Property Assessment Rolls

The roll is deposited for three fiscal years. The value doesn't change during that window even when the market moves — instead, a comparative factor is applied each year to reflect the probable sale price relative to the roll value.

The roll value is calculated from a reference date: 18 months before January 1 of the first year of the roll. So a 2023-2024-2025 roll has a reference date of July 1, 2021. The further you are from that reference date, the wider the gap between roll value and current market becomes.

Two concepts come up regularly. The roll value ("valeur foncière") is what's literally entered on the roll. The uniformized value is the roll value multiplied by a municipal coefficient that captures how roll entries relate to actual sales — that uniformized value is what school taxes are calculated on.

For a buyer, the gap between uniformized value and asking price is a quick signal: if a property is listed 30% above its uniformized value, it's selling well above the municipal average — which may be justified (renovations, hot area) or not.

If you believe your assessment is too high — particularly worth checking in the months following a new roll — you can file a review request with your municipality. The deadline is strict: usually before May 1 of the first year of the roll.

The filing carries a fixed fee that varies with property value. To succeed, you need to document recent comparables showing that your assessment is materially out of line with the market. A successful review lowers your tax bill for the full three years of the roll.

Uniformized value feeds directly into rental-yield and ROI calculations. Combine this data with our rental-yield calculator to estimate net return after municipal and school taxes.

To compare multiple areas before buying, cross-reference the roll with the actual rents posted in our rental listings and with macro activity from our Quebec real-estate market overview.