J.B. Pritzker is under fire this week for abusing vacancy laws to get massive property tax breaks on his two Gold Coast mansions totaling nearly a quarter million dollars.
And Pritzker is slated to get the same tax breaks this year.
But questions remain – such as why the Pritzkers felt it necessary to disconnect all the toilets in the home – allowing them to claim the home as uninhabitable.
Pritzker is taking money from Chicago Public Schools and other City services, and even liberals are taking note.
Mark Brown from the Chicago Sun-Times penned a column yesterday saying that Pritzker “is not paying his fair share of taxes”.
This is not about the commonplace practice of appealing property taxes on someone’s principal place of residence. This is about a very unique situation of a homeowner buying an expensive property next door and being rewarded for being a lousy owner.
As explained by the assessor’s office, this tax break is intended for someone buying a property to rehab it, the idea being they shouldn’t be required to pay full price on their taxes if nobody can live there.
I can’t speak to the exact condition of the home when Pritzker bought it, but I can tell you it was definitely habitable.
At some point afterward, however, all the toilets in the home were disconnected. The Pritzkers haven’t explained when this happened or why it was necessary.
* Pritzker told reporters yesterday in Springfield that the photos shared yesterday by the Republicans didn’t show the house’s problems. He claimed, for instance, that the staircase was falling off the wall…
“It was in terrible disrepair. Actually, the stairs were coming off the wall, the basement is unfinished and has a dirt floor, and so there was nothing in good shape in that house at all, and there was nothing that we did other than we asked that our taxes be reassessed because it wasn’t worth what we paid for it,” Pritzker said. “The truth is we probably over paid for the house, and lots of people have done that, especially in the environment of falling home prices.”
He also said he plans to rehab the house sometime in the future.
Pritzker paid $3.7 million for the building, below the original list price of $6 million. According to a Chicago magazine story by my colleague Dennis Rodkin, he became only the third owner in 118 years of a building designed by Holabird & Root with unique features. […]
It’s unclear if the building declined with age or if there was internal demolition prior to a possible rehab, but in an appeal filed with Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios, the assessed value of the property dropped from $6.3 million to $1.1 million, saving Pritzker $230,000 in property taxes so far.
OK, so read between the lines a bit. Pritzker paid $3.7 million for the house, but it’s assessed value remained at or above its original $6 million list price. Usually, you’d file for a reassessment right away if you bought a house for much lower than its assessed valuation, but Pritzker didn’t, which cost him some bucks he didn’t need to be paying.
Not defending him or anything, but on that point some of this isn’t totally out of the realm of reasonableness.
Greg also reports that Pritzker claims to have used the mansion next door “as a staging area for the complete renovation of his home next door.
Still, this is all kinda weird to me.
* Meanwhile, Mark Maxwell reports that Pritzker’s property tax appeals attorneys contributed $25,000 to Assessor Joe Berrios (no surprise in that county). He also has Chris Kennedy’s reaction…
“It’s an inherently corruptible system. We ought to reject it. Nobody is confident that the system yields a fair outcome either for individuals - but most importantly - for the kids who depend on the income to fund their schools.”
“This is an attack by Bruce Rauner and by the GOP because they really have nothing else to talk about, no accomplishments to tout, and so they’re taking any shot they can take. Obviously they are taking a shot at me because they think I’m a threat to them.”
* Sen. Daniel Biss gets the last word…
Right now, two billionaires running for #ilgov are fighting each other over who did the better job of getting out of paying their taxes.
The head shaking part of this on Pritzker’s part is, why give your opposition an issue when you don’t need to? What’s he waiting on in terms of rehabbing this place? It’s not like he’s doing it himself, or waiting for financing. Hire someone, spend an afternoon with a contractor and designer specifying what you want and let them get it done. There. Issue resolved that should have been resolved before announcing.
- Anonin-aint-easy - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:40 am:
Should I be more concerned about this? Does not seem that damaging to me, honestly I kinda like that JB is getting hit by this now so he can work on his spin and damage control. Assuming he gets the nomination, he will need to be in top form for the real fight in the general and this will help prepare him.
Maybe I’m naive here, but I have zero issue with someone trying to get their property taxes corrected. Why is this such a major issue in the minds of the GOP when their leader has publicly stated that he thinks these taxes are too high and wants to freeze them permanently?
- Curl of the Burl - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:57 am:
OkOk- this is a political site and we are 17.5 months from the 2018 election. This is big news. And people may not like this but Rauner’s people know how to push and keep a story going.
That Pat Brady. Third rate carny barkers think this was overselling. The things people do to seem…
To the post,
Rauner isn’t going to stop. No way. No how.
