Dear Editor:
Unlike Mr. Gordon Foy (Letters to the Editor NOW January 20) who stated that “Assessment values aren’t just made up,” we, Brentwood residents for 60 years, checked our B.C. Assessment online.
There we found a picture of our house, square footage of our house and lot, age, and, surprisingly, that we had a finished basement! Not correct, of course, for we have finished only one-third of our basement.
We immediately called B.C. Assessment and had to photograph and send the pictures of all of our basement rooms and our assessment was minimally lowered within two days. When we asked about the error, given that an assessor has not been in our house for 50 years or more, we were told that B.C. Assessment had guessed that we, as the sole owners for 60 years, would have finished our basement by 2015.
Our assessment reflects a good news-bad news scenario. The value of our property has increased 46.68 per cent in one year and consequently we have lost our home owner’s grant.
Zonia Sekora Hodge, Burnaby
