O'Keefe Lyons & Hynes LLC

Elizabeth Gracie has more than 30 years of experience representing developers, owners and managers of office buildings, apartments and hotels in property tax matters. She understands that commercial taxpayers desire equitable and predictable taxes. Liz’s competitive and analytical nature, uniquely suit her to the pursuit of those goals.

Throughout her career, Liz has studied trends in and observed relationships between market data and property tax outcomes. She was instrumental in launching the firm’s database to track such information. It has always been essential in building cases for property tax appeals. Now, it will enable OLH to stay ahead of future changes in assessment practices to ensure continued uniformity in the assessments of our clients’ properties.

Liz also utilizes her “spreadsheet mind” in projecting property taxes for budgets, leasing, acquisitions and development. Since 2014, Liz has been monitoring the budgets of the City of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools as they increase to catch up on unfunded pension liabilities. She is modeling the impact of those increases on tax rates. She has also begun modeling the proposed changes in future assessment practices. Such modeling will provide an indication of the direction and the degree of future changes in tax rates.

Clients:

Elizabeth focuses her practice on:

• Developers of complex properties
• Owners and managers of office, apartment and hotel properties
• Not-for-profit organizations

Practice areas:

• Property tax appeals before the Assessor and Board of Review of Cook County
• Property tax projections for budgets, leasing, acquisitions and development
• Class L (Landmark) incentive applications and appeals
• Exemptions

“Each of us brings a strong work ethic and intellectual curiosity to every engagement. We value integrity and fairness in all of our relationships.”