Whoopeee!!! It's time to protest your Property Tax Appraisal! This is easy - but the deadline is Tuesday - May 31 to get your protest form postmarked! Don't delay any more - mail it in today. You should have received your 2005 Tax Appraisal in the last few weeks and the form to fill out to file a protest should have been included in that envelope. If you haven't received your notice yet - call your County Appraisal District (CAD) and check on your property appraisal. If they haven't mailed it out yet - you have 30 days from the date of the notice. But you don't want to wait - and I'd suggest you send in your protest form the moment you get it - or download one from your CAD website and send it in! Oh yes - contact your neighbors and encourage them to protest too - your collective efforts can make a huge difference in lowering the values of your entire neighborhood.
OK - this is really pretty easy. You get your protest notice filed and then begin to research other homes of similar age, construction, and size in your area. You are not limited to your street or neighborhood. Do some research on line - take some pictures - and get your examples all lined up. Now download the Excel spreadsheet that is on www.lonestartimes.com - link is below - and begin to enter in examples. Follow the instructions and talking points in the spreadsheet and you will be successful!
Also - visit Paul Bettencourt's website: www.hctax.net for more tips on protesting your tax appraised value. Those tips are good for anyone in the State of Texas.
Good luck - let us know how you are doing!
Edd Hendee
You demanded it- now it's here:
Edd Hendee's Handy-Dandy Property Tax Appraisal Protest Spreadsheet
http://lonestartimes.com/images/cloutproptaxprotesttemplatefinal.xls
It almost makes wasting your valuable time to try to convince the government you deserve to keep more of your own money fun!
Almost.
UPDATED- Tom Bazan is a force of nature when it comes to fighting the good fight on taxpayer issues, and offers these insightful comments:
I looked at what Edd has made available, and it should be helpful to most folks trying to argue in front of the ARB. I wish you well. I am a long-time broker, state certified appraiser, and hold a B.S. degree majoring in real estate, and have annually protested the HCAD value nearly every year. It seems that half of the time I have failed to get any significant reduction, outside of filing in the Civil County Court-at-law.
The ARB typically holds the line, and falls back on the excuse that they rely on the HCAD appriser's testimony. It does not matter that the HCAD person likely never has seen your home. As Rube Goldberg would say "no matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney!"
First verify all the physical data. Many times HCAD will pick up the square footage from a home builder's floor plan. Not every house, especially 2-story custom homes, have the same square footage as what HCAD has recorded. A difference of a mere 100 square feet of dwelling, at $100.00 per sq.ft., with an overal tax rate of $3.00/$100.00 of valuation calculates to $300.00 annually in taxes.
Be selective as to the repairs you list. If it is deferred maintenance, you will get no sympathy. If you have a cracked slab, flood every year, or documented damage from wood-destroying insects, that is worthy of consideration.
It is important to have several copies of all documents, photographic exhibits, estimates from contractors (ie, foundation repair bids), etc.
Do your homework. You have a right to ask for the sale comparables that the HCAD will or did use in your neighborhood to determine values.
Go look at each one. Take photos. There is no law preventing you from calling the homeowner and asking them questions about the transaction. Did it sell below the list price? Ask them if they think they paid too much? Were there incentives? Did the seller throw in personal propertry, pay part of the closing costs, etc. Did the buyer pay extra because the spouse had to but that house no matter what the cost?
What about buyer's remorse? After they bought it, what deficiencies were discovered that would have affected the price? Those rail road tracks were quaint, but the noise (nuisance) from twenty-trains passing each day gets old quick. They may not have paid what they paid had they realized. You need to make notes of the conversations from each homeowner.
You will be under oath, so do not mislead because they may follow to confim what you have testified to.
Thanks weef and all for your information! I'll keep you posted on my outcome. I wrote this and then fell back into dreamland that my taxes were reduced to where I wanted them, ha!
Again, thanks to all for your help.
I can’t access Edd Hendee’s Handy-Dandy Tax Appraisal Protest spreadsheet.
Please provide attachment
Can someone provide that link that doesn’t take me to Bluehost?