Who may consult municipal valuation roll documents?

(Update of the article published on December 1, 1996)

The municipal valuation roll allows the public access to certain information about a building, including:

• its assessment;
• the area of the property;
• necessary information about school taxes.

However, other information that is useful to licence holders is not necessarily listed on the valuation roll, for example the building area or the year of construction. However, this information may be included in the documents used to prepare the valuation roll. How can one access these documents?

The Act respecting Municipal Taxation contains provisions to this effect. The general principle, which derives from the Act respecting Access to documents held by public bodies and the Protection of personal information, is that all documents issued by a public organization can be consulted by anyone who so requests. In practice, however, some exceptions apply. Besides the valuation roll itself, which is accessible to everyone, the Act respecting Municipal Taxation only allows access to those documents that were used as the basis for an entry on the roll and were prepared by the assessor. And even then, access is limited to the following:

• the owner of the immovable;
• the occupant of the immovable;
• the occupant of the business establishment;
• a person having filed an application for review with the municipal organization responsible for the assessment;
• the applicant with respect to the immovable or business establishment in respect of which the application for review or a proceeding brought before the Tribunal has been made;
• the local municipality;
• the municipal body responsible for assessment;
• the Minister.

In some municipalities, real estate brokers may access the documents that were used to prepare an immovable’s assessment. To do so, however, the real estate broker must first obtain consent from the owner of the immovable, notably by using the recommended form Consent to release information by a municipality concerning an immovable.

However, even under these circumstances, it is important to remember that municipalities are not obliged to disclose this information. Therefore, it is important to determine in advance whether a municipality will accept to do this, failing which the owner will have to go to city hall in person to consult the documents used to prepare the valuation roll of his immovable.

It should also be noted that section 78 of the Act respecting Municipal Taxation defines the word “document” as including “[...] a track, a tape, a disk, a cassette or other data carrier and the data it contains. The ownership or the custody of such a document entails for the body or the municipality the right to obtain, without cost, from the assessor and any other person who has entered data therein, all the information necessary to have access to the data and to be able to transcribe it on a conventional document; that right does not, however, include the right to obtain the software without cost.”

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