[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Protesting Property Tax (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 5/1/2014 1:25:05 PM EDT
Anybody every protest their property tax? Got my tax notice today, what a surprise it went up again. 
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Anybody every protest their property tax? Got my tax notice today, what a surprise it went up again. In on this as well, just bought in Georgetown and the tax is around 4k+ a year. Concerned they'll just keep jacking it up, especially as I improve the property. |
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I went more than once, and it basically is a waste of time unless you have one of the "legal" reasons, rather than using comps.
for instance, one time I went because they thought I put in a pool. clearly I didn't so they had to drop it. the next time I went was because we bought the home under the property tax roles. showed them how much I paid and they had to drop it. the last time I went, they jacked it up but no one had sold any for that amount in my area. I had a stack of 20 comps. but they didn't match the comps they used. or they didn't think some were valid or whatever. they were polite about it, but it was basically the good old boy nice. thanks for coming in. hope you feel better about your taxes, but we aren't going to change what we are going to charge you. I have seen a few places that charge to do it. and if they save you money they get a percentage. I might consider that next time. you don't pay if they don't get a reduction. can't be any worse than wasting my time sitting in that room. |
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I have fought mine several times. I have also gone before the board to fight it. Picture, pictures, and more pictures. You will have to show your house is a s#!t hole. Take close ups of all the cracks and or damages. Then be prepared to know how much it will cost to have those items fixed. Don't expect it to go down a lot. There were some years I was just happy to have mine stay the same.
If you just bought a home then your are screwed unless you can some how prove you paid way over market value and why bank would loan you money for that home. |
| I've done it twice by myself in Bexar County. It feels very one-sided, stacked against you, but I got mine reduced each time. It's become a big business for these "law firms" that will protest it for you for a percentage of whatever they get reduced. As mentioned above, if you do it yourself be sure to take lots of pictures of whatever issues there are that you think should reduce the value of your home. If it's stuff that needs professional repairs, get printed estimates from companies to show as evidence, even if you don't plan on doing the repairs for awhile. If you just bought your home and they suddenly show it to be worth a lot more, you can use your sales info to show their value doesn't match what the market value was. Also, most tax districts have web sites with all their data posted. If so, you can go online and compare values to other comparable properties in your area. I put together a spreadsheet with info from their site and showed mine was over valued compared other homes in my neighborhood at the time. |
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I've done it in Tarrant Co.
It was years ago, and I ended up getting around $400 dollars off for the years. You have to take pictures of your house and neighbors. (If theirs house looks worse than yours.) I had to take 5 copies of the pics to hand to the board. They laid out why I shouldn't get a reduction , I said why I did. Their guy got another chance to say no. I didn't save much. How much is your time worth? |
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Back in 1836 the republic of Texas decided to use property tax as a way to fund government. The first thing I would do is try to make an appointment with your CAD for a meeting with a appraiser. Your property value can increase (or decrease) for a variety of reasons. Those reasons could be, add new structures, housing market fluctuations, land fluctuations, homestead cap. Before you leave be sure to get an appraisal card for the properties in question. Then ask for it to be explained to you. When you get home try to verify what measurements are there. Just be sure if you make a change to their measurements the building still squares. After that I would ask for a sales map and what other similar properties you are being compared to. On e you get that all explained to you should have a pretty good idea how your value is figured. After that make your own decision if your value is out of line. As far as taxes go that is a non issue with the CAD. |
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mine went up 15k. WTF. it's a bigger shithole now then when i bought it a year ago. Quoted:
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Thanks for reminding me...just checked and saw my 2014 value just went up $16K.  mine went up 15k. WTF. it's a bigger shithole now then when i bought it a year ago. Take pics. |
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I've done it in Tarrant Co. It was years ago, and I ended up getting around $400 dollars off for the years. You have to take pictures of your house and neighbors. (If theirs house looks worse than yours.) I had to take 5 copies of the pics to hand to the board. They laid out why I shouldn't get a reduction , I said why I did. Their guy got another chance to say no. I didn't save much. How much is your time worth? I thought about it this year and have come to except this and just pay. I think I would pay the extra $300 bucks not to drive to downtown FTW. |
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I thought about it this year and have come to except this and just pay. I think I would pay the extra $300 bucks not to drive to downtown FTW. Quoted:
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I've done it in Tarrant Co. It was years ago, and I ended up getting around $400 dollars off for the years. You have to take pictures of your house and neighbors. (If theirs house looks worse than yours.) I had to take 5 copies of the pics to hand to the board. They laid out why I shouldn't get a reduction , I said why I did. Their guy got another chance to say no. I didn't save much. How much is your time worth? I thought about it this year and have come to except this and just pay. I think I would pay the extra $300 bucks not to drive to downtown FTW. Yep. the next year it went up a hundred dollars or so. And kept going up the next year. |
