13-square-foot difference not a reason to reduce home's assessed value, B.C. panel rules

The City of Penticton and Skaha Lake are seen in this undated file photo. (Shutterstock.com)

A homeowner's bid to get his 2023 property assessment reduced because of – among other things – a 13-square-foot discrepancy between his home's actual size and that reported by BC Assessment has been rejected.

In a decision issued Friday, the Property Assessment Appeal Board rejected Stephen McIntyre's case. 

McIntyre appealed the 2023 assessed value of his home on the shore of Skaha Lake in Penticton.

The decision describes the property as "a newly constructed lakefront property in Penticton situated on a 0.169-acre, gently sloping, lakefront property with 57.2 feet of lake frontage on Skaha Lake."

Its assessed value for the current year is $3,149,000, up from $3,029,000 in 2022.

McIntyre claimed the property's assessment was too high for "several reasons," according to panel chair Dale Pope, who wrote the PAAB's decision.

"The reasons include that the total square footage should be lower by 13 square feet, the main floor should be 16 square feet larger than the assessor calculation, the second floor should be 29 square feet less than the assessor calculation, the main dwelling has four and not five bedrooms as alleged, the home was built in 2021 and not 2019 and the lot size is one square foot smaller than the assessor calculated," Pope wrote.

The panel chair added that McIntyre had presented "no comparable sales or other market evidence" to support his assertion that the allegedly incorrect information used by the assessor had an effect on the property's value.

"I note here that with a rudimentary calculation the overall 13 square foot deficiency as alleged is approximately 0.0027 per cent of the total square feet of improvements," Pope wrote, adding that the assessor filed a response to McIntyre's claims, but the appellant "chose not to file any rebuttal or reply evidence."

In the absence of such evidence from the appellant, Pope accepted the assessor's evidence.

"The assessor says the square footage was taken from the development plans filed with the city," the panel chair wrote.

"In any event, the assessor says that even if the discrepancies are true, they are so small and would have little, if any, impact on value. There is no need to have further discussion on this point. There is no evidence to support the appellant’s points. I accept the assessor’s position that there is no impact on overall value."

The PAAB confirmed the property's 2023 assessment of $3,149,000, with $1,568,000 allocated to land value and $1,581,000 to the structure.