Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Property Assessment Appeal Board has extended the appeal deadline for property assessments to June 1.
In a statement, the board said it is aware of the state of emergency and the effect it might be having on parties trying to access the board in order to appeal.
Originally, the appeal deadline had been April 30.
The extension is valid only for appeals that were required to be filed by the original appeal date and no other appeals.
According to B.C. Assessment, which this year sent out 374,600 assessments to property owners on Vancouver Island, the rate of assessment appeals has remained steady at below 2% over the past 10 to 15 years.
Those who believed their property assessment did not reflect market value and wished to appeal had to file a notice of complaint by Jan. 31 to ask for an independent review by a property assessment review panel.
This year, most of Greater Victoria’s 13 municipalities saw the typical assessed value of single-family homes either drop or stay the same as 2019.
B.C. Assessment had warned toward the end of last year that values could drop by as much as 10 per cent in some areas of Greater Victoria due to a softening of the real estate market.
The assessment is an estimate of a property’s market value as of July 1, 2019, and physical condition as of Oct. 31, 2019.
