Recent Developments In Real Property Taxation

It is not very often that cases involving real estate taxation make the news. However, the Illinois Supreme Court recently held that a statute expressly granting real property tax exemptions to hospitals (provided certain criteria are satisfied) is constitutional. See Oswald v. Hamer, 2018 IL 12203 (the Opinion has not yet been released for publication but was decided September 20, 2018). This is news because, previously, real estate tax exemptions for hospitals were based on the "charitable purposes" exemption if the hospital was "used exclusively for charitable purposes" as defined under Illinois law. However, measuring whether a hospital was "charitable" became challenging as the healthcare industry has evolved.