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 Waller County Appraisal District. Of course, you can go ahead and file a property tax protest now. The Texas property tax protest deadline is 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. Some of these include Dallas, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston. However, most large appraisal districts do not work cooperatively with homeowners to resolve their property tax appeals, particularly in the early part of the property tax appeals season. Filing a property tax protest immediately upon receiving the notice of assessed value will reduce the probability of a successful property tax appeal in most Texas counties. 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. One of the least understood elements of the property tax hearing process is the somewhat arbitrary nature of hearing results. The hearing results are based more upon when your hearing occurs and with which appraiser you meet rather than the facts presented at the hearing. This is part of the reason it makes sense to appeal your property taxes annually. The more often you protest, the more often you are likely to work with an appraiser who is receptive to making reasonable changes.

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. It is unclear why some appraisal districts pay the appraisers so poorly. Salaries for entry-level appraisers vary sharply at Texas appraisal districts. In business, paying a below-market wage which resulted in an excessive level up turnover would be considered an unacceptable business practice. Is unclear why this practice continues to occur at appraisal districts. 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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