Jean-Paul Pilon

The appellant appealed the 2021 and 2022 property assessments for a manufacturing plant in Ottawa.

The parties agreed to use the cost approach to determine the current value.

The Board preferred MPAC's Automated Costing System for determining the replacement cost new less depreciation (RCNLD) but applied a 15% deduction for functional obsolescence.

The Board determined the land value at $167,391 per acre based on comparable sales and found no equity adjustment was required.

The total assessment was reduced from $44,881,000 to $35,447,892, apportioned between Large Industrial (Full) and Industrial Excess Land (Full).

The appellants appealed property assessments for multiple properties in Ottawa.

After several adjournments, a peremptory teleconference hearing was scheduled.

The appellants failed to attend the hearing and did not communicate with the Board.

Pursuant to section 7(1) of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, the Board proceeded in their absence.

The Board granted the respondent's request to dismiss the appeals as abandoned under Rule 24(f) of the Board's Rules of Practice and Procedure.

The City of Hamilton brought a motion for disclosure and an on-site inspection in an assessment appeal concerning a distribution centre.

The appellant opposed the motion, arguing that the requested disclosure was irrelevant to the specific issues raised in its Statement of Issues.

The Assessment Review Board held that the issues in dispute are not strictly limited to those in the appellant's pleadings at this stage.

Applying the test of relevance and proportionality, the Board ordered the appellant to disclose construction contracts, rent rolls, leases, operating expenses, and recoverable charges, and to permit an on-site inspection.

The request for a breakdown of costs from a tenant's press release was denied as it was not in the appellant's possession.

The appellant appealed the property tax assessment of a 65-unit multi-residential property for the 2017 to 2022 taxation years.

The parties agreed to use the income approach but disputed the potential gross income and the capitalization rate.

The Assessment Review Board determined the potential gross income by substituting market rents for subsidized units and established a capitalization rate of 7.16% based on comparable properties.

The Board concluded the current value of the property was $10,409,916, which was reduced to $9,577,000 after applying an agreed 8% equitable adjustment, resulting in a reduction from the returned assessment of $9,970,000.

The applicant applied to the municipality for a cancellation of property taxes for the 2021 taxation year, claiming an inability to pay due to extreme poverty under section 357(1)(d.1) of the Municipal Act, 2001.

The Assessment Review Board found that the applicant had significant assets, including rental agricultural land, dividend-paying shares, and a credit with a petroleum provider, as well as a positive net income balance for the year.

The Board concluded that the applicant had not called upon all available resources to pay the taxes and dismissed the application.

In a property assessment appeal, MPAC brought a motion to disqualify the appellant's proposed expert witness, who had previously drafted the appellant's pleadings.

The Assessment Review Board granted the motion, finding that an expert witness cannot also assume the role of an advocate in the same proceeding, and ordered his expert report removed from the record.

The appellant brought a cross-motion to disqualify MPAC's expert witness on the grounds that her report lacked a summary of qualifications and that her conclusion matched the assessed value, allegedly showing bias.

The Board dismissed the cross-motion, finding no evidence of bias, but ordered the expert to amend her report to include her qualifications.

Home Depot brought a motion to strike the City of Toronto's Amended Statements of Issues and several expert reports in a property assessment appeal.

Home Depot argued that the City's reply reports improperly raised new issues, specifically highest and best use and replacement cost new, which amounted to case-splitting.

The Assessment Review Board found that pleadings cannot be struck, but prohibited the City from relying on any expert reports addressing highest and best use or replacement cost new, as these issues were not properly pled and there were no exceptional circumstances to allow late amendments.

The City was permitted to rely on its reply report concerning depreciation and economic obsolescence.

The applicant requested a review of a Board decision that dismissed their applications for property tax cancellation or reduction for the 2015 and 2017 taxation years due to sickness or extreme poverty.

The Board found no violation of the rules of natural justice or procedural fairness, and no significant error of law or fact in the original decision.

The original decision correctly applied the two-step test, finding insufficient evidence of an inability to pay, thus negating the need to consider medical evidence.

The request for review was denied.

The appellants appealed the property assessment of their single-family residence for the 2021 and 2022 taxation years.

MPAC assessed the property at $535,000, but argued at the hearing that the current value was $612,000.

The appellants argued for a value of $421,000.

The Assessment Review Board determined the current value to be $559,000 using the direct comparison approach.

The Board found no adjustment for equity was necessary and confirmed the returned assessment of $535,000.

The appellant appealed the 2021 and 2022 property assessments for a purpose-built self-storage facility in Kitchener.

The parties agreed to use the cost approach but disputed the reproduction cost new (RCN), land value, and equity adjustments.

The Assessment Review Board accepted the RCN of $8,373,495 proposed by MPAC and the appellant, rejecting the municipality's higher calculation due to problematic discretionary inputs.

The Board found no evidence for physical depreciation but applied an 11.37% reduction for external obsolescence/equity, added yardwork, and determined the land value based on comparable sales.