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mine went up 15k. WTF. it's a bigger shithole now then when i bought it a year ago. Quoted:
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Thanks for reminding me...just checked and saw my 2014 value just went up $16K. mine went up 15k. WTF. it's a bigger shithole now then when i bought it a year ago. Hehe...mine too. Mostly my fault for wanting to start grand projects, start tearing into them, then realize that I don't have a clue what I'm doing and end up forgetting about them. |
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You guys must all be millionaires? My property tax is $3100.00 and I think that's too much. Some of you pay more in property tax than I make in a year. But then I am retired. The increases we're talking about is the assessed value not necessarily what we pay. |
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You guys must all be millionaires? My property tax is $3100.00 and I think that's too much. Some of you pay more in property tax than I make in a year. But then I am retired. $20,000 in increased appraisal value. If they taxed me that much I'd probably protest in a different way. 
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After looking on the CAD website and the neighborhood, I see that other houses with a similar square footage/style had a smaller increase and is taxed about 10K less than mine. WTF? Some of the bigger houses are actually valued less than mine.
Time to print out my protest forms. |
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for that, as long as it is less. you can use the actual purchase price. so they don't really fight that. Yep. Had the same thing happen to me after I bought a place. I protested it and showed the guy my purchase paperwork and got it lowered to the purchase price. I think they remembered me because of the increase I got this year and just got the notice in my mail today. |
not so sure about that.
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Read up on how the Texas property tax system uses mass appraisal techniques. You open a dangerous door when you demand a value be moved to a sale price. Let's say you have 2 identical properties both worth 100,000. Then let say you buy one for 80,000 and then I buy one for 120,000. Since you paid 20k less should yours be devalued? Should mine them automatically appreciate 20k because I paid it?
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Read up on how the Texas property tax system uses mass appraisal techniques. You open a dangerous door when you demand a value be moved to a sale price. Let's say you have 2 identical properties both worth 100,000. Then let say you buy one for 80,000 and then I buy one for 120,000. Since you paid 20k less should yours be devalued? Should mine them automatically appreciate 20k because I paid it? No. They should both be valued at $100k. The problem arises when the CADS say the $80 sale is "too low, something wrong with it", but then use the $120k as gospel. |
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I've owned my house for 13 years now. It's not a huge house in an affluent neighborhood. Hell I paid $32,000 for it when I bought it.
My tax assessed value have never gone up until this year I got a letter in the mail today that it went up $1000. I'm not even going to bother wasting my time arguing. If they knew what the property was actually worth it would have gone up a lot more. I have done a lot of work in the last 5 years. |
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No. They should both be valued at $100k. The problem arises when the CADS say the $80 sale is "too low, something wrong with it", but then use the $120k as gospel. Quoted:
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Read up on how the Texas property tax system uses mass appraisal techniques. You open a dangerous door when you demand a value be moved to a sale price. Let's say you have 2 identical properties both worth 100,000. Then let say you buy one for 80,000 and then I buy one for 120,000. Since you paid 20k less should yours be devalued? Should mine them automatically appreciate 20k because I paid it? No. They should both be valued at $100k. The problem arises when the CADS say the $80 sale is "too low, something wrong with it", but then use the $120k as gospel. No in this instance the most correct value would the 100k as the sales information have that as the indicated value. But you can't lower the value for the guy who paid 80k just as you can't raise the guy who paid 120k. But if you look at your coefficient of dispersion and the realize that more of the sales are occurring at one end of the spectrum the you would have to raise or lower the value to equalize with the market. |
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Should be easy enough to fight that using the appraisal from when you purchased the home, I would think. Quoted:
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I'm about to have to fight this also. Just purchased house in February and now $20k increase  Should be easy enough to fight that using the appraisal from when you purchased the home, I would think. I had an appraisal that was less than 6 month old and was for a loan. They still went up 25 grand over that. They did not even know about the addition I put on but I bet they will have that this year. I have been fighting them for 25 years and sometimes it goes easy sometimes they just fuck you. Have not received my love letters this year and we do not have much time to fight left. |
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If most people do not like the property tax system in Texas, why does the elimination and replacing with some other form never get any traction? My valuation has gone up 125% in the last ten years. I fought the first couple of years and won, and a couple of years it stayed the same. One year I got a 30% value increase and lost. It was not homesteaded at the time so there was no limit. I think I heard in Austin people from out of state are paying over asking price. It seems like the tax part of property should only be assessed after you sell it, when you actually realize a profit.
