In February 2025, the University of Chicago released a study analyzing Detroit’s 2025 Assessment Roll. They found that the City continues to illegally inflate the value of its lowest valued homes. The Michigan Constitution, supporting legislation, and case law are clear: no property can be assessed at more than 50 percent of its market value. Nevertheless, the City of Detroit has illegally inflated the value of:

• 84% of homes worth less than $25,000,
• 73% of homes worth less than $38,000, and
• 62% of homes worth less than $50,000.

The Property Tax Reform Ordinance requires City Council to “review the assessment ratio study and do one of the following:

1. Take no action; or
2. Request that the Board of Review use its powers under Section 30 of the General Property Tax Act, being MCL 211.30(4), to individually review every residential property in any subset or class of real residential properties that the assessment ratio study identifies as not falling within the guidelines established in Subsection (a) of this section.”

Will you join us in sending letters to City Council, demanding that Council (1) take the aforementioned vote, as required by law, and (2) address these over assessments by passing a resolution asking that Wayne County Treasurer Eric Sabree halt the foreclosure of homes worth less than $50,000, and (3) release the 2024 assessment ratio study that the Property Tax Reform Ordinance required the Duggan Administration to produce?