Hamilton County Board of Revision

If you think the Hamilton County Auditor has your property valued too high, the Board of Revision is where you say so. Filing is free, the form is DTE 1, and the deadline is March 31. Below is how it works in Hamilton County specifically; the law behind it is the same in all 88 Ohio counties.

Filing in Hamilton County

Where the complaint goes	138 E. Court Street, Room 304, Cincinnati, OH 45202
Electronic filing	Not published on the county's site. Call (513) 946-4035
Phone	(513) 946-4035
Notarization	Not stated by the county. Have it notarized anyway; see below.
County rules of procedure	Not published on the county's site. Call (513) 946-4035
Official county page	Hamilton County Board of Revision

Read off Hamilton County's own published pages on 2026-08-29. County procedures change; the county's page is the authority, and this one is not.

Notarization. Hamilton County does not say either way on its published pages. The state DTE 1 carries a notary block, and R.C. 5715.13 bars a board from decreasing a value without a written application verified by oath and signature, so the cautious course is to have the form notarized. It costs almost nothing, and an unnecessary notarization has never lost a case.

Evidence timing. Evidence should go in with the complaint. More can be added up to 10 days before the hearing; anything later may not be considered because it cannot be reviewed in time. This is the deadline people miss. A perfect case handed over at the hearing can be excluded as late.

Worth knowing about Hamilton County

The Auditor's page states complaints cannot be submitted by email.
Hearings run about 15 minutes.
Evidence must be a hard copy or something that can be scanned. The Board will not take evidence shown on a phone or a laptop.

The deadline

R.C. 5715.19 requires a complaint for a given tax year to be filed with the county auditor on or before March 31 of the following tax year, or the close of first-half tax collection for that year, whichever is later. In practice the window runs January 1 to March 31 and challenges the prior year's value.

Counties differ on what "filed" means. Some treat a March 31 postmark as timely; others require the complaint in hand by March 31. Check Hamilton County's page before you rely on the mail in the last week of March.

What decides these cases

The burden is entirely on you. The county's value carries no presumption of correctness, but if you fail to prove a different value, the value goes back to the county's number. Attacking the county's figure without supplying a defensible one of your own is a loss, not a draw. The strongest evidence is a recent arm's-length sale of the property itself, then a competent appraisal with the appraiser testifying, then a rigorous analysis of comparable sales. Comparing the Auditor's assessed values of neighboring parcels does not work, and neither does an asking price or an argument that the taxes are too high.

The full guide to Ohio Board of Revision complaints covers the statute, the one-complaint-per-triennium rule, the $50,000 line that lets a school board into your hearing, the technical defects that get complaints dismissed, and the 30-day appeal to the Board of Tax Appeals or the court of common pleas.

Start with the record

Before you argue about the value, check what the county actually has on the parcel: the current assessed value, how it moved across reappraisal and update cycles, the recorded sales nearby, and whether the building record the value rests on is accurate. A value resting on square footage you do not have is the easiest case there is.

Look up a Hamilton County parcel

Hamilton County property records on PlatBook

Common questions

What is the deadline to file a Hamilton County Board of Revision complaint?

Under R.C. 5715.19 a complaint for a given tax year must be filed with the county auditor on or before March 31 of the following year, or the close of first-half tax collection, whichever is later. In practice the Hamilton County window runs January 1 through March 31 and challenges the prior year's value. Confirm the current cycle on the county's own Board of Revision page.

Where do I file a Board of Revision complaint in Hamilton County?

138 E. Court Street, Room 304, Cincinnati, OH 45202.

Does filing cost anything in Hamilton County?

Filing a DTE 1 complaint with a county Board of Revision carries no filing fee. The costs, if any, are evidence: an appraisal, or a contractor's estimate for structural defects.