Your property value went up. Your tax bill went up. And now, the rules that govern how your school district keeps collecting from you are changing — quietly, without most homeowners noticing.
That combination deserves your attention.
Ohio House Bill 28, signed into law and now reshaping how local governments approach levy renewals, has real consequences for Cuyahoga County homeowners already absorbing the shock of the 2024 sexennial reappraisal. Understanding what changed — and what your school district can and cannot do next — is no longer optional if you want to protect your finances.
What Happened
Ohio’s General Assembly passed a sweeping package of property tax reforms in late 2025, culminating in five companion bills signed by Governor Mike DeWine on December 19, 2025.
House Bill 28 sits at the center of the most immediate impact on homeowners. Under House Bill 28, local governments — including school districts — are prohibited from proposing replacement property tax levies beginning with elections held on or after October 21, 2025. The bill does not affect existing replacement levies already in place.
That distinction matters enormously.
The effect of the law is that most replacement levies for political subdivisions, and emergency, substitute, and combined property/income tax levies for school districts, will no longer be allowed going forward. Districts can still renew levies at the same rate, and they can still propose new levies. But the replacement levy — long a standard tool that allowed schools to capture more revenue by resetting the base millage rate — is gone.
The veto override banning substitute, replacement, and emergency levies went into effect 90 days after the Ohio Senate’s action in late September 2025.
Why This Matters for Homeowners
To understand why this change has real teeth, you need to understand what a replacement levy actually did.
When property values rose sharply — as they did across Cuyahoga County after the 2024 reappraisal — school districts sitting at Ohio’s 20-mill floor could use replacement levies to lock in higher revenue based on the new, inflated valuations. Homeowners had little recourse. Many didn’t even realize the levy on their ballot was a replacement rather than a renewal.
About 80% of Ohio’s communities are currently at the 20-mill floor — the minimum tax rate schools are guaranteed under state law. In communities at this level, any growth in property tax values produces a corresponding increase in taxes from those 20 mills.
That’s the mechanism that drove tax bills sharply higher across Cuyahoga County after the 2024 reappraisal raised values an average of 32%.
The legislative package is estimated to cut expected future property tax increases by as much as $3 billion over the next three years by capping automatic tax increases that result solely from rising property values.
For Cuyahoga County homeowners, that number is more than an abstraction. As of late 2025, $248 million in property taxes across the county were already delinquent — a direct product of bills calculated on values many families simply couldn’t sustain.
Who Is Most Affected
Not every Cuyahoga County homeowner feels this equally.
Long-term homeowners in inner-ring suburbs have been hit hardest. East Cleveland and Mayfield Heights saw assessed values nearly double in some cases following the 2024 reappraisal. A homeowner in Mayfield Heights who bought their home a decade ago at $180,000 — and watched it assessed at $340,000 or more after the reappraisal — found themselves facing a tax bill that reflected a neighborhood they could barely still afford.
For districts on the 20-mill floor, if property values increase 35%, homeowners will generally see a larger tax increase than in other districts that are not on the floor — because the tax reduction factor that normally limits increases cannot reduce effective rates any further than 20 mills.
School district levies typically make up the majority of a homeowner’s property tax bill. So which districts are affected by HB 28’s levy changes depends heavily on how much millage a given district was relying on those replacement mechanisms to sustain.
School districts without emergency or substitute levies will not be affected by the floor calculation changes. Districts already well above the 20-mill floor are also largely unaffected.
In practical terms: homeowners in districts that had been aggressively using emergency and substitute levies to stay below the floor while still capturing value-based revenue growth are the ones most likely to see a meaningful change in how their school district approaches its next ballot request.
The Financial Impact Explained
Here’s a concrete example of how this plays out.
Say your home in South Euclid was valued at $160,000 in 2021 and reassessed at $220,000 after the 2024 reappraisal. Your taxable value — set at 35% of market value under Ohio law — jumped from $56,000 to $77,000. With a combined school district millage rate of 60 mills, your school-related tax bill alone moved from roughly $3,360 to $4,620 annually. That’s $1,260 more per year just from the reappraisal, with no new levy approved.
The legislature’s reform package is estimated to credit property tax bills $432 million in tax year 2025, $608 million in tax year 2026, and $633 million in tax year 2027. Those credits flow from the inflation caps and floor adjustments built into the companion bills — not from HB 28 directly, but from the same legislative push that produced it.
Ohioans began to see relief through inflation cap credits as early as June 2026 for second-half tax bills.
Whether your specific bill went down depends on your district’s floor status, millage composition, and local levy history. The Cuyahoga County Fiscal Office’s property lookup tool at myplace.cuyahogacounty.gov is the fastest way to verify your current assessed value and cross-reference what you’re actually paying.
The BOR Process: What Happened This Spring — and What Comes Next
Separate from the legislative changes, tens of thousands of Cuyahoga County homeowners took direct action to contest their values through the Cuyahoga County Board of Revision.
More than 9,600 complaints were filed for tax year 2024 after that reappraisal. The county released tax year 2025 values on December 26, 2025, giving homeowners a new target — and a new filing window.
The filing period for tax year 2025 is now closed. The next opportunity to file a complaint against the valuation of real property will be January 1, 2027 through March 31, 2027.
If you missed this spring’s window, you are not alone.
Here is what many homeowners who filed did not expect: the school district that helps pay for with those taxes can fight back.
A counter-complaint is a complaint filed to challenge an existing valuation complaint. If a property owner is seeking a change in value of $50,000 or more, the local school district can file a counter-complaint. If the school district believes the property value should stay at the county assessed value or should be increased, it can file a counter-complaint with its own opinion of value — and, just like the original filing, the school district must present evidence to justify that opinion.