Edit: I just drove down to the mailbox and my homestead appraisal was there, it went up 10%. The open space property appraisal didn't come. That could mean it stayed the same, or just wasn't in the mail today. |
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+1. Protesting yourself might work. It might work one year but not the next. I let poconner.com does it every year and don't have to worry about it. Quoted:
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http://www.poconnor.com/property_tax_overview.asp I use these guys. +1. Protesting yourself might work. It might work one year but not the next. I let poconner.com does it every year and don't have to worry about it. can one of you post the contact info. avast won't let me to their website. says it is infected. |
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Impossible, the deadline is may 31 or 30 days from the day you receive your notice. Which ever is later. Quoted:
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Nevermind my protext deadline is today. Impossible, the deadline is may 31 or 30 days from the day you receive your notice. Which ever is later. Tell it to them, paper says must be declared in writing by 5/1. |
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If most people do not like the property tax system in Texas, why does the elimination and replacing with some other form never get any traction? My valuation has gone up 125% in the last ten years. I fought the first couple of years and won, and a couple of years it stayed the same. One year I got a 30% value increase and lost. It was not homesteaded at the time so there was no limit. I think I heard in Austin people from out of state are paying over asking price. It seems like the tax part of property should only be assessed after you sell it, when you actually realize a profit. Edit: I just drove down to the mailbox and my homestead appraisal was there, it went up 10%. The open space property appraisal didn't come. That could mean it stayed the same, or just wasn't in the mail today. Your other two options are a VAT tax or state income tax. Both are controlled by Austin. At least your county property taxing entities are responsible for the citizens of its county. A state centralized tax woukd be a Charlie Foxtrot as to which entiues get dolled out "x" amount of dollars. |
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Tell it to them, paper says must be declared in writing by 5/1. Quoted:
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Nevermind my protext deadline is today. Impossible, the deadline is may 31 or 30 days from the day you receive your notice. Which ever is later. Tell it to them, paper says must be declared in writing by 5/1. Which county? |
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can one of you post the contact info. avast won't let me to their website. says it is infected. Quoted:
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http://www.poconnor.com/property_tax_overview.asp I use these guys. +1. Protesting yourself might work. It might work one year but not the next. I let poconner.com does it every year and don't have to worry about it. can one of you post the contact info. avast won't let me to their website. says it is infected. O'Connor & Associates 2200 N. Loop West, Suite 200 Houston, TX 77018 Ph: 713-290-9700 or 877-4TAXCUT |
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O'Connor & Associates 2200 N. Loop West, Suite 200 Houston, TX 77018 Ph: 713-290-9700 or 877-4TAXCUT Quoted:
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http://www.poconnor.com/property_tax_overview.asp I use these guys. +1. Protesting yourself might work. It might work one year but not the next. I let poconner.com does it every year and don't have to worry about it. can one of you post the contact info. avast won't let me to their website. says it is infected. O'Connor & Associates 2200 N. Loop West, Suite 200 Houston, TX 77018 Ph: 713-290-9700 or 877-4TAXCUT Be very careful when hiring this outfit or others like it. I fired them but never received my appraisal notices after that - the DCAD was still sending notices to these guys since they were still on record as power of attorney and they never forwarded. |
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Tell it to them, paper says must be declared in writing by 5/1. Quoted:
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Nevermind my protext deadline is today. Impossible, the deadline is may 31 or 30 days from the day you receive your notice. Which ever is later. Tell it to them, paper says must be declared in writing by 5/1. It's not my problem they're violating state propert tax code. |