Assessment Review Board

Commission de révision de l’évaluation foncière

ISSUE DATE:

January 15, 2020

FILE NO.:

DM 2020M01

Assessed Person(s):

Ontario Zoroastrian Community Foundation

Appellant(s):

Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”)

Region 15

Respondent(s):

Town of Oakville

Respondent(s):

Town of Oakville

Property Location(s):

1187 Burnhamthorpe Road East

Municipality(ies):

Town of Oakville

Roll Number(s):

2401-010-020-01500-0000

Taxation Year(s):

2017 and 2018

Hearing Event No.:

728164

Legislative Authority:

Rule 26(b) of the Assessment Review Board Rules of Practice and Procedure and Sections 39 and 40 of the Assessment Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.A.31

Heard:

January 7, 2020 by written submission

APPEARANCES:

Parties

Representative

Submissions

Ontario Zoroastrian Community Foundation

Tauzer Dalal

Moving Party

MPAC

Marissa Cheddi

Received

Town of Oakville

Not Received

MOTION DECISION OF THE BOARD DELIVERED BY JOANNE LAWS

1Ontario Zoroastrian Community Foundation (“OZCF”), a religious organization, is the owner of 1187 Burnhamthorpe Road East (the “Property”), located in the Town of Oakville.

2On November 12, 2019 OZCF filed a motion asking the Assessment Review Board (the “Board”) to accept late appeals for the 2017 and 2018 taxation years. It makes this request because the appeals were not filed by the deadlines set out in the Assessment Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.A.31 (the “Act”).

3MPAC is represented in the motion by Marissa Cheddi. She argues that the motion should be dismissed because the OZCF did not first make Requests for Reconsideration (“RfR”s) with MPAC for the 2017 and 2018 taxation years and, without doing so, Rule 26(b) of the Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, which sets out the conditions of making a late appeal, has no application.

4The Town of Oakville, which would be a party to the appeals if they are permitted, filed no submissions in the motion.

5For the following reasons, I find that the Board does not have the authority to grant the relief sought by OZCF. Therefore, its motion is denied.

Background

6OZCF made a request for reconsideration to MPAC for the 2019 taxation year which resulted in executed Minutes of Settlement increasing the exempt portion and decreasing the overall assessed value of the Property for the 2019 taxation year. The Minutes of Settlement were included in OZCF’s submissions for this motion.

7Also included with OZCF’s motion was the Property’s 2017 to 2020 Property Assessment Notice dated October 24, 2016 which set out the assessed values, the portions allocated to the residential and exempt tax classes as well as the deadlines to file RfRs for each of those four taxation years.

8OZCF’s representative, Tauzer Dalal, acknowledges that the time to file RfRs and appeals for the 2017 and 2018 taxation years have passed but that the assessments for those years should reflect the corrections made in 2019. He argues that OZCF is a small church run solely by volunteers and their focus is on managing the church rather than the complexities and nuances of tax exemptions

9Ms. Cheddi of MPAC argues that OACF does not have the ability to appeal pursuant to s. 40(3) of the Act and that the motion should be dismissed.

Appeals to this Board

10Section 39.1 provides how RfRs can be made. Section 40 of the Act provides how appeals can be made to this Board in relation to, among other things, the assessed values. Subsection 40(3) of the Act provides that making an RfR with MPAC is a precondition to filing an appeal with the Board for residential properties:

40.(3) If a property is in the residential, farm or managed forests property class, or in such other circumstances as the Minister may prescribe, no appeal may be brought to the Assessment Review Board under subsection (1) by a person who is entitled to make a request for reconsideration under section 39.1 in respect of the property, if the person has not made the request within the time required under that section. (emphasis added)

11Where making an RfR with MPAC is a precondition to filling an appeal, the Board has limited authority to extend the RfR filing deadline. This is set out in s. 40(4) of the Act.

40.(4) If, in the Board’s opinion, there are extenuating circumstances explaining why a request for reconsideration in respect of a property was not made within the time required under section 39.1 by a person who was required to do so as a precondition of appeal under subsection (3), the Board may, on an application by the person during the taxation year, extend the deadline for making a request under that section. (emphasis added)

12In summary, because the Property is assessed in the residential tax class there is a legislated two-stage process for appealing assessments. The first stage is requesting a reconsideration directly with MPAC, the assessing agency. The second stage, an appeal to this Board, can only be made once the first stage has occured. The deadline to file an RfR is legislated and can only be extended if the request is made in the taxation year for which the extension is sought.

13Because RfRs were not filed in a timely way for the 2017 and 2018 taxation years and because the Board cannot extend the time to file RfRs outside of the taxation years, the Board’s Rule 26(b) for filing late appeals has no application.

CONCLUSION

14OZCF’s motion to file late appeals for the 2017 and 2018 taxation years is denied.