Michigan Supreme Court Asked to Decide Whether Higgins Lake Property Owners Can Be Placed Under Open-Ended Taxing Authority Without Knowing What They’ll Pay For

Property owners around Higgins Lake, together with the Higgins Lake Property Owners Association, have filed an application asking the Michigan Supreme Court to review lower court rulings that allow counties to place property owners under a lake level special assessment district before any project is identified, any costs are calculated, or any benefit is shown.

The formal application, submitted by the law firm of Outside Legal Counsel PLC on behalf of the HLPOA and various property owners, asks the Michigan Supreme Court to step in after a Court of Appeals decision approved the creation of a special assessment district without requiring the assessing counties to have a defined project, together with costs calculations.  Without that information, it is impossible for affected property owners to know whether their properties would receive a proportional benefit — a constitutional requirement for special assessments in Michigan. 

Court Filing: Application for Leave to Appeal filed with the Michigan Supreme Court (PDF)

The appellate court filing argues that the lower courts sanctioned the abandonment of traditional legal guardrails and uses a dangerous inversion of Michigan’s special-assessment law that allows government to lock in taxing authority first and justify an unlimited amount of assessments later. Once approved, a special assessment district can remain attached to a property for decades, regardless of changes in ownership.

In 2023, Roscommon and Crawford Counties asked the local court to approve the boundaries of a special assessment district for property owners around Higgins Lake without identifying any specific project, without calculating any costs, and without showing how individual properties would benefit. At the public hearing, property owners were told that questions about costs, methods, and benefits would not be allowed and could only be addressed later, after the district was already approved. According to the arguments pressed to the justices of the Michigan Supreme Court, that approach flips the law on its head.

Special assessment districts give counties the authority to charge assessments upon property owners through their property taxes statements for certain local projects. Under long-standing Michigan law, that authority has always depended on three things: a clearly defined project; a reasonably known cost; and proof that the assessed property owners will receive a proportional benefit. The Higgins Lake SAD lacked all three at the time of the approval review. 

“Once a special assessment district is confirmed,” Ellison explained, “property owners lose their chance to argue that they should not be included at all in selected projects. Any later hearing only determines how much they must pay, not whether the government ever had the right to charge them in the first place.”

Under the ruling being challenged, counties could create special assessment districts that remain in place for years or decades, allowing future charges to be imposed for projects that have not yet been described, approved, or even contemplated.

“In practical terms,” Ellison said, “this creates a standing power to impose future assessments again and again, without returning to court for meaningful review. That is not how special assessments are supposed to work.”

The application also explains that the case fits into a growing concern about the misuse of special assessments across Michigan. Special assessments are supposed to be limited, project-specific tools and not open-ended funding mechanisms.

“If government can secure taxing authority first and justify it later,” Ellison said, “the constitutional protections that separate a lawful assessment from an unlawful tax disappear. This case asks the Court to restore those limits.”

The Michigan Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to hear the case in the coming months.