Digital self-defense for BC residents
Citizens' Advocacy Service builds digital self-defense tools for BC residents. Our first tool, FairValue, checks your property assessment against homes near you, on data you can verify. The checkup is free. More tools are in development.
Or support CAS: $5 a month, cancel anytime
No credit card for the free checkup. Takes the address you already know.
Citizens' Advocacy Service builds digital self-defense tools for the public. We are starting with property assessments.
BC Assessment sets a value for your home every year. Your property tax bill follows from it. When it is too high, you pay more than your fair share of a bill that was already set, and the only way to say so is your own time, your own evidence, and sometimes your own money.
In Youbou, BC, twenty-five homeowners appealed after a 28% one-year jump on waterfront properties. Earlier neighbours won $11 million, then $4 million, in reductions. The last group waited about eighteen months and spent over $10,000 on evidence. The appeal board's own letter called the assessor's request for more time "disappointing."
Source: Victoria News, Feb 18 2025 and Victoria News, Feb 23 2023. FairValue did not exist for those appeals and cannot promise those outcomes.
BC Assessment's release is titled "Nearly 99% of Property Owners Agree with their 2026 Assessments."[1] Here is what that figure does and does not tell you.
BC Assessment's 2026 roll report: 99% of assessments were accepted without an appeal filed. Accepted is not the same as checked.[2]
Source: BC Assessment, Province-wide property assessments, 2026 roll
In Youbou, the last group of homeowners waited about 18 months and pooled over $10,000 for surveyors and appraisers.[3]
Source: Victoria News, Feb 18 2025
A PARP complaint is due by January 31, or the next business day when it falls on a weekend. A PAAB appeal is due by April 30.[4]
Sources: PAAB, How to File a Property Assessment Appeal; BC Assessment news release, Apr 27 2026
So is it worth checking? The appeal board publishes its own numbers.
Of the 4,430 assessment appeals the appeal board completed in 2024, 2,081 ended with a recommendation to change the assessed value, usually a settlement with BC Assessment.[5]
94% of appeals were resolved without a hearing. Evidence gets you to that table.
FairValue is how Citizens' Advocacy Service helps you gather that evidence.
Source: Property Assessment Appeal Board, 2024 Annual Report. Figures cover all appeal types, not only homes.
It stores both assessment and sales data so you can check every number yourself. Three steps. The checkup is free.
Enter your address. The FairValue tool stores both assessment and sales data for your home and the homes near you, then reads it back as a plain comparison.
Enter your home's real details. FairValue scores how far BC Assessment's record and nearby values are from yours.
CAS support gives you the appeal draft and evidence file for your complaint. $5 a month, all in. Details on the pricing page.
What to expect from us:
Checking takes the address you already know. Start your free checkup.
Get My Free Checkup NowJunk fees, shrinkflation, refunds you never received. Each one is small enough to shrug off. FairValue is the first CAS tool, and these are next. Tell us which one you want first. They are in development and not yet available:
We email you when the app you picked is ready. No newsletter, no sharing your address.
Thanks. We will build what people ask for.
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If the free checkup finds a gap, or you want the next tools as they ship: one subscription, every tool we ship, cancel anytime.
When a checkup finds a gap, supporters get the appeal draft and the evidence file, formatted for PARP or PAAB and ready to file before the deadline.
FairValue is first. MoneyWatch, Flight Refund Filer, Junk Fee Radar and ShrinkWatch come to supporters as they ship, with no new paywall per tool.
We store the assessment and sales data behind your numbers so you can verify every figure yourself. We do not sell your data. Ever.
Every figure on this page comes from a public government or news source. Links open the original documents.