Assume it is April 15, 2008. In addition to this being the deadline for paying your income taxes, it happens to be the day you receive year 2008 notice of assessed value from the Dallas Central Appraisal District. For homeowners, the notice of assessed value will typically have both the assessed value and the market value. The assessed value is the amount upon which you pay taxes (prior to consideration of any homestead exemptions). The market value is the estimated value of the property. In Texas, the assessed value can not increase more than 10% in one year for an owner-occupied home, unless ownership has changed or there has been construction. Of course, you can go ahead and file a property tax protest now. The initial reaction is to immediately file a notice of protest. Property owners are often inclined to provide information with the protest notice. For example, an opinion of value regarding the market value of the home or information regarding the assessed value for other properties in the area. Generally, there's no point in sending information with the notice of protest because the appraisal district does not have adequate staff to consider the information as they process the protest. The Texas property tax protest deadline is May 31, 2008. The Texas law for property tax appeal deadline change during the 2007 legislative session. As of late 2007, the property tax protest deadline for houses is April 30. However, this is a false deadline. There will likely be a large amount of confusion during April and May in 2008. The real property tax appeal deadline is still May 31, 2008. Should you go ahead and file your property tax appeal now, or wait until the May 31 deadline?

The moment Texas property owners receive their notice of assessed value is typically not a happy moment. The appraisal district is usually notifying them that it has increased their assessed value. Therefore, their property taxes will be increasing unless they protest and reduce the assessed value. There is normally a moderate level of agitation upon receiving the notice of assessed value from the appraisal district. Many property owners respond by immediately completing the property tax appeal form and mailing it to the appraisal district.

For most counties, this is not the best option. Property owners are generally better off to wait until the property tax appeal deadline to file their protest. At many appraisal districts, the staff is less flexible when negotiating property tax appeals early in the appeal season as supposed to later in the season. The appraisal district will likely schedule your property tax hearing immediately. Therefore, you're hearing will occur early in the property tax hearing season when property tax appraisers are less flexible in negotiating settlements.

You may be thinking, this does not make sense. Why would property tax appraisers be less flexible rate early in the hearing process? Issues primarily relate to heavy staff turnover at many appraisal districts, new staff being trained early in the hearing process and appraisal district staff "loosening up" as the hearing process reaches its conclusion.

In many appraisal districts, entry level appraisers are paid a salary at the low end of what is typical for real estate appraisers. Therefore, the appraisal district is effectively a training ground for real estate appraisers. However, once trained, many appraisers leave fairly quickly.

The new appraisal district appraisal staff is typically trained during April, May and June. While training is occurring, it is usually more difficult to negotiate settlements informally. When the staff is being trained to do property tax hearings, the existing staff tends to take a "hold the line" approach. They want to demonstrate their knowledge regarding appraisal and how effective they can be in not granting changes during the negotiation process. This tends to be counterproductive. Most property tax appeals are ultimately resolved during the informal hearing. Training new appraisers to not resolve appeals informally interferes with the natural flow of the property tax appeal process.

The property tax appeal process takes a toll on appraisers. It is an intense process. They are meeting with either property owners or property tax consultants virtually every day with the objective to resolve approximately 20 to 50 appeals daily. After a period of time, they can become more flexible in resolving appeals. They're probably several reasons for this. First, they realize it is unlikely they will be criticized for negotiating reasonable settlements of property tax appeals at the informal hearing. Second, they become weary of the property tax appeal process. Third, they are focused on trying to complete the hearing process instead of trying to "hold the line" on value. Fourth, as they gain experience doing formal hearings, they learn that values upheld informally are often changed at the formal hearing or appraisal review board hearing. Staff appraisers can ignore evidence or not consider unequal appraisal at the informal hearing. Appraisal review board members are likely to consider this evidence. Therefore, it makes more sense to resolve appeals informally than to send large numbers of appeals to the appraisal review board (if there's adequate evidence to resolve the appeal).

Do you appeal your property taxes annually? If not, why not?

 

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