South Cook News

Irving Myrick only recently discovered that the property taxes on the “retirement home” he bought in Markham in 2012 were double what he thought he owed at the time of purchase. Now he says he’s fighting just to be able to afford to keep the house.

“The way I found out was ABC (Channel 7) was over at my neighbor’s a couple of weeks ago doing a story about the taxes on their house,” Myrick told South Cook News. “Then they looked at mine and found out the same thing was happening to my house.”

In a practice called PIN slamming, Cook County assigned a property index number to both of the lots on which the homes were built. With penalties, Myrick owes over $42,000 in back taxes on what he estimates to be a $190,000 house.

State Sen. Napoleon Harris (D-Harvey)

Myrick said that a local Huntington Bank branch has reached out to help, but he has heard from no one else including his state Sen. Napoleon Harris (D-Harvey) and his state Rep. William Davis (D-East Hazel Crest.)

Kenneth Williams, local community leader and former District 205 board member, said that he wasn’t surprised when told that area lawmakers have offered no help.

“They’re not interested in what goes on in their own communities,” Williams said. “They are servants paid by the leadership in Springfield. They vote the way they are told to vote.”

Williams added that high property taxes are one of the top problems for people in the community.

“A lot of people pay as much in taxes here as they do in Winnetka," he said. "I bought a house in South Holland eight years ago for $250,000. The value went down to $137,000 but I still had to pay over $7,000 a year in property taxes. I had to put it up at a sheriff’s sale.”

PIN slamming is one of the reasons property taxes are so high and it’s more common than homeowners realize said John Mirkovic, Deputy Recorder of Deeds for Cook County

“It’s not necessarily malicious,” Mirkovic said. “It’s just that the property tax system is so complicated and spread out over so many offices that it’s stacked against regular people. It’s set up that way intentionally so that people have to rely on attorneys and title companies.”

But Myrick said neither an attorney he hired nor a title company he used alerted him that the house had two PINs assigned to it.  Now he’s debating whether to pay another attorney a $1,000 retainer to sue the title company and his original attorney.

“Now I’m in for more hurt having to go out and hire another lawyer,” he said.

Williams said that Channel 7 recently filmed a pilot show at a barber shop in Dolton.

“It’s where everyone meets to discuss the topics of the day,” he said. “The topic that day was property taxes. I hope this starts getting Springfield more interested in what’s going on here.”

Statewide, Illinois homeowners pay 2.3 percent of their home value in property taxes: that's 260 percent higher than homeowners in Indiana (0.87 percent) and 383 percent higher than in Colorado (0.60 percent).