The word on the street is that one can apply for a tax rebate from the City of Ottawa if a part of your house (or all of it, I suppose) is not usable for a minimum of three months. I emailed my councillor, Peggy Feltmate, to ask about the process for applying for such a rebate since our basement was unusable from the time of the flood (July 24th) until renovations were completed (November 13th.) Peggy replied and described the process. She also advised that if the City's records showed that the basement was unfinished, such an application could backfire.
I sent of my letter of application yesterday. Our basement must be classed as finished since when we had a half bathroom there changed to a full bathroom several years ago, we obtained permits from the City.
Peggy suggested I include "details of the reasons and copies of any documents that back up their appeal." As documentation I quoted the url for this blog and asked that the assesors read the following blogs:
July 26th: Basement flooded
July 27th: One day of Tear-out after floods
July 31st: Flood clean-up one week later
August 10th: Flood damage in the basket storage area
November 7th: End is in sight
November 13th: "New" studio
Who knew that my new obsession with blogging could become such a valuable tool in a rebate skirmish?
No comments:
Post a Comment