increased by 55%.
“What more am I going to get for 55%? I’m on the outskirts, we live in Shipshaw. What more am I going to get? I am far from all the centers, I find it exaggerated,” lamented a resident of the district.
“It’s going to have an impact on the tax bill (sic), that’s for sure,” said another.
“It was automatic that the day citizens were going to learn that they would have an assessment role above 37.5%, it is certain that people were going to react,” admitted the municipal councilor of the sector, Claude Bouchard.
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And taxes?
The City assures that the tax rate will be revised downwards.
“What I was told by the finance committees is that it is 37, 38, 39, people will play with it so that our tax bill (sic) increases by around 2-3%,” said Mr. Bouchard.
Each municipal administration in Quebec is required to review its assessment role every three years. The increase depends on the real estate market depending on the sector.
“It’s not something we control, unfortunately,” said the municipal councilor. It’s an external firm that does this assessment, it’s not us.
“I think that, as a city, we would have had some communication work to do to explain to them why we do an assessment roll every 3 years, who does the assessments, what are the factors that cause houses to increase and what is the impact on the tax bill (sic). Maybe for acceptance it would be easier for citizens,” he added.
Citizens should receive their new tax notice in the first days of 2025.
To see the full report, click on the video above.