After applying a 5% equity adjustment, the Board reduced the total assessment from $8,766,000 to $8,645,000.

The appellants appealed the supplementary assessment of their property by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) following the construction of a new house.

The appellants argued that the cost approach should be used to determine the property's current value, based on the cost of materials.

The Assessment Review Board rejected this argument, finding that the direct comparison approach is the appropriate method for valuing residential properties.

The Board reviewed the comparable sales evidence and determined that the current value of the property was $542,000, reducing the assessment from $598,000.

The Board also found that no equitable adjustment was required.

The appellants appealed the property assessments for seven properties, consisting of open space, storm water management ponds, and landlocked buffer land.

The appellants argued the properties had zero value because subdivision agreements required them to be conveyed to the municipality at no charge.

The Assessment Review Board held that the subdivision agreements were encumbrances that must be disregarded when determining current value under the Assessment Act.

The Board accepted MPAC's comparable sales evidence and reduced the assessments accordingly, rejecting the appellants' zero-value argument.

The appellant appealed the property assessment of her single-family residential home in Richmond Hill, returned at $1,726,000 for the 2021 and 2022 taxation years.

The appellant argued the assessment should be reduced to $1,100,000, while MPAC argued for a current value of $2,008,000, reduced by 9% for equity.

The Assessment Review Board applied the direct comparison approach using bracketing to determine a current value of $1,910,719.

After applying a 9% equity reduction based on MPAC's assessment to sale ratio study, the adjusted value was $1,738,754.

The Board confirmed the returned assessment of $1,726,000.

The appellant appealed the property assessment of a commercial property in Thunder Bay for the 2019 to 2022 taxation years.

The parties agreed on the classification, the use of the cost approach, and the land value, but disputed the costing of the roofing material and whether an equity adjustment was required for the land value.

The Assessment Review Board accepted MPAC's costing system (ACS) over the appellant's proposed RSMeans manual, finding that using a different system for a single item would introduce inequity.

The Board also found that no equity adjustment was required, as MPAC's assessment-to-sales ratio study demonstrated no inequity and the appellant's comparable properties were not sufficiently similar.

The assessments were reduced slightly based on pre-hearing agreements, but the appellant's further requested reductions were dismissed.

The appellant applied to the municipality to reduce property taxes for the 2020 taxation year due to a change event under section 357(1)(a) of the Municipal Act, 2001.

When the municipal council failed to make a decision within the requisite time, the appellant appealed to the Assessment Review Board.

On consent of the parties, the Board ordered the property taxes reduced to $4,803.25.

The moving party property owner sought to extend the due dates in the Schedule of Events for property assessment appeals initiated by the municipality.

The moving party argued that exceptional circumstances, including the death of her spouse, the COVID-19 pandemic, and illness, justified the extension.

The Assessment Review Board denied the motion, finding no nexus between the cited events and the failure to meet the appeal deadlines.

The Board also noted that even if exceptional circumstances existed, it would not exercise its discretion to extend the time because the municipality and the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation had already agreed to settle the appeals, and the prejudice of restarting the process outweighed the prejudice to the moving party.

The appellant appealed the property assessment for the 2021 and 2022 taxation years.

The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation brought a motion to dismiss the appeals on the basis of issue estoppel, arguing that the issues raised—namely the property's current value and the impact of a prior expropriation—had already been determined by the Board in a previous decision concerning the 2017-2020 taxation years.

The Board found that the current value and the expropriation issue had indeed been decided previously and could not be re-litigated.

The motion was granted and the appeals were dismissed.

The moving party property owner brought a motion to extend the due dates in the Schedule of Events for property assessment appeals initiated by the municipality.

The moving party argued that the death of her spouse, the COVID-19 pandemic, and her own illness constituted exceptional circumstances under Rule 40 of the Board's Rules of Practice and Procedure.

The Board dismissed the motion, finding no nexus between the cited events and the failure to participate in the appeals, as the events occurred well before the commencement date or were not temporally linked to the missed deadlines.

The Board also noted that the other parties had already agreed to settle the appeals.

The appellants appealed the property tax assessments for two properties, arguing they should be classified as vacant land in both the commercial and residential property classes.

The Assessment Review Board confirmed that the first property was correctly returned as vacant land in the commercial property class because its principal zoning was commercial.

For the second property, the Board found it was correctly returned in the commercial property class, but altered the assessment to indicate that a 10% portion of the land was vacant land.

The City of Hamilton appealed the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation's (MPAC) assessment of a steel manufacturing property owned by Stelco Inc. The sole issue was the current value of 411.6 acres of unused residual lands.

MPAC assessed the lands at a nominal value of $100 per acre due to the likelihood of environmental contamination and lack of market interest, while the City argued for a value of $125,000 per acre based on comparable sales of uncontaminated industrial lands.

The Assessment Review Board accepted MPAC's evidence that the lands were unmarketable due to contamination concerns and confirmed the nominal assessment value.