The Story

The Story is how one small community on Vancouver Island took on BC Assessment, and won.

How did the Youbou Appeal Group win more than $15 million in BC Assessment appeals?

By appealing together, and by not giving up when the Property Assessment Review Panel said no. In 2023, the waterfront owners of Youbou appealed their BC Assessments as the Youbou Appeal Group. The Review Panel defaulted to confirming their assessments, so every appeal went on to the Property Assessment Appeal Board. Of the 28 that reached the Board, 25 ended in a reduction (89%). With the Review Panel reductions that followed, through the 2025 roll year, the group won more than $15 million. This is how it happened.

My name is Jason Anson. This story begins in my small community of Youbou, on Cowichan Lake.

In January 2021, the Cowichan Valley Citizen reported "Property values jump significantly for Lake Cowichan area," with the average Youbou waterfront assessment up 19% in 1 year.¹ In January 2022, the Lake Cowichan Gazette reported "Property values in Lake Cowichan area rise dramatically," with the average Youbou waterfront home up 65%, from $930,000 to $1,556,000.²

That spring, local politicians were pointing to those assessments as the reason property taxes were climbing. The Citizen reported it under the headline "Skyrocketing house prices cited as reason for big tax increase in Youbou/Meade Creek."³ The area director told the paper that average home values in Youbou and Meade Creek had risen 59% in 1 year. Then, in January 2023, the Gazette reported "Waterfront property in Youbou up 28%: BC Assessment."⁴ By then, the third year in a row, homeowners believed their assessments were far too high, and they had had enough. They called a town hall meeting at the local church, and the Citizen reported what came next under the headline "Waterfront property owners in Youbou appeal assessments."⁵

I took on their appeals, and what followed was not what I expected. Owners who had gone to the Property Assessment Review Panel ahead of us, on their own, were heard, and they received reductions. When the Youbou Appeal Group's turn came on February 27, 2023, the panel said it was being overwhelmed with information and would default to confirming the assessments.⁶ That forced each owner to pay $30 to go on to the Property Assessment Appeal Board. It is a small fee, but it is a deterrent.

For the next 5 months, I tried to engage BC Assessment so the appeals could be resolved early. It was not interested. I told the Citizen that the owners were being stonewalled, and that I had been asked to stop sending evidence. The paper ran it under the headline "Youbou property owners frustrated with appeal process."⁷ BC Assessment told the paper it could not comment on appeals that were under way.

One case shows what the owners were up against. A senior on a limited income had inherited her family home on the waterfront in Honeymoon Bay. It was built in 1948, a quarry behind it had flooded the lot for years, and the house was dilapidated, with no running water. BC Assessment valued it at $2,234,000, and her tax bill was $12,000.⁸ Partway through her appeal, BC Assessment itself offered to cut the value to $1,111,000.⁹ She went on to the Board, and the Board set it at $1,056,000.¹⁰ How could an assessment be off by that much?

It took a full year. The appeals began in January 2023, the written submissions were finished in December, and the Board's decisions came out in February 2024. By then the 2024 assessments had arrived, and the owners believed the 2023 values had carried over into them. So 20 of them had to file what is called a holding appeal, just to protect themselves for the next year. Victoria News reported it under the headline "Vancouver Island homeowners trying to break a cycle of over-assessment."¹¹

When the Board's decisions came in, they went the owners' way. The Times Colonist published the first results on its front page: "Lake Cowichan residents win $10.5M in assessment reductions after appeals."¹² Once every decision was in, the total passed $11 million. Of the 28 appeals that went to the Appeal Board, the Board reduced 22 of the 25 it decided, plus the other 3 settled with BC Assessment, for a total of 25 of 28 (89%).¹³ By January 2024, the Citizen reported "Home values drop significantly in Lake Cowichan area," with the average Youbou waterfront assessment down 12% after a 28% rise the year before.¹⁴

The newspaper stories set something else in motion. In the first 3 months of 2023, while I was preparing the Youbou Appeal Group for the Review Panel, people who had read them began calling me. Many owners had seen their assessments more than double in 2 years. Review Panel hearings run until March 15, and I estimate that more than 100 people called me before then. The calls still come in today, from all over, though never again at that pace. One was a person working inside BC Assessment, known in this story as the BC Assessment whistleblower. Another, separately, was Derek Holloway, a retired BC Assessment appraiser. Others were homeowners. A waterfront owner on the Malahat and another at Shuswap Lake had each read about Youbou in the paper, and each called to say they were having the same problem.

