Here’s What You Actually Need to Know About Your 2026 Property Tax Assessment

I’ve had enough clients and friends ask me about their property tax assessments over the last two weeks that I think it warrants a blog post.  Just to be clear, the Notice of Assessment you recently received in the mail does not include the details you need in order to determine whether or not your assessment was done properly, and the City of Yellowknife’s 2026 Guide to Property Taxes won’t give you all the information you need either.  There was also a recent sponsored post on Cabin Radio that contains some incorrect information.

For those who have concerns about their assessments but don’t have time to read this full blog post, just do yourself a favour and e-mail City Hall and ask for the detailed version of your assessment.  Here is their e-mail form link. Make sure you give them more than just your civic address.  They’ll need your lot, block and plan numbers from City Explorer or your tax roll number.

Now for the detailed explanation.  The Guide to Property taxes tells you on page six that if you have concerns about your assessment, the first step is to file a complaint with the Board of Revision.  That’s incorrect.  You don’t have enough information yet to know if you should file a complaint.  All you know is the total assessed value of your land and the total assessed value of your “improvements:” your house, outbuildings, fence, etc.  That’s not enough to go on.  You need to know what the assessor recorded as the size, age and quality of all of the various components of your home and other improvements.  Do you have an old shed that was recorded as a garage?  Was a covered patio assumed to be interior square feet?  Was the age of your house or its components misjudged?  You don’t know yet.

The small print on your NoA contradicts the Guide to Taxes and tells you that the first step if you have concerns is to check the accuracy of your assessment by making an appointment with the Assessor.  You could do that, but the better first step is to contact the City and ask them to send you the full details of your assessment.  Only once you have that information will you be prepared to meet with the Assessor.

I was on the Board of Revision years ago and what I saw while in that role was a whole lot of debates between property owners and assessors over things like the condition of roofs, the age of garages, whether the fence is on one property or the other, etc.  The big landlords in town make a habit of disputing all of these details every time there is a general assessment, because there is so much at stake for them.  They hire consultants to evaluate assessments for their entire real estate portfolios.  And it makes sense to do so, because sometimes the City’s Property Assessor gets details wrong.  In my experience the Assessor gets the vast majority of things right, but I would never advise a client to just assume he got it right.  Trust is fine, but always verify (…one of my favourite aphorisms.)

With respect to the City’s sponsored post on Cabin Radio, there are a couple of things I should correct as well.

• “Land value is based partly on the real estate market and partly on physical things like lot size, paved roads, sidewalks and the location of your house, such as if it’s on the water or in a cul-de-sac.

I believe the statement above is confusing.  Your land value is based purely on its market value.  Things like lot size, lake views, sidewalk, etc. are considerations in the market value calculation – they are not add-ons.  That may sound like an insignificant distinction, but when people are trying to figure out why their land was assessed higher than the neighbour across the street, it is important to be clear.

• “The physical property value also incorporates the real estate market, as well as things like building type, upgrades and age.”

That’s not true.  The real estate market has no bearing on the assessed value of your home.  All that matters is its replacement cost.  The details of how the depreciated replacement cost was calculated by the City’s Assessor are what you need to know.  In fairness to the City or to whomever wrote the Cabin Radio article, although the local real estate market has no bearing on your depreciated replacement cost, the market for building materials and labour have a huge impact.  The replacement cost of your home is way higher now than it was pre-pandemic.  That may be what they were trying to say.

If you’re a client of Century 21 Prospect Realty and you have concerns about your assessment, contact the City and get a hold of the more detailed version of your assessment, and then feel free to call me if you would like to discuss all of this before deciding if you should book a meeting with the Assessor.

UPDATE: I requested my own detailed assessment from the City today and received it in under an hour.  They sent me three PDFs entitled Market Land Details, Residential Details and Assessment Totals Report.  The e-mail came from Taxation@yellowknife.ca.