The current proposed City of Chicago budget relies on the State of Illinois to approve a City municipal casino, a one-time refinance fix to save $200 million (only a savings for this year). At the moment, the Chicago Teacher Union is on strike, the results of this strike will add more tax burden regardless of outcome.
While it is commendable that the Mayor’s budget did not include a property tax increase. Chicago needs to consider increasing City service fees by City Department rather than looking at the general public to fill the purse. One of these service fees is the Chicago Zoning Certification.
When a property is transferred or sold in Chicago a Water Certification is always required. At the same time, when the same property and transferred or sold a Zoning Certification costing $120.00 might be required depending on residential use. Currently, if a building is a single-family homes or multifamily up to five units this extra paperwork is required, yet a condo is a single dwelling unit and does not require this fee or paperwork.
The City of Chicago has more residences who live in condos, some of the most wealthy parts of the City are entirely condo and more importantly, Chicago has more transfers involving condominiums than any other property type annually. Using simple math, just 100,000 condo sales would net Chicago $12,000,000.00 dollars of revenue annually given the current fee structure.
The City of Chicago needs to deeply evaluate each Department to look for fair ways of revenue generation rather than relying on the over taxes collective population of Chicago.
If your property is complicated or you find the process overwhelming. A abstracting company, such as Chicago Property Report can help you.