Cook County Property Tax Conspiracy (off-topic)

I need to go off topic today. Instead of discussing whatever's bothering the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian this week, I need to write about what's bothering ME...namely, Cook County property taxes.

My husband and I purchased our first home on the northwest side of Chicago back in Spring 2007. Everything was going pretty well until Fall 2008, when we received a tax bill that was $2,000 higher than it should have been. The deadline to file an appeal happened to be the day after we received our bill in the mail (?!?!), so we were able to squeeze in right at the end. Although it took many months to resolve, Cook County finally issued us a big fat refund, but we wasted so many hours on the phone with those imbeciles, it gives me a headache just thinking about it. Also, because our mortgage company controls our escrow account and pays our property taxes automatically, we had to deal with an inflated mortgage payment for a few months, which really hurt our bank account.

Flash forward to last week. As usual, Cook County was late mailing the property tax bills again this fall. We received our bill late last week and anticipated that it would go up a few hundred bucks. We did NOT expect it to go up $1,100, which is exactly what happened. This time, however, calling the Treasurer's Office and Assessor's Office and going down to the county building has gotten us absolutely nowhere, because nobody who works at any of those places can (or will) give us a straight answer about ANYTHING. And also, we discovered that Cook County's appeal deadline for this tax period was the first week of October and all appeals are currently closed.

I'm going to repeat that...the County mailed everyone's property tax bills the last week of October, approximately four weeks AFTER the appeal deadline passed. So basically, no one is allowed to appeal their taxes for this period unless they had the ability to see into the future a month or so ago and PREDICT how much money the County would try and screw out of them this time around.

Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture? Does this even sound LEGAL to you? Hell no! Why is the County allowed to get away with stuff like this?! And quite frankly, why hasn't the media been all over this story? Cook County is raping citizens! The property tax system in Cook County is completely backwards and makes absolutely no sense to begin with, but this crap with the appeal deadline is just unbelievable. Cook County is screwing every single homeowner, and there's nothing we can do about it. At least, that's what they want us to believe.

As a result of this "mix-up," my monthly escrow payment is going to rise almost $200 AGAIN. I'm in contact with several attorneys and tax specialists, who have all done a property analysis and assured me that I'm correct in my thinking: I am getting severely hosed by Cook County. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who's dealing with this.

I am tired of the corrupt jerk-offs who run Cook County thinking that they can get away with whatever they want. I am not just going to sit back and take this, and I hope you aren't, either. Don't just cry and moan about your tax bill and then pay it anyway. Fight back, people! Hire an attorney or tax specialist...many of them won't charge you any fees up front and will just take a percentage of your initial refund. Call the Cook County Treasurer and Assessor's Offices every day and complain. Write letters to your local government officials, and contact all local media outlets and urge them to give this story the coverage it deserves. We need to stick together and put these *********** in their place!