This article outlines the Assessment appeal process in British Columbia. While other provinces have different procedures, some principles may apply where assessments use the income approach; provinces using cost-based assessments will follow a different process.
Property Assessment is one of the two parts that make up your property tax bill. The other part is the property tax mill rate. The mill rate is set by your local municipality and uses your assessed value to calculate the property tax you owe. If you wish to lower your property tax bill, you can either try to get your local municipality to lower the rate they are charging (good luck) or you can appeal your property assessment.
BC has two-level system to resolve property assessment concerns. If an appellant is not satisfied with the decisions at both levels, they have the option to appeal to the Supreme Court of BC which can be costly and time consuming.
The Process:
If you feel that your property assessment is too high, there is a process you must follow to appeal the assessed value. The first step is to review the assessment information that BC assessment has sent you in late December 2025. This information is also easily searchable on the BC Assessment website.
You should review land size, building size and rentable area. In some cases, these are incorrect and could impact the assessed value of your property. I have personally seen land sizes and leasable areas both overstated and understated by significant amounts on property assessments. If either of these sizes are overstated, the easiest path is to call BC assessment and get these numbers corrected. This should lower the Assessment proportionally by the amount of the error.
The next step is to look at the Assessed value and consider if you feel it is actually above what the property is worth. This is the point where you have to make a decision about fighting BC Assessment. Some years, I have owners come to me with 10-15% assessment increases and want to fight because of the amount of the increase. After a review of the property and the overall market, their Assessment is still well below what would be considered market, and I advise against an appeal. A large one-year increase does not necessarily mean that BC Assessment has the property assessment wrong. A number of factors could lead to large one-year increases. These include new sales in a market that has not had any comparable transactions in a number of years, a change to zoning increasing the underlying value of the land your facility sits on or a general undervaluing of the property for a number of years that gets caught up faster than expected. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if someone wrote me a cheque for the assessed value for your property, would you happily accept that value. If the answer is yes, then the Assessment is probably too high. If your reaction would be to tell them the cheque is not nearly enough, then appealing your assessment is probably not in your best interest. Assessment appeals can lower your assessment; however, in some cases they can increase them.
So, you want to fight the system…..
If you have decided that you would like to appeal your property assessment after reviewing the scenarios above, the first step is to go on to the BC Assessment website and file your appeal. This is simple and you can withdraw your appeal at any time for any reason before your appeal. The appeal filing deadline is typically the end of January and in 2026 is February 2nd.
The next step is to decide if you want to do this yourself or hire a professional. Hiring a professional will cost you some money however people that specialize in assessment appeals know thew ins and outs of the process, sometimes have relationships with the assessors and can help guide you in the preparation of documents to prove your case.
If you would like to take on the appeal personally, you will need to collect all the relevant documents to show the financial performance of your facility. It would also be helpful to find any recent sales of storage facilities in your area and discuss with the assessor the metrics they used to value your property. In some cases, it’s easy to see where a mistake was made with a cap rate or projected income while in other cases it’s a lot more nuanced and will require a fair amount of discussion with the assessor to see if there is a way forward to reduction.
If you hire someone else to do an appeal, the process is more straightforward. They will review your information and request anything else they may need. After a review they will tell you what they feel is possible for an appeal and if it is worth perusing. In some cases, professionals may have pre-existing relationships with assessors and can try to have discussions before the actual appeal board.
The next step if your conversations with you assessor before an actual appeal do not lead to an acceptable outcome is to go to the Property Assessment Review Panel (PARP). For more information on this process please follow THIS LINK. If that appeal is unsuccessful, the final step with BC Assessment is to go to the Property Assessment Appeal Board (PAAB). An appeal with the PAAB must be filed by April 30th and more information can be found at THIS LINK
Appealing your property assessment can help protect your facility’s value and profitability, while also ensuring BC Assessment maintains accurate valuations. However, not every assessment calls for an appeal. If you’d like to discuss your assessment, you’re welcome to contact us to arrange a call. While we no longer specialise in assessment appeals, we can share our opinion on your assessed value and advise if an appeal is appropriate. We are also happy to direct you to professionals who can assist with your appeal process.
Appeal deadline February 2nd 2026
Appeal Website: https://forms.bcassessment.ca/NoticeOfComplaint2026
Related reading from the Self Storage Basics series: Province-by-Province Basics: Zoning, Lien Rights and Tenant Rules and How Self Storage Is Valued. Full series at the Basics hub.