Assessment appeal filing fees are jumping from $30 to $300 for commercial and industrial property owners in British Columbia. The B.C. government has announced the tenfold increase ahead of this year’s May 1 deadline for filing a second-level appeal with the provincial Property Assessment Appeal Board (PAAB), with fees for residential, farm, non-profit and recreational property classes remaining at $30.

Under B.C.’s two-stage system, all property owners had until January 31 to submit a request to the Property Assessment Review Panel for a gratis reconsideration of a property’s valuation. Those dissatisfied with the Review Panel’s decision then have the option to file a second-level appeal.

The Appeal Board’s work is funded through a combination of filing fees and property taxes. In justifying the new fee schedule, the B.C. government’s communique notes that rates had not increased during the past 20 years and had fallen well below those charged in other provinces — citing examples of filing fees ranging from a low of $318 in Ontario to potentially more than $1,000 in Quebec.

“The increase of the filing fee from $30 to $300 will reduce the Board’s reliance on the levy collected from property owners in the province,” the communique states. “Over the past five years, fewer than 2 per cent of all commercial and industrial property owners have launched a secondary appeal — most of them large businesses.”