Lake County Gazette

Lake County assessment records show that removing the lake bottom property from an assessment of Rep. Sam Yingling (D-Grayslake) house has made little difference in the home’s value.

Inadvertently including lake bottom property in earlier assessments of Yingling’s 3,460-square-foot house on Highland Lake fails to account for the reason his home is assessed at a much lower value than comparable homes in his district, a check of Lake County assessment records show.

In 2015, the assessed value of his house at 21870 Washington St. was $107,704. The value dropped only to $106,621 in 2016 when the lake bottom inclusion was discovered. Between 2012 and 2017, the home’s value increased from $105,016 to $115,502. That’s a 1.61 percent increase in value over a time when other homes in the area jumped in value.

Rep. Sam Yingling (D-Grayslake)

For an earlier story on the house, a man who asked not to be identified called the Lake County Gazette on behalf of Yingling and attributed the lower assessment to the inclusion of the lake bottom property. Other homes on the lake were similarly incorrectly assessed, according to a 2016 email exchange between Avon Township Assessor Chris Ditton and County Assessor Marty Paulson that the Yingling spokesman sent to the Gazette.

A deputy township assessor identifying herself only as "Cindy" said that any suggestion that Yingling’s house has a lower assessment compared to neighboring homes is untrue.

“You have to compare apples to apples,” she said.

A review of the assessments of other homes on Highland Lake and other neighboring communities shows that the $100 per-square-foot assessed value of Yingling’s house is much lower than other homes — $151 for other homes on Highland Lake and $173 at Grayslake, for example.

The earlier story published in the Gazette drew a heated reaction from readers. One Avon township couple, who requested anonymity as they are still enmeshed in the appeals process, saw the assessed value of their home jump 212 percent in 2017, even though they made no changes to the property.

“I’m battling the assessment through the appeals process, which has been anything but fair,” the homeowner said.

Ditton served as a trustee on the Avon board while Yingling was the Avon Township supervisor. He became acting assessor after Yingling won his bid for the House in 2012.

A year-by-year breakdown of Yingling's property taxes
2012	$14,861.04
2013	$13,590.94
2014	$14,029.68
2015	$14,623.06
2016	$13,467.36
2017	$14,014.42

*Data courtesy of the Lake County Assessor