What to do about exemptions in your first year of ownership
The seller's exemptions do not become yours. Assume nothing carried over.
The first year of ownership is when exemptions are most often lost, because the previous owner's benefits come off and nothing replaces them until you act.
The central fact
Week one
- Apply for the general homestead exemption. Worth around $750 a year in Cook County. A short form, usually online, filed with the Assessor in Cook or the Supervisor of Assessments elsewhere.
- Apply for anything else you qualify for — senior, veteran, disability, and separately the senior freeze if income qualifies.
- Update your mailing address with the county. An address elsewhere is one of the things that triggers an occupancy review.
Month one: check the record
New owners find errors more often than anyone, because they have just had the property measured, surveyed and inspected. Pull the property record card and compare:
- Floor area against your closing appraisal or survey
- Bedrooms, bathrooms, basement finish, garage
- Lot size against the plat
- Class code against what the property actually is
An error here is the strongest kind of argument, and it can often be corrected with a phone call rather than an appeal.
Then decide about appealing
Divide the assessed value by your ratio — 0.10 in Cook, 0.3333 elsewhere — and compare against what you paid.
| You paid | What to do |
|---|---|
| Less than the implied value | File on market value; attach the closing statement. Close to decisive. |
| About the implied value | Check uniformity instead. |
| More than the implied value | Do not file on market value — you would be supplying the evidence against yourself. |
The year-two trap
Your first bill may reflect the seller's exemptions and the pre-sale assessment. The second one often does not, and the jump surprises people who assumed the first bill was the normal level.
Two things drive it: the seller's exemptions coming off, and the assessment moving toward your purchase price at the next reassessment. Neither is an error. Both are worth expecting.
The checklist
- ☐ General homestead exemption applied for
- ☐ Any other exemptions applied for
- ☐ Mailing address updated
- ☐ Property record checked against the building
- ☐ Implied value compared against purchase price
- ☐ Appeal deadline for next year diarised
Ask the seller what they had
A question worth asking before closing: which exemptions were applied to this property, and were any of them income or age tested?
The answer tells you two things. It tells you what you may be able to claim yourself — and more usefully, it tells you whether the bill you have been shown reflects an exemption you will not inherit. A property carrying an elderly seller's senior exemption and assessment freeze can look dramatically cheaper to run than it will be for you.
The estimate to ask for
Ask your agent or the county what a full year's tax looks like on this property with your exemptions rather than the seller's. That is the number to budget from. The bill on the listing sheet is the seller's bill, and for an older seller in a long-held home it can be a fraction of yours.