The agency that assesses property values is encouraging commercial owners to fully complete and submit information request forms so it has accurate data when determining land values.
The Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) sends out the income and expense forms every May. People who own the property receive the document once every four years, while those who rent receive the forms every year. SAMA uses that data to determine — among other things — its base rent numbers and cap rates, although it uses its discretion to create values if it doesn’t have enough data about certain properties.
Those property owners who fail to return the forms can be fined, while a bigger consequence is they lose the ability to appeal their assessments.
Those were some takeaways during a forum that the Moose Jaw and District Chamber of Commerce hosted recently. The forum focused on helping property owners understand their commercial tax assessments, how property is assessed and how the appeal process works.
SAMA sends the information forms to every property owner during the first year of the four-year assessment cycle — 2021 for this cycle — to determine who owns or rents the property since some properties change hands regularly, explained Darwin Kanius, manager of quality control for SAMA. During years two through four, the agency then sends those forms to rented properties.
SAMA relies on that data to produce its assessment models, and with more data, that narrows the information gap and creates more accurate modelling and better reflects the market, he continued.
“While we do get a fairly good return rate, I think we could do better … . Our next re-assessment will be in 2025, so we’re working really hard to get more of the participation from the local property owners in Moose Jaw,” Kanius said.
The return rate in Moose Jaw is 60 to 65 per cent, although SAMA would prefer a return rate of 80 to 85 per cent — or higher if possible — since other centres have “a fairly good return rate.”
During the chamber forum, it was estimated that only one-third of commercial property owners — 321 out of 945 — have submitted their information forms.
“The information request form is really, really important … ,” said Mayor Clive Tolley during the meeting. “SAMA can’t do the job without accurate data. So, we as a community must provide that data.”
SAMA sends the information forms to rental properties during years two through four because its approach is based on the property owners’ ability to gather income from that property and not the goods and services sold there, said Kanius. An owner will charge a tenant a fixed lease for the space, so if there are several units in a strip mall, SAMA uses that data for its modelling analyses.
SAMA wants the data forms submitted within a month of receipt so it can start reviewing the data and entering it into a database.
“It’s a fairly big job. It can be complex at times,” he added. “So, the quicker we can get it, the quicker we can analyze and start preparing our models for 2025.”
