City council is closing a “loophole” that affects how property values of certain condominiums are assessed after city hall determined Moose Jaw’s current practices make it a provincial outlier.
While reviewing the 2022 assessment appeals, city administration realized there was an issue with the method used to assess single-owner — owned by one person or company — condos, a city council report explained.
The Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) was appraising such condos as apartment buildings — instead of as condos — without requiring the property owners to remove their registered condo status or declare that they did not intend to sell the buildings. This results in a reduction in assessment for those properties.
“This was a practice unique to the City of Moose Jaw and not consistent with SAMA practices in other Saskatchewan cities where it provides assessment services,” the report continued.
City administration also realized that SAMA does not assess all one-owner condos in this manner, resulting in an unequal assessment method for properties in this class.
Five condo buildings in Moose Jaw have been affected by this “unique” assessment. SAMA did not approach single-owner condos to determine if they wanted to make a declaration that they did not plan to sell the buildings, said the report. Instead, it placed this responsibility on the property owner, while those aware of this option knew to approach the agency to pursue this advantage of being assessed as an apartment building.
City administration could have used a section under The Cities Act to correct the assessment role in 2022, but that would have unjustly penalized property owners already receiving this reduction, the report continued.
Instead, city hall will send letters to those affected property owners, giving them until Saturday, Dec. 31, to dissolve the condominium registered on their property so the building can continue to be assessed as an apartment building. After that date, the property will be assessed accordingly, while those that don’t remove their registered condo status could see an increase in property assessment in 2023.
City administration asked SAMA to review this issue of one-owner condos being assessed as apartment buildings. In turn, the agency determined that the City of Moose Jaw was the only municipality using this method of assessing one-owner condos.
“It was determined that the method SAMA was using for one-owner condominiums was not appropriate and the city should correct this error in the 2023 preliminary roll,” the report added. “Correcting this error will allow for an equitable assessment and property taxation system within the city.”
After introducing the report, city manager Jim Puffalt acknowledged that this was a “strange situation,” but city hall was working on “closing a loophole that not everyone is aware of.”
The “strange situation” was also somewhat bewildering to some on council.
Coun. Heather Eby noted the report was “a little confusing” to comprehend, while Coun. Kim Robinson agreed, saying he had to read the report three times to grasp what it was saying.
Council then voted unanimously to receive and file the document. The recommendation must be approved at a future regular council meeting to become official.
The next executive committee meeting is Monday, July 11.
