The Absence of municipal discretion regarding the deposit of a new property assessment roll

Me Jérémy Dyck comments on the recent decision Centre régional Châteauguay inc. v. Ville de Châteauguay (2025 QCCS 1140).

For the first time, the Superior Court interprets the circumstances of application of article 72 of the Act regarding municipal taxation (AMT) concerning the extension of the previous assessment roll when a roll is not deposited within the time limits provided for in articles 70, 71 or 71.1 AMT.

The City was unable to deposit the roll within the legally mandated timeframe. In fact, the firm hired to prepare the roll informed the City in February 2018 that the assessment process could not be completed on time due to a labour shortage. Consequently, a new roll was not deposited, and the previous assessment roll was carried over to 2019.

The plaintiff then received an assessment notice and tax bill for 2019 that maintained the assessment of their property. However, they wanted to request a review of the assessment, which they could not do in the current circumstances. They therefore filed an application for judicial review against the City, arguing that the City could not renew the assessment roll and claiming reimbursement, with interest, of the overpaid property taxes. It should be noted that the assessment was indeed reviewed after the application for judicial review was filed, following a request for review for the 2020-2021 roll.

The plaintiff argues that the City has no discretion in deciding to extend a roll and that section 72 of the AMT applies only in cases of force majeure.

For its part, the City maintains that it could decide, at its discretion and without constraint, not to deposit a new roll and simply extend the previous one. Alternatively, if its discretion was not absolute in this regard, it argues that it would be sufficient to establish the existence of a problem causing the delay in depositing the roll.

The Honourable Azimuddin Hussain, J.S.C., dismissed the Centre’s application for judicial review on March 31, 2025, with costs. In reaching this conclusion, the judge interpreted section 72 of the AMT to determine that the applicable criterion was force majeure and ruled that this criterion was met in this case.

The interpretative exercise employed is the modern method of legislative interpretation in a tax law context which “consists of interpreting the provision in light of the context of the law, its purpose and the intention of the legislator; where a reasonable doubt not dispelled by the ordinary rules of interpretation remains, the residual presumption in favour of the taxpayer applies” [unofficial translation] (para. 17).

In this case, the wording of the relevant provisions is clear and leaves no room for interpretation. A contextual reading of sections 70, 71, 71.1, and 72 of the LFM confirms this. Furthermore, the objective of the LFM, namely to ensure a source of funding for municipal expenditures (para. 69), must be taken into account. Therefore, the City had to demonstrate the occurrence of a force majeure event for the application of section 72 of the LFM.

The evidence on file demonstrated a significant number of departures among the assessors at the firm hired by the City, the labour shortage preventing these vacancies from being filled, the firm’s experience, the complexity of the work to be done, and the lack of a viable alternative. This uncontested evidence allowed the judge to conclude that a case of force majeure had occurred.

The application for judicial review was therefore dismissed. However, an application for leave to appeal was granted to the Court of Appeal on September 10, 2025. A  decision from the Cour of Appeal would likely clarify the application of sections 70 to 72 of the LFM and the elements of force majeure that must be demonstrated to allow for the renewal of the roll.

*The author’s full commentary is available on La Référence, EYB2026REP3916.