The notice of assessment

Michigan’s annual notice has a long name and does three jobs: it tells you the values, it tells you the property’s classification, and it tells you whether a transfer of ownership occurred — which is the fact that decides whether the inflation-or-5% limit applied to you this year. It arrives before the March meetings of the local boards of review, so reading it is what makes the March window usable.

What it carries

• The state equalized value — the figure your taxable value is compared against.
• The taxable value — the figure the millage rate is applied to, and the one the cap moves.
• The property classification — one of six classes: agricultural, commercial, developmental, industrial, residential, and timber cutover.
• The principal residence exemption percentage — the share of the property treated as your principal residence for the year.
• Whether a transfer of ownership occurred — the line to read first.

Why the transfer line decides your year

If no transfer occurred, the taxable value is the lesser of the state equalized value or the capped value, and the inflation-or-5% limit is in force. If a transfer occurred, the limitation does not apply in the calendar year following the transfer, and the taxable value becomes the state equalized value — the uncapping. An increase that looks impossible is usually this line, and it is on the notice rather than something you have to infer from the arithmetic.

Two things on it that can be appealed

The notice is not only about value. The county lists the grounds a protest can be based on, and two of them are properties of the notice itself: classification, if the class assigned to the property is wrong, and status, if property that should be exempt is not being treated as exempt. Both are decided at the March Board of Review alongside a value dispute — the appeal page sets out the whole ladder.

The principal residence exemption, and its two dates

The exemption is claimed by affidavit filed with your city or township, and Michigan runs two deadlines because local units collect school taxes on different schedules: file by June 1 for the succeeding summer tax levy, or by November 1 for the succeeding winter tax levy. Which one applies to you depends on when your local unit collects.

What this does not cover

The exact dates the March Board of Review sits. Michigan’s statute that sets the board’s session requirement could not be read from this site, so no date is published here; your city or township publishes its own board schedule, and the notice arrives before the board meets precisely so you can use it. Nor does this page say whether the values on your notice are right — that is what the protest is for.

Where to go next

• Taxable value and the inflation-or-5% limit — how the capped value is built.
• Uncapping on a transfer of ownership — what the transfer line means for the following year.
• The appeal route — the March board, the grounds and the Tribunal.
• Michigan property tax deadlines — Tax Day, the notice, the boards and the affidavit dates.