TAXPERTS PROPERTY SERVICES LIMITED

4. OBTAINING DATA FROM MPAC WEBSITE

How To Use “About My Property” on the MPAC Website:

Using a section of MPAC’s website called “About My Property” can help you to obtain information about properties in your neighborhood and compare details of these properties to yours. You are allowed to view Assessment amounts and some brief details (in the “Property Detail Snapshot” area) on up to 100 properties and from those 100, you can select up to 24 properties to add to a report (called “My Neighbourhood Properties of Interest”) to be used in your Request for Reconsideration etc.

Remember that the Assessment Act refers to “similar properties in your vicinity” and that the two main factors used to determine whether a property qualifies as a comparable property are the inside square footage and the quality code. Each property should be within 100 to 150 square feet of one another but once you get to the 5,000 to 6,000 square foot range, a plus or minus of about 250 to 300 square feet might be acceptable. Remember to expressly request the quality codes for all MPAC `comparables’, your property and your `comparables’ in writing. You can request detailed reports on up to 24 properties. Use someone with access to MLS to select no more than 12 sales in the January 2007 to early 2009 period focusing on properties of the same size, quality code and structure such as 2-storey detached. The other 12 detailed reports should be used for `comparable’ properties which are ASSESSED much lower than yours. You will need the extra data from MPAC to ensure that they stand up as qualifying as comparable properties in your dealings with an MPAC Assessor and at an ARB hearing where ARB is mandated under the Assessment Act in s. 44(3) to: “have reference to the value at which similar lands in the vicinity are assessed and adjust the assessment of the land to make it equitable with similar lands in the vicinity”. More emphasis is being placed on making assessments consistent under the new process for property appeals.

Using MPAC’s Website
The following is a brief guide to help you access MPAC’s website and obtain the information.

1) Log in - With your 2008 Property assessment notice entitled “Property Assessment Notice 2008 for the 2009 – 2012 property tax years” in hand, go to the section in MPAC’s website at “https://portal.mpac.ca/wps/portal/” (ignore the quotation marks). This is the Log-in screen to “About My Property”.

1. This information will show you the 2008 assessed value, the 2005 assessed value and the total of difference of $200,000.

2. Under the phase-in rules, 25% of the difference will be added to the 2009 assessment, 50% to 2010, 75% to 2011 and all of it to the 2012 assessment. The circled area number “2” shows the phased-in amounts for each year.

3. The discussion in the area numbered “3” shows figures an ANNUAL average neighbourhood increase of 5.49% whereas your home went up 7.24%. This reflects one-quarter of the increase in your assessment in terms of a percentage. By multiplying by 4 you can see that the average assessment increase in your neighbourhood was 21.16 while your assessment rose 28.96%. This is much higher than the 25% increase is assessment which we feel should trigger an automatically filing of an RFR just to make MPAC Assessors sweat to justify the increase.

4. Area “4” has a very few details on your property. Go to the MPAC service “About Your Property” and get the greatly detailed printout on your home entitled “Your Property Profile”. Go through that report carefully to make sure there are no factual errors in the information MPAC has on your home.

5. The area marked “5” will give you the Roll Number on your property as well as the “Password” assigned to you so that you can access the MPAC website and request data.

At the bottom right-hand side of your Property Assessment Notice 2008, you will find a User ID (which is in fact your Roll number) and your Password to log in to “About My Property”. Enter this information in the boxes provided at the Log-in screen.

2) Once you have logged in to “About My Property”, you will find a split screen.

On the left hand side is a “Message Alert” and on the right hand side is a scrollable screen inside a blue box containing a report called “Your Property Profile”. This report contains many details regarding your specific property.

You can view the report by scrolling around the screen, but we recommend that you print it for greater clarity. You can print the report by clicking “Save/Print” in the top frame of the blue box. This will actually save the report in a pdf file which you can then print using your favourite pdf file viewer. [ We recommend Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader. ] The report looks like this. Note that it gives the specific “Homogenous Neighbourhood” and the “Condition” in the second column. This information on your “subject property” is MUCH more detailed than you will get when requesting details on “comparable properties” in the report entitled “My Neighbourhood Properties of Interest” for which we have provided a sample printout below at paragraph 4.

3) To view details about other properties in your neighbourhood, scroll down to the bottom of the screen. At the bottom right of the screen, click on “View other properties around my Neighborhood”.

The resultant screen should contain a map of your neighbourhood on the left half of the screen and a section called “Property Detail Snapshot”. (We have had problems in displaying the Map.)

Below, we are showing the lower part of the above screen. Under the box where a map of your area should appear you will see a heading entitled “Property Search” . In the boxes under this heading, you can enter addresses of properties in your neighbourhood which you wish to review. Make sure you are selecting carefully with an eye on similar properties that sold for less than your assessment and, secondly, similar properties assessed lower that your property. Enter an address of a property in your neighbourhood and click on the box to the right entitled “Search”.

The property information will be displayed in the top right corner of the Screen under the “Property Detailed Snapshot” area. This area will display a brief overview of the property including the current assessed value. You may view up to 100 properties in this manner. By hitting the Add button, the property will be added to the list growing under “Properties of Interest List”. This list will be used to generate a report called “My Neighbourhood Properties of Interest” which will display your property information along with up to 24 other properties of your choosing.

Continue reviewing and adding properties in the same manner above until you feel you have sufficient and appropriate comparables to support your position. You can only get detailed reports on 24 properties. Of the 24 properties, we recommend that you get details on about 12 sales for lower than your assessed value and on about 12 assessments at lower than your assessed value. You can read under discussion #2, “Assessment Principles” that we perceive a trend towards more consistent assessments due to ARB members giving greater weight than in the past to similar properties assessed lower than your property, For all selections, try and ensure that they are comparable in description, quality, square footage, inside and exterior features etc. MLS data will have helped you to narrow down your selections to the more relevant properties. “View Full Report” and then Save/Print.

4) You must save the report by clicking “View Full Report” and Save/Print, otherwise your work will be lost.

Again, the report will be saved in PDF and you can print it using your PDF viewer. The report called “My Neighbourhood Properties of Interest” looks like this.

1. Note that the “Homogenous Neighbourhood” zone for all properties will be shown.

Log off at the end of your session.

Remember to save frequently as we encountered frequent problems in being timed-out and not having the information saved after much time spent searching. You might have to go in and quickly select about 6 properties then print off the information. That is get information in batches of 5 to 6 at a time if you keep on getting timed out. The MPAC website will be inundated with users from now well into the fall as owners proceed through the Request for Reconsideration process.

As discussed in other sections, we feel that the details of the report “My Neighbourhood Properties of Interest” (which provides side by side comparison on up 24 properties) are meager in comparison to the report given on the subject property in “Your Property Profile”. We believe there is no excuse for this disparity of information between the two documents.