A few months after purchasing my Park Model Mobil Home in this park in 2005, I received a tax notice from the park owner. I was overcharged for the municipal taxes and when I confronted Trevor Barr he said this was the right amount to be charged to all the sites, (approx 27 full-time sites).
I searched the subject and found that we should only be paying municipal taxes on the trailer we own and we are not liable for the property taxes on the site that we rent and this is factored into the rent we pay every month.
The trailers are regularly assessed by Mpac (Assessment Company) and this assessment amount is multiplied by the current years Mill Rate that the Government sets each year. With these amounts readily available to me I calculated that they were charging me $750.00 per year when in fact it should have only been approx. $350.00 for the year 2005.
Two of us have taken the landlord to the Rental Tribunal in the past 2 years and the Tribunal agreed that this was all we were suppose to pay to the landlord for our taxes on our trailers. The landlord was made to repay the overages to us and they did so. We felt that this would be the end of this problem and that the landlord would do the honest thing and repay every tenant, they did not.
I was advised by Mpac that the assessment of our trailers that was done for the year 2006 (wherein they reduced the assessments on the trailers by more than half) was the only one being done for now and would not be re-assessed until 2008 so we would use the assessment amount from 2006 for 2007. When my case at the Tribunal was arbitrated I only had to pay approx. $189.00 for the 2006 year as the assessment had been lowered so much, so the landlord repaid me the overage. The landlord agreed and assured me at that time that they would stop trying to get the tenants to pay the property taxes on the land that they own.
We just received a new tax bill for 2007 which states "Annual taxes due on SITE for 2007 as $344.00. I will now have the put up a fight again with them as it is only suppose to be approximate $190.00 for the year.
It seems that we will have to fight and take them to the Tribunal every year so we will not be be ripped-off.
Barb
Niagara Falls, Ontario
Canada
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