Part 2 on my 2014 BC property assessments which just arrived in the mail. Many times people will ask me if having my property value go down this year as well as the previous 2 years then should I not be seeing my property taxes going down as well? Unfortunately it's rare that we will ever see our property taxes go down. A city like Vancouver and Richmond calculates our 2014 property taxes by taking the assessed value of your home multiplied by the Mil rate (tax rate). They base this Mil rate on the estimated costs and funds they will require to operate and maintain the city for the coming year.

The cost to operate a city like Richmond keeps going up every year by at least the rate of inflation plus 2 or 3%. So if the average assessed value of a Richmond home goes down by another 3% the city of Richmond and Vancouver will simply increase the Mil rate by 5 to 6% for 2014 to allow for this shortfall.