More land owners in the Cowichan Valley are taking issue with BC Assessment over assessments of their properties.
Gord Getejanc, a plumber who owns a home on the Malahat, along with three other property owners in the area, which include two retirees on pensions, have been appealing their property assessments from BCA for years stating that they were consistently overvalued.
Getejanc said that despite their homes being run down and in need of significant repairs, including one property being an older double-wide mobile home, their appeals have been unsuccessful, until last year.
“In 2023, with the help of Jason Anson, a Realtor with eXp Realty, I successfully appealed my property assessment, reducing it from $1,242,000 to $809,000, which is a substantial 34.85 per cent decrease, resulting in savings of $433,000,” he said.
“However, BCA has now raised the value back up by 43 per cent this year, despite the real estate market being in a downturn. To put this into perspective, my property next door at 337 McCurdy Drive, which is very similar in land, saw a two per cent decrease. How can one property go down two per cent while the one next to it increases by 43 per cent? It seems like they didn't like that I won the reduction from the Property Assessment Appeal Board decision, so they just added it back in 2024. So I’m back in line trying to resolve it once again at the PAAB.”
Getejanc said his ongoing struggle over his property assessments underscores the need for transparency and fairness in the property assessment system. He said it serves as a rallying point for other homeowners facing similar challenges and prompts critical questions about the integrity of property assessments in the Cowichan Valley and beyond.
“I urge politicians and community leaders to address this issue urgently,” Getejanc said. “The fairness and integrity of our property-assessment system depend on it.”
Anson has successfully helped dozens of homeowners in the Youbou area appeal property assessments that they considered too high over the last couple of years. He said the continuous over assessments year after year are not limited to the Cowichan Valley region alone, but is a Vancouver Island and provincial-wide issue in all rural areas, especially for waterfront owners.
Anson said he agrees with the views of Derek Holloway, a retired senior appraiser from BCA who has launched a province-wide public awareness campaign to highlight what he says is under-assessment of some commercial and industrial properties in B.C.
Holloway claims that many owners of of large commercial and industrial properties in the province routinely and successfully appeal their assessments from BCA, and then the tax burden may be shifted to residential properties which are then over-assessed.
“BCA can’t match the resources of commercial appeal agents who frustrate the system, leading to appeal backlogs and forcing local governments to shift the tax burden onto homeowners,” Anson said.
BC Assessment didn't comment by press time.