Who was on the other side

I was a realtor with no appeal experience. My appeals were followed all the way to the top.

When this started in January 2023, I had been a licensed realtor for less than 2 years, and I had never filed an assessment appeal. I am not an appraiser and I am not a lawyer. Across the table were BC Assessment's senior appraisers, its Deputy Assessors, the Assessor for Vancouver Island and its legal team, and later King's Counsel. My own freedom of information requests show who else was following my appeals.

• BC Assessment's Vice President, Assessment, and its Chief Executive Officer were sent the Assessor's email about my appeals, November 10, 2023.¹⁵
• After one of my videos, BC Assessment staff spoke with the Chief Executive Officer, and Communications decided to monitor the situation, November 14, 2023.¹⁶
• BC Assessment's government relations and media staff forwarded news stories and letters to the editor about the appeals as they came out.¹⁷
• At the Ministry of Finance, the Review Panel Administrator asked to be told of any letter about me, April 28, 2023.¹⁸ Government communications asked to see BC Assessment's answer to a reporter before it went out.¹⁹
• The Minister of Finance was briefed on me in confidential Issue Notes for 16 months, and the Deputy Minister of Finance answered one of my letters.²⁰

That was the pressure. My neighbours were counting on me, many of them seniors on fixed incomes who could not afford to lose. At the same time, every letter I wrote was being read, forwarded and summarized for the Minister of Finance. I could not afford to get a single number wrong, and I did not.

The result: every homeowner I helped who saw it through won (100%). Some had more than 1 property or lost an appeal one year, and came back and won the next. Across every level, 63 of 65 appeals won (97%). At the Appeal Board, 30 of 33 decisions lowered the assessment (91%). In all, more than $22.6 million in reductions, every Appeal Board decision made by an independent tribunal, on the evidence. Every result is on my BC Assessment Appeal Record.

I had no appeal experience and no lawyer, only real sales. If I could do it, a homeowner with the right sales can too.

I also helped homeowners outside Youbou, and wrote their submissions to the Appeal Board as an expert witness. They won. On the Malahat, the Board cut the 2023 assessment on one home from $1,242,000 to $809,000.²¹ At Shuswap Lake, an assessment that started above $2 million was reduced to $1,079,000, and the Board then cut it to $562,000.²²

The problem was the next year. BC Assessment raised the Malahat home back up by 43%, and I had to help the owner fight it all over again. The Citizen reported it under the headline "Malahat homeowner in ongoing fight over property assessments."²³ The same thing happened at Shuswap Lake.

That was the difference I saw very quickly. With the Youbou Appeal Group, BC Assessment came to the table, and the holding appeals were settled. Owners who were on their own were treated differently. Their reductions were put back the following year, and I found myself going back to fix them one appeal at a time. I have heard the same from owners I never worked with.

Then, in 2026, I took on the appeal of the highest assessed home in Sidney. The Peninsula News Review covered it under the headline "Sidney assessment appeal raises concerns around BC Assessment process."²⁴ In October 2026, the Board set the value at $4,900,000, down from $6,963,000, a reduction of more than $2 million.²⁵

The whole story

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Who is really here to help

What happened in Youbou can happen to your assessment too

For 4 years, this work was about my own community and the appeals I chose to take on because I believed they were unjust. Now I am opening it up to homeowners across British Columbia. If you want me in your corner, here is how I can help with your appeal. Or start with the tools I built, backed by real sales and the decisions behind this story.