Unless Pritzker and his Crew want to be chasing their own Oppo Dumps all summer, day in, day out, y’all need to go after Rauner and stay there until things go back to a simmer, or things keep rolling and one of y’all can’t outrun the Oppo.
Pritzker has the cash. Why aren’t they going two prong?
What’s the delay? What’s the holdup?
So confusing.
Pritzker Crew, ding tell me this caught you flat-footed…
There should be real estate sales documents attesting to the condition of the house. Every house I have bought or looked into buying had house inspection documents.
So JB should just release those documents to make this story fade away. Although I expect it will fade away in a few weeks if we don’t get a budget before the end of May.
Perhaps Pritzker could also talk about how much money Rauner saved by letting the tax increase expire. Or he could discuss some of Rauner’s other money making schemes.
== Usually, you’d file for a reassessment right away if you bought a house for much lower than its assessed valuation ==
First thing I had my son do right after he bought his house was appeal.the valuation. Found out Sangamon County automatically resets the valuation to the sales price whenever a sale occurs.
Appealing your property taxes being big news is laughable. Sun-Times is pretty much GOP controlled like the Tribune. All those newspapers did was report on the story like they usually do, but to egg it on like this is attempting to blow it up.
I don’t think that a newspaper reporting this story should be labeled as “attacks continue”
I am just waiting to see what other oppo gets released. They will play this out as long as the news cycle will let them, and then another round of something will come out. And then another. They have the money and time to throw everything out to see what sticks.
===Getting a reduction without permitting the property assessors to inspect a building===
Lol, do you think the Assessor’s office sends people out to inspect all of the buildings that apply for a reduction? I’ve gone through this process. I’m one of the 50,000 Cook County property owners that has appealed an assessment. The Board of Review and the Assessor examine assessments on comparable properties.
Uniformity is a bed rock principle of property assessment in Cook County. In other words, if your neighbors have similar properties, your assessment should be similar to theirs, and vice-versa.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:32 am:
My impression is this story was fed to reporters from some Democratic sources. If I had the opposition research, I would have released it on the eve of the date property taxes were due, to get a bigger bang out of the story.
Property taxes is a huge issue in Illinois. A lot bigger than most Democrats around here sense from the electorate. In fact, the tone deafness on this issue is pretty stunning to me.
So let’s see if I can figure out this story: An extremely wealthy individual living in the Gold Coast area of Chicago buys the mansion next door for $3.9 million, removes the toilets, lets the property sit and then claims it is “uninhabitable” and wants it taxed on that basis.
After all, that’s what 50,000 others have done who have appealed their property taxes last year. Huh? For a man running expensive ads on TV to build his name recognition trying to be “one of us regular folk” or portray himself as our best spokesman, how out of touch does that sound?
I asked when this story broke, where are all the city inspectors who swarm over properties of ordinary individuals with building code violations? Fines? Building court appearances?
===building code violations? Fines? Building court appearances?===
Lol! It’s not like he was renting out the building with no working toilets. It was uninhabited, and presumably no threat of collapse or fire. What building codes do you think were violated counselor?
Well do you think honk the plumber that disconnect the toilets pulled a permit. If I this is start of remodel does he have plans and permits. If f start of demolition does he have permit
I was thinking he probably bought the second house to provide for a bit more yard space, but there is no yard space in that part of town. He was probably planning to combine the houses at some point, but rendered the house uninhabitable in the mean time in order to save on the property tax. Good tax planning, bad politics.
Found an old Crains story about a lawsuit over renovating what I presume is the main property. I’m guessing that the contractor was supposed to renovate both houses and combine them into a single building (on the interior by knocking out a few walls), but that went to pot, and he deferred those plans.
JB you just look greedy. You are big, in the money realm too, and you could just do the work and move on. But you did not do that. the average person thinks that letting a property go is a slumlord move, let alone who has the money to buy and hold two properties like that? JB, you have the dough, don’t let the house go.
I get why Rauner is trying to put his thumb on the scale of who his opponent will be. He’s been trying to tarnish JB since December. But while this may have play in a fight against Biss or Pawar, how is “Mr. Nine Home I clouted my daughter into Payton” Rauner going to take advantage of this in a general. Can only backfire.
Yea… as if Rauner hasn’t appealed his taxes, or cheated another child out of attending Walter Payton High School by buying a condo in the district, or the number of deaths cause by Rauner’s purchase and management of long term care facilities.
I wonder if he hired MJM’s firm to represent him, that is what it does. right? And the judge who approved it is MJM’s chickie pal? And the assessor is too,, so they all get paid, or cost reductions and the neighborhood across town paid for it?? You have to wonder
- Patrick - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:29 am:
A few important points:
-The GOP is calling this a “scam” in their emails, which is darn near libel.
