Property Tax Appeals on Special Use Properties

Expert Witness, City of Oshawa vs. General Motors Auto Plant Property Tax Appeal

General Motors appealed their property tax assessment for multiple years on the 1.7M SF Oshawa Automotive plant. Significant tax revenues are at stake for the City of Oshawa and they decided to contest the GM appeal but were lacking a suitable expert to assist them.

AW Hooker who have considerable experience preparing reproduction cost estimate reports as an expert witness consultant were engaged on behalf of the Oshawa taxing authority. A well-practised process of site tours, document requests and discovery was undertaken, followed by a large multidisciplinary QS team preparing detailed reproduction cost estimates.

The initial findings are that rather than being over assessed in property value as GM is claiming, the assessment is actually lower in terms of reproduction cost new then it should be. City of Oshawa now have a solid basis for defending the assessed property value and the possibility of actually increasing it in the future.