I posted this initially under Home Improvement but figured it properly should be posted here.

We purchased a home in McKinney on 9/6/2022 for $X. Our tax valuation now is purchase price plus 7%. Is 7% appreciation so close to purchase seem a little aggressive as the market just showed what that property is worth.

In 2022 the valuation was almost 35% below the new valuation.

This is a fairly large house in McKinney 4,000+ sq ft, so these % are pretty significant amounts.

How do I go about protesting, do I need to prepare a presentation or just show that I paid X for it 6 months ago?

TXAGGIES said:

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I posted this initially under Home Improvement but figured it properly should be posted here.

We purchased a home in McKinney on 9/6/2022 for $X. Our tax valuation now is purchase price plus 7%. Is 7% appreciation so close to purchase seem a little aggressive as the market just showed what that property is worth.

In 2022 the valuation was almost 35% below the new valuation.

This is a fairly large house in McKinney 4,000+ sq ft, so these % are pretty significant amounts.

How do I go about protesting, do I need to prepare a presentation or just show that I paid X for it 6 months ago?

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If you bought the property 6 months ago, you should have an appraisal on the property that is less than one year old. That will work to establish your property's value, from what I understand. You will need to protest, and your assessment notification will have a flier included with "how to" instructions. You need to include your Homestead Exemption so they can't jack up the value on you from year to year.

As far as hiring someone to protest, on a single property like this, I think you should be able to manage the protest yourself. Show up with your appraisal/purchase price for proof of your valuation. If you held multiple properties with many of them consistently being raised in value, then a 3rd party might make sense.

D said:

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It's egregious honestly.

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Frustrating, annoying, costly sure - but I don't think its egregious.

We are all frustrated with the constant drumbeat of 10% increases, but virtually all, if not actually all of us can sell our homes for more than they are appraised for, so one could actually argue that even after big increases we aren't taxed on the market value nor paying what we should.

I am sure there are folks out there that have an appraised or assessed value higher than what they can actually sell their home for. Those rare few are the only ones that should be complaining and able to call it egregious. Amongst my friends and neighbors I have yet to meet someone that is taxed for a value above where they can sell their home and the majority of us have taxable values 100k or more below market.

To me, we desperately need sale price disclosure in Texas. Sure it would help with properly taxing the home that's appraised at 350k that actually sells for 425, but the much bigger issue is the 20 story office tower that's in the paper selling for 20 million more than its on the tax rolls for.

Edit
I agree with hiring a firm though. We protested last year by ourselves and the appraisal district pretty much ignored everything we said and said they weren't allowed to consider numerous issues we brought up.

It's pretty simple: For the 2 years after you purchased the home, they cannot increase the assessed value more than what you paid for it. I.e., if you paid $400,000 the assessed value cannot be more than $400,000 for the next two years.

You don't need to hire anyone. Just submit your closing statement to the CAD.

*IGNORE THIS POST*

NoahAg said:

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It's pretty simple: For the 2 years after you purchased the home, they cannot increase the assessed value more than what you paid for it. I.e., if you paid $400,000 the assessed value cannot be more than $400,000 for the next two years.

You don't need to hire anyone. Just submit your closing statement to the CAD.

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Is this true?

Well, it would be an odd thing for me to make up! We bought our house in 2020, and when I protested our 2020 and 2021 taxes all I had to do was submit my closing statement to Harris County CAD showing what we paid. Good thing, b/c we got a great deal on it and prices in the neighborhood shot up in 2021, 22.

NoahAg said:

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Well, it would be an odd thing for me to make up! We bought our house in 2020, and when I protested our 2020 and 2021 taxes all I had to do was submit my closing statement to Harris County CAD showing what we paid. Good thing, b/c we got a great deal on it and prices in the neighborhood shot up in 2021, 22.

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Your closing statement served as evidence for your value which the CAD chose to accept. In no way were they bound to accept that. Obviously it sounds like you did ok in 2021, perhaps because the CAD didnt have good data of their own, or whatever, but obviously the more time that goes by, the less valid that a sale price on a particular date becomes for each successive year.

Its pretty easy to get them to give you the actual price when you produce the closing statement in that first year because the weight of the evidence at hearing will be you saying "this is what I paid less than a year ago" vs them "we did all these calculations based on 4 or 5 sales and this is what all this mumbo jumbo came up with!" but the next year, most reasonable people understand that the market can and does move over time and so your "here's what I paid" is no longer necessarily a key piece of evidence either to the CAD, nor likely to sway a Review Board.

