Assessment Review Board

Commission de révision de l’évaluation foncière

ISSUE DATE: July 12, 2018

FILE NO.: DM 2018M17

Moving Party: George Hatcher

Respondent: Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”), Region 05

Respondent: City of Kingston

Property Location: 3965 Princess Street

Municipality: City of Kingston

Roll Number: 1011-080-220-06050-0000

Appeal Number: 3267573

Taxation Year: 2017

Hearing Event No.: 700877

Legislative Authority: Rule 26(b) of the Assessment Review Board Rules of Practice and Procedure

Heard: June 22, 2018 in Kingston, Ontario

APPEARANCES:

Parties	Representative
George Hatcher	Self-represented
MAPC	Stephane Rozon
City of Kingston	Debbie Brennan

DISPOSITION OF THE BOARD DELIVERED BY SCOTT McANSH

1George Hatcher brings this motion seeking permission to file the 2017 appeal of his property after the filing deadline set in subsection 40(5) of the Assessment Act, RSO 1990, c A.31 (the “Act”). The property is located at 3965 Princess Street in the City of Kingston. It is agreed that Mr. Hatcher filed a timely request for reconsideration of the 2017 assessment with MPAC. He did not receive MPAC’s response to that request for reconsideration until he made inquiries about its status sometime later. He finally obtained MPAC’s response, which stated that his filing deadline to this Assessment Review Board (“Board”) had passed months before. Mr. Hatcher filed this application 29 days after he became aware of MPAC’s response. MPAC and the City of Kingston both consent to Mr. Hatcher’s application for late filing.

2I find that Mr. Hatcher’s appeal for the 2017 taxation year was not late. That appeal will therefore be processed by the Board. Because that appeal was not disposed of before March 31, 2018, an appeal of the 2018 assessment of the property is also created pursuant to the Act. The Registrar will assign commencement dates for both the 2017 and 2018 appeals.

Filing Deadlines

3Mr. Hatcher’s attempt to appeal the assessment on August 11, 2017 was made one week before his August 18, 2017 filing deadline. That later deadline was triggered because MPAC did not mail its response to Mr. Hatcher’s request for reconsideration to an address where Mr. Hatcher was likely to receive that response.

4There is no dispute on any of the facts. Mr. Hatcher filed a timely request for reconsideration of the 2017 assessment of the property with MPAC. He did not, however, receive any response from MPAC until he approached them on July 13, 2017. MPAC then provided Mr. Hatcher with minutes of settlement that MPAC had signed over five months before, on February 10, 2017, which stated that his last day to appeal the assessment was May 11, 2017. That is, he was not aware of the status of his request for reconsideration until just over two months after he allegedly ran out of time to appeal MPAC’s response to this Board.

5There are two ways to calculate the 2017 filing deadline set out in subsection 40(5) of the Act. The first paragraph applies if MPAC mails its response on time and makes the deadline “90 days after the issuance date printed on the notice.” Here, that was the May 11, 2017 deadline stated in MPAC’s proposed minutes of settlement. The second paragraph applies if MPAC has not mailed its response by the time it is required to do so and sets the filing deadline as “90 days after the notice should have been mailed by the corporation.” The second timeline applies to Mr. Hatcher because MPAC did not mail its response to an address where Mr. Hatcher was likely to receive it before May 20, 2017.

6MPAC admitted at the hearing that it was sending correspondence regarding this appeal to an address where Mr. Hatcher no longer lived. This was despite Mr. Hatcher having had updated his mailing address. That is an admission that the notice was not mailed to an address where it was likely to come to Mr. Hatcher’s attention. Paragraph 1 of subsection 40(5) applies if “the assessment corporation has mailed a notice of reconsideration.” Notice is not “mailed” if it is sent to a location where MPAC ought to have known it would not be received. It would be unfair to apply the date printed on the notice when MPAC did not take reasonable steps to ensure its response would actually be received by Mr. Hatcher. MPAC’s mailing of their response triggers a taxpayer’s statutory filing deadline. It is a breach of natural justice to apply that deadline when MPAC ought to have known that the notice it was mailing would not be. The timeline in paragraph 1 of subsection 40(5) was the May 11, 2017 deadline set out in MPAC’s correspondence to Mr. Hatcher but, because notice was not mailed to Mr. Hatcher, that timeline does not apply to his 2017 appeal.

7Paragraph 2 of subsection 40(5) applies here because MPAC did not mail its response on time. That paragraph set the filing deadline at “90 days after the notice should have been mailed by the corporation.” In its January 3, 2017 letter requesting an extension of time to respond, MPAC stated that its new response deadline was May 20, 2017. That is when the response should have been mailed to Mr. Hatcher. I find that Mr. Hatcher’s filing deadline is August 18, 2017 because MPAC did not mail its response to where Mr. Hatcher would receive it before May 20, 2017. Mr. Hatcher’s filing deadline was therefore 90 days after May 20, 2017, which I calculate to be August 18, 2017.

8Mr. Hatcher attempted to file a 2017 appeal on August 11, 2017 by filing this application for permission to file a late appeal. That was a full week before his August 18, 2017 filing deadline. The appeal was filed on time and will be processed by the Board.

2018 Appeal

9Clause 40(26)(b) of the Act creates deemed appeals if the same general reassessment applies and “the appeal is not finally disposed of before March 31 of the subsequent taxation year.” Both of those conditions are met here. The 2017 and 2018 taxation years are both premised on the January 1, 2016 valuation day and subsection 1(1) of the Act defines general reassessment as “the application of a new valuation day.” Additionally, the 2017 appeal for this property has not yet been created, so clearly it has not yet been disposed of. The Board will, therefore, create a 2018 deemed appeal for this property, in addition to the 2017 appeal filed by Mr. Hatcher.

CONCLUSION

10MPAC did not mail its response to Mr. Hatcher’s request for reconsideration of the 2017 assessment of the property to an address where he was likely to see it. That failure to effectively mail a response by the deadline triggered Mr. Hatcher’s later filing deadline for his appeal to this Board. He filed this application a week before that later deadline. That appeal was filed in time and will be processed by the Board. Additionally, the Act deems that Mr. Hatcher has also appealed the 2018 assessment of the property. The Registrar will advise the parties once a commencement date has been set for both the 2017 and 2018 appeals.