-As I said last time, no one spends $3.7m on a property just to somehow save on property taxes.
-Schools aren’t losing money here because the levy doesn’t decrease. The tax burden just shifts to other property owners.
- Ron Burgundy - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:34 am:
The head shaking part of this on Pritzker’s part is, why give your opposition an issue when you don’t need to? What’s he waiting on in terms of rehabbing this place? It’s not like he’s doing it himself, or waiting for financing. Hire someone, spend an afternoon with a contractor and designer specifying what you want and let them get it done. There. Issue resolved that should have been resolved before announcing.
- Anonin-aint-easy - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:40 am:
Should I be more concerned about this? Does not seem that damaging to me, honestly I kinda like that JB is getting hit by this now so he can work on his spin and damage control. Assuming he gets the nomination, he will need to be in top form for the real fight in the general and this will help prepare him.
- OkOk - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:42 am:
It seems this site is blowing the story up.
- W Flag - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:47 am:
Different defamation laws apply to political figures as opposed to private individuals, so it is doubtful that Pritzker has been libeled.
Best quotation goes to Kennedy.
This is the property tax assessment game that is owned by Madigan and his ally Berrios.
- Ducky LaMoore - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:48 am:
===It seems this site is blowing the story up.===
Yeah. This one and every other story worth blowing up.
- Ok - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:51 am:
Appealing property tax is worth blowing up? Oh ok
- Fixer - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:52 am:
Maybe I’m naive here, but I have zero issue with someone trying to get their property taxes corrected. Why is this such a major issue in the minds of the GOP when their leader has publicly stated that he thinks these taxes are too high and wants to freeze them permanently?
- Curl of the Burl - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:57 am:
OkOk- this is a political site and we are 17.5 months from the 2018 election. This is big news. And people may not like this but Rauner’s people know how to push and keep a story going.
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:59 am:
===And people may not like this but Rauner’s people know how to push and keep a story going.===
So do the Kennedy and Biss people apparently.
- Ron Burgundy - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:00 am:
–It seems this site is blowing the story up–
Rich Miller and the Sun-Times, Crains, IL GOP and Democratic opponents of Pritzker he controls.
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:02 am:
That Pat Brady. Third rate carny barkers think this was overselling. The things people do to seem…
To the post,
Rauner isn’t going to stop. No way. No how.
Unless Pritzker and his Crew want to be chasing their own Oppo Dumps all summer, day in, day out, y’all need to go after Rauner and stay there until things go back to a simmer, or things keep rolling and one of y’all can’t outrun the Oppo.
Pritzker has the cash. Why aren’t they going two prong?
What’s the delay? What’s the holdup?
So confusing.
Pritzker Crew, ding tell me this caught you flat-footed…
- Downstate - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:03 am:
This won’t effect JBK any more than Bill Brady was hit for properly following the tax code.
- A Jack - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:03 am:
There should be real estate sales documents attesting to the condition of the house. Every house I have bought or looked into buying had house inspection documents.
So JB should just release those documents to make this story fade away. Although I expect it will fade away in a few weeks if we don’t get a budget before the end of May.
Perhaps Pritzker could also talk about how much money Rauner saved by letting the tax increase expire. Or he could discuss some of Rauner’s other money making schemes.
- RNUG - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:04 am:
== Usually, you’d file for a reassessment right away if you bought a house for much lower than its assessed valuation ==
First thing I had my son do right after he bought his house was appeal.the valuation. Found out Sangamon County automatically resets the valuation to the sales price whenever a sale occurs.
- Ok - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:05 am:
Appealing your property taxes being big news is laughable. Sun-Times is pretty much GOP controlled like the Tribune. All those newspapers did was report on the story like they usually do, but to egg it on like this is attempting to blow it up.
I don’t think that a newspaper reporting this story should be labeled as “attacks continue”
- Ward Heeler - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:09 am:
Ok:
Nobody is suggesting that appealing tax assessments is wrong in and of itself, but this entire deal stinks.
Getting a reduction without permitting the property assessors to inspect a building (as Pritzker did) is a big deal. It smells like a fix.
- Montrose - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:10 am:
I am just waiting to see what other oppo gets released. They will play this out as long as the news cycle will let them, and then another round of something will come out. And then another. They have the money and time to throw everything out to see what sticks.
- City Zen - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:13 am:
==Schools aren’t losing money here because the levy doesn’t decrease. The tax burden just shifts to other property owners.==
So rather than sticking it to the man, he’s sticking it to the man next door in Pilsen, Galewood, Beverly…
- Curl of the Burl - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:14 am:
47th - yes, them too!