Of the 9,600+ complaints filed for tax year 2024, roughly 1,800 triggered school district counter-challenges. That’s nearly one in five cases where the school district — with its own attorneys and appraisers — showed up to argue against the homeowner’s position.
This risk is most acute for complaints involving changes of $50,000 or more in total market value, as school boards are notified of these filings and actively monitor large-dollar complaints. In practice, school districts in major metro areas — particularly Cuyahoga County — routinely file counter-complaints, and property owners should be prepared for a two-sided hearing.
Filing a complaint does not guarantee a reduction. It opens a negotiation — one in which the other side is often better prepared.
What You Should Do Now
The March 31, 2026 BOR window for tax year 2025 values has passed. But that doesn’t mean you’re without options, and it doesn’t mean January 2027 should catch you by surprise.
Start here:
Go to myplace.cuyahogacounty.gov and look up your parcel. Confirm the market value on record matches what you believe your home would realistically sell for today — not what the county says it’s worth at peak 2024 values. If you see a gap, begin documenting it now.
Build your evidence file before the window reopens:
The Board of Revision bases decisions about property value on evidence. Hearing officers will not change a value if they have no evidence to review. The BOR accepts a range of documentation: a complete appraisal conducted within the prior calendar year, dated photographs of the property’s condition, contractor estimates for repairs or deficiencies, and a recent purchase agreement with a closing statement if applicable.
Waiting until January 2027 to start gathering this material is too late. A qualified appraisal takes time to commission, and appraisers in Cuyahoga County are busy after reappraisal cycles. Get on a schedule now.
Know your counter-challenge exposure:
If your property’s assessed value exceeds a realistic sale price by $50,000 or more in total market value, expect school district involvement if you file. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t file — it means you should file with documentation strong enough to withstand a professional challenge from the other side.
Important Dates and Deadlines
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| December 26, 2025 | Tax Year 2025 values released by Cuyahoga County |
| March 31, 2026 | TY2025 BOR complaint window closed |
| June 2026 | Second-half tax bills; some inflation cap credits applied |
| August 13, 2026 | Second-half Cuyahoga County property tax payment deadline |
| January 1, 2027 | BOR filing window reopens for Tax Year 2026 values |
| March 31, 2027 | Next BOR complaint filing deadline |
Official Context and Background
The Cuyahoga County Board of Revision operates under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 5715 and Cuyahoga County Charter Section 6.02. The BOR is responsible for investigating, hearing, and rendering decisions on all valid and timely filed valuation complaints. Decisions can be appealed to the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals within 30 days of the BOR’s decision notice.
The broader 2025 legislative package — H.B. 124, H.B. 129, H.B. 309, and H.B. 335 — took effect March 18, 2026, impacting property owners beginning with second-half tax bills in summer 2026. H.B. 186, which increases the rollback for owner-occupied homes, became effective in December 2025.
Additional legislative property tax proposals remain pending for 2026. A private group known as Citizens for Property Tax Reform continues collecting signatures for a constitutional amendment that would ban real property tax outright in Ohio — a proposal that, if placed on the November 2026 ballot and approved, would repeal all residential and commercial property taxes starting the following calendar year, with no specified replacement revenue.
That ballot effort remains uncertain. What is not uncertain is that Ohio’s property tax landscape is in active flux, and Cuyahoga County homeowners who stay informed will be better positioned than those who don’t.
Key Takeaways
- Ohio House Bill 28 bans replacement property tax levies for school districts and local governments starting with elections after October 21, 2025
- The law does not eliminate levy renewals — districts can still renew existing levies at the same rate
- Cuyahoga County’s 2024 sexennial reappraisal raised values an average of 32%, with some inner-ring suburbs seeing near-doublings
- The BOR complaint window for tax year 2025 values is closed; the next window opens January 1, 2027
- School districts can and do file counter-complaints when homeowners seek reductions of $50,000 or more in assessed value — nearly 1,800 counter-complaints were filed for tax year 2024
- Some inflation cap relief is flowing to eligible homeowners on second-half 2026 tax bills
- Homeowners should verify their current assessed value now at myplace.cuyahogacounty.gov and begin building documentation for the 2027 filing window
Frequently Asked Questions
Does HB 28 mean my taxes will go down? Not automatically. HB 28 limits the tools school districts can use for future levy renewals, but it does not reduce existing levies or assessed values. Relief on second-half 2026 bills may apply in some districts through inflation cap credits tied to separate legislation.
Can my school district still put a levy on the ballot? Yes. Districts can still pursue standard renewals (at the same rate) and propose new additional levies. What they can no longer do is use replacement levies that effectively reset and increase the base at current inflated values.
I missed the March 31 BOR deadline. What are my options? You can verify your property’s assessed value on myplace.cuyahogacounty.gov. If you believe your value is incorrect, your only formal recourse through the BOR is the next filing window: January 1 through March 31, 2027. Use the time between now and then to gather an appraisal and document your property’s condition.
What is a school district counter-complaint and should I be worried? If you file a BOR complaint seeking a reduction of $50,000 or more in market value, your school district is notified and may file its own counter-complaint arguing the value should stay the same or go higher. You should be prepared with strong, documented evidence — not just a sense that the number feels high.
Where can I look up my current assessed value? The official Cuyahoga County property lookup tool is at myplace.cuyahogacounty.gov. You can search by address or parcel number to find your current market value, taxable value, and tax history.
For BOR questions, contact the Cuyahoga County Board of Revision at 216-443-7195 or BORInfo@cuyahogacounty.gov. The BOR is located at 2079 East 9th Street, Second Floor, Cleveland, OH 44115.