Assessment Review Board

Commission de révision de l’évaluation foncière

ISSUE DATE: October 08, 2019

FILE NO.: DM 2019M47

Moving Party(ies): Angela Fiona Brown and Philip Walter Brown

Respondent(s): Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”) Region 27

Respondent(s): Municipality of Leamington

Property Location(s): 454 Talbot Road East

Municipality(ies): Municipality of Leamington

Roll Number(s): 3706-580-000-00104-0000

Taxation Year(s): 2017

Hearing Event No.: 724367

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

Heard: October 3, 2019 by written submission

Parties	Representative	Submissions
Angela Fiona Brown and Philip Walter Brown	Self-represented	Moving Party
MPAC	Doug Keyes	Received
Municipality of Leamington		Not Received

DISPOSITION OF THE BOARD DELIVERED BY JEAN-PAUL PILON

DISPOSITION OF MOTION

1Angela Fiona Brown and Philip Walter Brown are owners of the property at 454 Talbot Road East in the Town of Leamington. Mr. Brown brings this motion to extend time to file a late appeal for the 2017 year.

2MPAC, represented by Doug Keyes, opposes the motion. The Municipality of Leamington, which would be a party to any appeal, made no submissions in the motion.

3For the reasons that follow, this motion is denied because Mr. Brown has not met all of the requirements of Rule 26(b) of the Assessment Review Board’s (the “Board”) Rules of Practice and Procedure (the “Rules”).

Background

4The affidavit that Mr. Brown affirmed on June 17, 2019 explains in a somewhat confusing way the events leading to the motion. What appears to have happened is that Mr. Brown was dissatisfied with the assessment of his land and house and filed a Request for Reconsideration (“RfR”) for the 2017 taxation year. This resulted in a revised assessment with which Mr. Brown was also dissatisfied. He says he then appealed the assessment of the land but not the house in error, assuming he needed to file only one appeal of the two to address both. He says he realized his error when he discovered that his appeal was in the Board’s more complex general stream of appeals, presumably because it was assessed in the farm tax class which would follow that stream, where a residential appeal would have been in the summary stream. He now brings this motion because he wants to file an appeal for the residential portion of his property.

5MPAC’s written argument dated September 17, 2019 confirms the same understanding of the factual basis for this motion.

The Taxation Year in Question

6Mr. Brown also misstates the taxation year for which the motion to extend time is brought in the header of his affidavit. It says that the taxation year in question is 2016, when his affidavit only makes reference to the 2017 taxation year. MPAC, on the other hand, suggests in its written argument that the years covered are 2017 to 2019, but Mr. Brown is the moving party and his affidavit makes no reference to the 2018 or 2019 taxation years.

7The substance of Mr. Brown’s submissions pertain to the 2017 taxation year, therefore the Board finds that the taxation year that is the subject of the motion is 2017.

Rule 26(b)

8Rule 26(b) of the Board’s Rules provides that:

26. The Board may accept an appeal received after the time set out in the Assessment Act the appellant satisfies the Board, by way of affidavit evidence, that:

(b) the appellant is a person entitled to receive a notice of assessment who did not receive notice and filed the appeal with the Board within 30 days of becoming aware of the assessment or classification that is the subject of the appeal.

9In Cherry Beach Sailing Clubs v. Municipal Property Assessment Corp. Region 9, 2018 CanLII 107727 (ON ARB) at para. 8, the Board determined that a late appeal could only be granted if all three conditions are met.

Entitled to Notice

10It is not disputed that Mr. Brown is one of the owners of the property and entitled to receive a notice of assessment. He therefore meets the first requirement of Rule 26(b).

Did Not Receive Notice

11The second requirement is that Mr. Brown, as a person entitled to receive a notice of assessment, did not receive notice. Mr. Brown’s affidavit does not say that he did not receive a notice of assessment. In fact, it implies that he did receive a notice of assessment because he was dissatisfied with the assessment and filed the RfR and an appeal within the time allowed. Based on the evidence submitted, the Board finds Mr. Brown did receive notice of the assessment and therefore does not therefore meet the second requirement of Rule 26(b).

Timeliness

12The third requirement of Rule 26(b) is that the appeal had to have been filed within 30 days of Mr. Brown becoming aware of the assessment. This information is also missing from Mr. Brown’s affidavit, but Mr. Brown says that after having received the notice of assessment, he made the erroneous choice to appeal one assessment and not the other. Since these events appear to have occurred in 2017, it suggests Mr. Brown knew of the assessment in 2017 which would put him well beyond the 30-day limit when this motion was filed in 2019. The Board therefore finds that Mr. Brown did not file an appeal within 30 days of becoming aware of the assessment and does not meet the second requirement of Rule 26(b).

13As Mr. Brown only meets one of the three requirements of Rule 26(b), his motion must be denied.

CONCLUSION

14Philip Walter Brown’s motion to extend time to file an appeal for the 2017 taxation year is denied.