2006 Tax House Appraisal is NUTS!

Find someone in your area that fights it. For 150 bucks, this firm here got my apprisial down 40k or about $1500 a year in taxes.

So the city upidy ups do not have to say they are raising taxes, they just raise the apprisial.

 

From experience in Houston, it's quite common for the tax assessor to rotate the 10% increase around through various neighborhoods, even without doing appraisals. If 80% of the poeple just pay the increase, the county can afford to accept the appeals of the rest and still make money.

Call your local assessor and ask for appeals process (may be on line as well). Harris Cty folks are helpful and it didn't cost us anything for the appeal except my wife's time (the CFO). Worth several thousand in reduced assessment

 

The tax appraisal is supposed to reflect "market" value. Since you recently purchased the property you have established without any doubt what the market value is. You have also established it for your neighbors in similar dwellings. Fight it hard and you will win.

I fought ours a few years ago using realtor supplied data on recent sales and current listings showing days on the market to prove the market was slowing and therefore values not increasing as fast. They lopped $40K off the appraided value without a peep. Didn't even have to go through the appeals process. Just call the appraisal office and ask for an appointment with an appraiser and present your case and data.

Our appraisal office just targets a neighborhood for increase drives through and sets a value. They also pick the highest per square foot recent sale as indicative of the whole area even if construction quality is totally different (semi-custom vs. architect-designed true custom one-of-a-kind)

Good luck

 

Bryan: Could you please PM me some info...They appraised our house for 5.5m this year, last year was 5m, so I guess we were subject to that arbitrary 10% increase.....Taxes are nearly $160k, which is just insane.....would appreciate anything you can contribute, names of people who do protest your home value, or steps one can take themself to do it...

 

You can do a lot of research here... check neighbors prices and compare the differences in yours. It's all public information.
http://www.traviscad.org/search.htm

 

If the assessed value is still less than the purchase price, live with it. If you contest it they will ask you for a copy of your closing statement.

 

Amir: emailed you info. Good luck!

 

Bryan,

Thanks much, rec'd your email

 

One other point. If you decide to fight it yourself have picture. I know someone who took pictures of his house before and during his re-model. When they attempt to raise his taxes he protests, and uses those pictures. When he whips out photos of the house and its state of disrepair, they immediate agree its not worth what they want to increase the value to.

That being said, I'm not advocating cheating. But what I am saying is that photogrpahic evidence of things that need to be fixed or improved can go toward a lowering of the rate.

As stated a certified appraisal of the property, or proof of house sales in the area would certainly not hurt. The only issue has been property value have appreciated on the average of 7-9% per year in many areas. So the 10% cap is right in line with what the TMV is of the property in many cases.

Anyhow, good luck. My property taxes went up 831% But my rate jumped from being unimproved property last year to having a new house on it. I was fotunate enough that the tax gods smiled on me and valued it fairly. In fact, I had absolutely no room to protest, as it was pretty much inline with the ammount we had borrowed to build.

 

Harris County just dinged me for a 23% increase. I bought my house last year and they can ding you for whatever they want for the first year you own. So they get around the 10% cap that way for new sales.

After that, its 10% cap. Sux.

I also heard that if your value has not been increased for say the last 4 years, they can get around the 10% cap by adjusting for the 4 years they did not go up. I don't know if that is true, but a friend of mine said they could do that. In other words, In year 5, they could increase your value by 40% because the last four years were not adjusted.

my

 

is this true even if they tried to do a 10% increase, but you protested and were able to get it back down?

 

http://www.hcad.org/Process/CappedValues.asp

 

If you bought the house recently and the notice is higher, just take your closing statement to the local appraisal district and they will probably change it. The only times they won't do it, is when it is not an "arms length transaction" (foreclosure, bought from your cousin as a favor, lease-to-own, alternative down payment, etc.)

If the value is lower, you can still check the value ON A PER SQUARE FOOT BASIS, of the other houses in the subdivision or neighborhood(sp?) and ADJUST FOR SIZE AND FEATURES. Usually the bigger the house, the LOWER the value per sq. ft. If your house has lots of defered maintance, get and estimate of the repairs. You will only get to deduct a portion of the repairs as this is computed on the age/life method.

PM if you need any more details.

Disclaimer: This is not to be taken as legal or tax representation advise... we are just having an interchange of ideas here . You should always consult a professional tax adviser or read the panflets your appraisal district provides on protests and ARB procedures. BTW, you have untill May 31 to file for protest. If you need more time, just file right now, this will protect your option and you can always request an informal hearing with an appraiser at the district. Also, try to talk to the same appraiser ALL the time. If you go shopping for someone to tell you something you like, they will find out and won't trust what you say as much.

There, I said too much.

 

welcome to au$tin......

 

Property taxes in Texas have long-since crossed the threshold of reasonable. It's not a tax anymore; it's outright theft.

The legislation signed by the governer promises relief, but in reality it simply set the clock back a year or two on Texas property taxes. In 2 years, they will be right back up to where they were before the legislation.

What's really scarey is that all of the taxing entities - school districts, counties, municipalities, have long since gotten "drunk" from the ANNUAL raises to their budgets of 8-10-12 percent due to the escalating home values. Better revenue growth than many Fortune 500 companies that I know. And where is all of that money going?

When you get used to this kind of annual increase in revenue, bad things happen when the economy, and home values, quit escalating. It is THEN you get your tax RATE increase, and the taxing authorities say "Hey, we haven't increased the tax rate in 10 years - we're due!"

 

We had the same problem. My wife protested and we got it knocked back to it's purchase value from 2004 no problem.

It amazes me that the people of Texas squeel and scream when you mention "income tax" and then scream even louder at the property taxes. My property taxes are 3x as high here on a home only 10% higher in value than they were in KC. Even with the state income tax it's almost double. The kicker is the roads were better, schools were better, less crime, gov. run business better, the city services were just 2x what they are here.

The property taxes here could be cut and with a reasonable income tax MOST Texans would end up putting less in the gov. coffers, yet revenue would likely increase for the state.