You find the house. The taxes look reasonable, maybe $4,200 a year on the listing sheet. You do the math, fold it into your monthly payment estimate, and move forward with confidence. Then you close, and a year later your winter bill arrives showing something closer to $6,000. Nothing was wrong with the listing. Nothing was hidden from you. You just didn't know to ask the one question that would have told you the real number in advance.
That gap has a name in Michigan: uncapping. It is built into the state constitution, it happens to nearly every buyer, and in 2026 it is happening on a bigger scale than it has in years. If you are comparing homes in Macomb Township right now, understanding how this works matters more than the number printed on any listing sheet.
What actually resets, and when
Michigan taxes property on something called Taxable Value, not on what the home is worth. Under Proposal A, passed by voters in 1994, a home's Taxable Value can only rise each year by the rate of inflation or 5 percent, whichever is lower, no matter how much the market value climbs. Macomb Township's own assessing office has set that inflation multiplier for 2026 at 2.7 percent. As long as an owner keeps the home, the gap between what it is actually worth and what it is taxed on can widen for years.
The moment ownership transfers, that protection ends. The Taxable Value snaps up to match the State Equalized Value, which by law runs close to half of the home's market value, and it takes effect the January following the sale. Buy a house in 2026, and your 2026 tax bill still reflects the seller's old, capped number, prorated at closing. Your first full bill under your own name, the one that lands in 2027, is the one that resets to current market reality.
That timing detail is the part most buyers miss. The number you see on day one is not the number you should be budgeting for going forward. It is a preview of a bill that expires on its own schedule.
Here is what that looks like in practice, using Macomb Township's own homestead school millage. Chippewa Valley Schools, the district covering most of the township, carried a millage rate of 30.6968 mills as of 2024. Say a long-held home has a Taxable Value of $180,000 but a current State Equalized Value of $240,000, a gap that builds naturally over a decade or more of ownership under the Proposal A cap.
| Taxable Value | Annual tax at 30.6968 mills | |
|---|---|---|
| Seller's current bill | $180,000 | about $5,525 |
| Buyer's bill starting the year after closing | $240,000 | about $7,367 |
That's close to $1,800 a year more, roughly a third higher, for the identical house. No renovation, no reassessment dispute, nothing the seller did wrong. Just the mechanism doing what it is designed to do.
Why 2026 widens the gap more than a typical year
This year's assessment data gives buyers an extra reason to take this seriously. Macomb County's equalization department reported this spring that the total assessed value of residential property in the county reached $45.8 billion in 2026, a 6 percent jump over 2025. That is the fastest-moving assessed value in recent years, and it means the State Equalized Value a 2026 buyer inherits is higher, relative to what a long-term owner has been paying, than it would have been in a slower year.
Macomb Township's own page on Proposal A puts the cap's long-run benefit plainly:
"Proposal A has limited the property taxes that would have been collected if Proposal A had not been implemented, which has saved the average homeowner in Macomb Township thousands of dollars each year, since 1994."
That statement is true and it is also exactly why buyers feel the reset so sharply. The cap works by holding a long-time owner's bill well below market value year after year. The longer someone has owned, the bigger that accumulated gap, and the bigger the jump for whoever buys next. Reporting out of Detroit this year showed how extreme that effect can get when values move quickly: one analysis of the city's 2026 tax roll found homes would see an average increase of roughly $1,400 in property taxes if sold today, with more than a thousand properties facing jumps north of $10,000. Macomb Township's numbers are nowhere near that scale, but the direction is the same: rising assessed values mean a wider gap for anyone who buys this year specifically.
The same township, two different tax stories
Macomb Township is not one price point, and it is not one tax outcome either. The township spans more than one ZIP code, and pricing between them has run well apart, with one side of the township carrying a noticeably higher median than the other even though both show up under the same township name in a search filter. A single township-wide average smooths over that split, which is exactly the trap: it tells you very little about what your specific pocket of the township will do to your tax bill.
That price spread means the uncapping math plays out differently depending on where in the township you are shopping. A higher-value pocket will generally carry a larger dollar gap between a long-held Taxable Value and a fresh State Equalized Value, simply because the underlying values are bigger. A starter-priced pocket will uncap too, but the dollar swing is smaller even if the percentage increase looks similar. If you are comparing two listings with similar tax lines today, don't assume they will still look similar after your first full year of ownership.
The question to ask before you write an offer
The listing sheet shows you the seller's bill. What you actually need is the buyer's number, and that requires asking for two figures most listings don't include:
- The property's current Taxable Value, which is what the seller is paying on right now
- The property's current State Equalized Value, which is what your bill resets to the year after closing
The difference between those two numbers, multiplied by the local millage rate, is your best estimate of how much your tax bill rises after the first year. Your agent or the listing agent can request both from the township assessor, and the gap is often larger for homes that have changed hands only once or twice in the last twenty years, since those owners have had more time to build up the cap's protection.
It's also worth confirming whether the seller has a Principal Residence Exemption in place, since that status doesn't automatically transfer to you. You'll need to file your own exemption after closing to get the same protection on the school operating mills going forward, and missing that step costs real money every year it goes unfiled.
What this means for your first two tax bills
Plan for two different numbers, not one. Your first bill, covering the year you buy, will largely mirror the seller's prorated rate at closing. That's the number a lender's estimate or a listing sheet is built on, and it's the one that feels manageable. Your second bill, arriving the following year, is the real one, based on the uncapped State Equalized Value. Budgeting off the first number alone is the single most common mistake buyers make in Macomb Township right now, and it's an easy one to avoid once you know to ask for the SEV up front.
Macomb Township also splits its billing into two seasons worth keeping in mind while you plan cash flow: summer taxes are payable from July 1 through September 14 without penalty, and winter taxes run from December 1 through February 14. Knowing which bill lands first after your closing date helps you avoid a surprise on either end.
FAQ
Does uncapping happen to every home sale in Michigan? Most standard sales trigger it. A handful of transfers are exempt, including transfers between spouses and certain transfers between parents and children, but a typical purchase between unrelated buyer and seller will uncap.
Can I appeal the new Taxable Value after it uncaps? Yes. The State Equalized Value itself can be appealed through the local Board of Review in March, and a successful appeal in your first year becomes the new baseline the cap builds from going forward, so it's worth doing early rather than waiting.
Will new construction avoid this issue? No. New construction is assessed at its own current market value from the start, so there's no long-held cap to lose, but it's still worth confirming the assessor's current numbers rather than relying on a builder's estimate.
If you're comparing homes in Macomb Township and want the real tax number instead of the one printed on the sheet, that's exactly the kind of question worth asking before you write an offer, not after you close. Joan Schinderle King can pull the current Taxable Value and State Equalized Value on any property you're considering and walk through what your bill actually looks like in year two, not just year one.
