Who actually set your value: township assessor, Supervisor of Assessments, or Board of Review
Three offices, three different jobs. Sending your argument to the wrong one wastes the only window you get.
Illinois property assessment involves several offices with similar-sounding names, and appeals get sent to the wrong one constantly. Here is who does what.
Outside Cook County
| Office | What it does | Appeal to it? |
|---|---|---|
| Township Assessor | Sets the initial value for parcels in that township | Informally, before the roll publishes |
| Supervisor of Assessments | County officer; equalises between townships, applies exemptions, publishes the roll | Sometimes, by county practice |
| Board of Review | Hears formal appeals; can raise, lower or confirm | Yes — the formal route |
| Property Tax Appeal Board | State body; hears appeals from the Board of Review | Yes, after the Board |
Not every county has township assessors. In some, the Supervisor of Assessments does the work directly.
In Cook County
Cook is structured differently, and the difference matters because it gives you two bites.
- The Cook County Assessor values every parcel in the county. There are no township assessors setting values.
- You may appeal to the Assessor first, during your township's open period. This costs nothing and cannot raise your assessment.
- You may then appeal to the Board of Review, a separate elected body, whether or not you appealed to the Assessor.
- After the Board, the Property Tax Appeal Board or the Circuit Court.
These are genuinely separate bodies with separate records. In our analysis of the Assessor's published decisions — 1.79 million of them — roughly 23% resulted in a reduction. The Board of Review keeps its own record and its own rates; a refusal at one stage says nothing definitive about the next.
The practical sequence
- Read your notice and find the deadline. It is typically 30 days from publication of your township's roll and it is strict.
- Call the office that set the value — the township assessor outside Cook, the Assessor in Cook. A factual error in the record, like a wrong floor area, can sometimes be corrected here without a formal appeal at all.
- File formally with the Board of Review if that does not resolve it, or in Cook with the Assessor first and then the Board.
- Escalate to the Property Tax Appeal Board if you disagree with the Board of Review.
The one asymmetry worth knowing
At the Cook County Assessor stage, an appeal cannot increase your assessment. The Board of Review, by contrast, has the authority to raise as well as lower — in practice rarely exercised for residential property, but it is a real difference between the two stages and worth knowing before you decide how far to take a marginal case.
Who to talk to about what
- The record is wrong — the office that set the value.
- An exemption is missing — the Supervisor of Assessments outside Cook, the Assessor in Cook. This is not an appeal and does not use the appeal process.
- The value is unfair — the Board of Review, formally, in writing, before the deadline.
- The tax rate is too high — none of them. That is set by the levies of your school district, municipality and other taxing bodies, and is a question for those boards.