If you live in Greater Houston and have not already received your Notice of Appraised Value letter from your county appraisal district, you will shortly.
And if your experience with your county appraisal district is anything like mine, your tax appraised value has increased… perhaps even significantly.
In the last few years, I’ve personally seen property tax appraisal values increase year-over-year by as much as 93%.
Yes, that means that if you own a non-homestead property, your actual property taxes could double from one year to the next.
Even if your property has the homestead exemption and your property taxes are capped at a 10% increase year-over-year, your actual tax appraisal can increase well above 10%, setting you up to pay the max increase every single year when you could be paying less.
Thankfully, there is something that you can do about this: Protest your tax appraisal!
Here are three reasons why you should protest your tax appraisal every single year:
- To lower your property tax amount
- To help your neighbors lower their property tax amount
- Because your tax appraisal value does not affect your actual property value
To lower your property tax amount
Lowering the amount of money you pay in property taxes is the most obvious reason why you should protest your taxes. The taxing authority is giving you a free opportunity to pay less than they are telling you to pay. Why would you not take advantage of the opportunity to lower it?
You have nothing to lose. Even if you pay someone to protest for you, you’ll pay them out of your SAVINGS. In other words, you won’t spend more, you’ll just redirect a portion of what you would have paid in taxes to someone else and save the rest!
But if you do nothing, you save nothing.
To help your neighbors lower their property tax amount
Not only can you save yourself money, but you can help your neighbors save money as well. If every single person on your street fought to keep their appraisal value down, you would all have an easier time protesting and keeping your taxes down year-over-year.
For example, if Person A argues their case and wins, Person B can use the lowered value of Person A’s home in order to argue that their value should be more in line with their neighbor’s value. Then Person C can use Person A’s and B’s values and so on and so forth until the entire block has lowered their taxes.
Because your tax appraisal value does not affect your actual property value
Last but not least, you should protest your tax appraisal value because your tax appraisal value does not affect your actual property value.
Believe it or not, I’ve had people tell me they don’t mind if their tax appraisal value goes up because they believe it helps their actual home value increase. Wrong! A tax appraisal is not an appraisal of sales value.
Comparable sales determine value, not tax appraisals. And, if anything, lower taxes will help increase the desirability of your property for some buyers when you go to sell some day, not higher taxes!
Can you protest your tax appraisal yourself?
Yes! You can! I created this video below to teach homeowners with homestead property in Galveston County how to protest online!
Can Edgewater Realty protest your tax appraisal for you?
I get this question a lot since I am a big advocate of protesting your property taxes, however tax appraisal protesting is not a service that we offer. However…
Can we recommend a professional who can protest your tax appraisal for you?
Yes! If you do not want to do it yourself, we highly recommend Gill, Denson & Company.
Gill, Denson, & Company specializes in property tax consulting and property tax protesting. You can go to their website here. Or you can call them at 800-918-3502. Just make sure you let them know that I sent you by using the referral code “Jonathan_Brubaker.”
In Summary
There is simply no reason why you should not protest your tax appraisal value every single year. Whether you do it yourself or hire a professional, being able to lower it even slightly is a win (for you and your neighbors). And in some cases, you could save thousands of dollars!
Happy protesting!