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:28 am:
===Getting a reduction without permitting the property assessors to inspect a building===
Lol, do you think the Assessor’s office sends people out to inspect all of the buildings that apply for a reduction? I’ve gone through this process. I’m one of the 50,000 Cook County property owners that has appealed an assessment. The Board of Review and the Assessor examine assessments on comparable properties.
Uniformity is a bed rock principle of property assessment in Cook County. In other words, if your neighbors have similar properties, your assessment should be similar to theirs, and vice-versa.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:32 am:
My impression is this story was fed to reporters from some Democratic sources. If I had the opposition research, I would have released it on the eve of the date property taxes were due, to get a bigger bang out of the story.
Property taxes is a huge issue in Illinois. A lot bigger than most Democrats around here sense from the electorate. In fact, the tone deafness on this issue is pretty stunning to me.
So let’s see if I can figure out this story: An extremely wealthy individual living in the Gold Coast area of Chicago buys the mansion next door for $3.9 million, removes the toilets, lets the property sit and then claims it is “uninhabitable” and wants it taxed on that basis.
After all, that’s what 50,000 others have done who have appealed their property taxes last year. Huh? For a man running expensive ads on TV to build his name recognition trying to be “one of us regular folk” or portray himself as our best spokesman, how out of touch does that sound?
I asked when this story broke, where are all the city inspectors who swarm over properties of ordinary individuals with building code violations? Fines? Building court appearances?
Uh, Mayor Emmanuel?
And the campaign is just starting.
- Rabid - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:32 am:
The volunteer govenor/lobbyist immersing himself in the war against your local tax assessor fighting for property owners
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:39 am:
===My impression is this story was fed to reporters from some Democratic sources.===
… and Pat Brady miraculously decided to do his best Billy Bigelow, Illinois Raunerites’ and Rauner’s hands are clean in all this? Now?
That’s fun.
- 47th Ward - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 10:49 am:
===building code violations? Fines? Building court appearances?===
Lol! It’s not like he was renting out the building with no working toilets. It was uninhabited, and presumably no threat of collapse or fire. What building codes do you think were violated counselor?
- DuPage Saint - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 11:07 am:
Well do you think honk the plumber that disconnect the toilets pulled a permit. If I this is start of remodel does he have plans and permits. If f start of demolition does he have permit
- jerry 101 - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 11:16 am:
I was thinking he probably bought the second house to provide for a bit more yard space, but there is no yard space in that part of town. He was probably planning to combine the houses at some point, but rendered the house uninhabitable in the mean time in order to save on the property tax. Good tax planning, bad politics.
Found an old Crains story about a lawsuit over renovating what I presume is the main property. I’m guessing that the contractor was supposed to renovate both houses and combine them into a single building (on the interior by knocking out a few walls), but that went to pot, and he deferred those plans.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/realestate/20131126/CRED0701/131129855/pritzker-venture-loses-lawsuit-over-astor-street-mansion-work
- Amalia - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 11:25 am:
ah, Pritzker People Problems.
JB you just look greedy. You are big, in the money realm too, and you could just do the work and move on. But you did not do that. the average person thinks that letting a property go is a slumlord move, let alone who has the money to buy and hold two properties like that? JB, you have the dough, don’t let the house go.
- Anon0091 - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 11:44 am:
I get why Rauner is trying to put his thumb on the scale of who his opponent will be. He’s been trying to tarnish JB since December. But while this may have play in a fight against Biss or Pawar, how is “Mr. Nine Home I clouted my daughter into Payton” Rauner going to take advantage of this in a general. Can only backfire.
- Fax Machine - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 12:19 pm:
Lou,
Bad impression
Love,
Better sources
- cdog - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 12:29 pm:
I wonder if he is buying “vacant dwelling” insurance.
It is much more expensive than normal homeowners insurance, which is not available if the dwelling is vacant.
- Ron - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 1:26 pm:
Non issue.
- Ron - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 1:34 pm:
And I’m likely voting for Rauner again.
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, May 16, 17 @ 9:16 pm:
Until they find bodies buried under his mansion, he’s better than Rauner.
- Rahm is cray cray - Wednesday, May 17, 17 @ 2:56 am:
Prize needs to repair the toilets soon. He looks like he needs to relive himself. Pop.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, May 17, 17 @ 6:54 am:
Yea… as if Rauner hasn’t appealed his taxes, or cheated another child out of attending Walter Payton High School by buying a condo in the district, or the number of deaths cause by Rauner’s purchase and management of long term care facilities.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, May 17, 17 @ 6:56 am:
I wonder if he hired MJM’s firm to represent him, that is what it does. right? And the judge who approved it is MJM’s chickie pal? And the assessor is too,, so they all get paid, or cost reductions and the neighborhood across town paid for it?? You have to wonder