Agreed with above that is not a rule, they got lucky with the lazy ass HCAD employees during Covid. They were lazy to begin with, but it took it to extreme during 2020 and 2021.

TXAGGIES said:

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NoahAg said:

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It's pretty simple: For the 2 years after you purchased the home, they cannot increase the assessed value more than what you paid for it. I.e., if you paid $400,000 the assessed value cannot be more than $400,000 for the next two years.

You don't need to hire anyone. Just submit your closing statement to the CAD.

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Is this true?

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Absolutely not even close. They reassess the value as of Jan 1st every year. They will not wait two years to reassess or push value higher.

This may have happened to you, but your statement that they cannot increase the value beyond purchase price for two years is not true and there is no law regarding property taxes stating as such.

jpd301 said:

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D said:

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It's egregious honestly.

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Frustrating, annoying, costly sure - but I don't think its egregious.

We are all frustrated with the constant drumbeat of 10% increases, but virtually all, if not actually all of us can sell our homes for more than they are appraised for, so one could actually argue that even after big increases we aren't taxed on the market value nor paying what we should.

I am sure there are folks out there that have an appraised or assessed value higher than what they can actually sell their home for. Those rare few are the only ones that should be complaining and able to call it egregious. Amongst my friends and neighbors I have yet to meet someone that is taxed for a value above where they can sell their home and the majority of us have taxable values 100k or more below market.

To me, we desperately need sale price disclosure in Texas. Sure it would help with properly taxing the home that's appraised at 350k that actually sells for 425, but the much bigger issue is the 20 story office tower that's in the paper selling for 20 million more than its on the tax rolls for.

Edit
I agree with hiring a firm though. We protested last year by ourselves and the appraisal district pretty much ignored everything we said and said they weren't allowed to consider numerous issues we brought up.

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I know every county is different. But Harris County is extremely aggressive on valuations. I know several people who would sell their home today to the county if they had the option at the appraised value. I'm not quite there, but close. And I've been in the home 11 years and have fought it every single one of those years.

nm

Yup. Travis CAD has learned over the last several years from HCAD.

My bad, all. Seriously. I could have sworn I remembered something on the protest form (or somewhere else) saying that HCAD had to keep the valuation at the purchase price for 2 years. I guess I did just get lucky in that the assessed value did not increase until this past year.

Again, sorry for posting false info.

htxag09 said:

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jpd301 said:

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D said:

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It's egregious honestly.

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Frustrating, annoying, costly sure - but I don't think its egregious.

We are all frustrated with the constant drumbeat of 10% increases, but virtually all, if not actually all of us can sell our homes for more than they are appraised for, so one could actually argue that even after big increases we aren't taxed on the market value nor paying what we should.

I am sure there are folks out there that have an appraised or assessed value higher than what they can actually sell their home for. Those rare few are the only ones that should be complaining and able to call it egregious. Amongst my friends and neighbors I have yet to meet someone that is taxed for a value above where they can sell their home and the majority of us have taxable values 100k or more below market.

To me, we desperately need sale price disclosure in Texas. Sure it would help with properly taxing the home that's appraised at 350k that actually sells for 425, but the much bigger issue is the 20 story office tower that's in the paper selling for 20 million more than its on the tax rolls for.

Edit
I agree with hiring a firm though. We protested last year by ourselves and the appraisal district pretty much ignored everything we said and said they weren't allowed to consider numerous issues we brought up.

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I know every county is different. But Harris County is extremely aggressive on valuations. I know several people who would sell their home today to the county if they had the option at the appraised value. I'm not quite there, but close. And I've been in the home 11 years and have fought it every single one of those years.

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They are insane. They raised my buddies value 72%, which was about a 100% increase in improvement value. Absolutely freaking crazy.

Quick update. I was able to get an informal protest and they dropped it to my purchase price, she recommended that I also file an online formal protest as she thought I had a decent case and she was limited to dropping it to purchase price since it was after July 1 and couldn't go any further.

I'll let you know if it goes lower and what I had to do to get there.

Galveston county has us appraised for over 100k purchase price from end of last year. Protest has already been filed

YourFavAggie said:

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Galveston county has us appraised for over 100k purchase price from end of last year. Protest has already been filed

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Galveston County was one of a handful that got yelled at by the Texas Comptroller a couple years ago.

Counties are subject to periodic inspection of their tax rolls by the comptroller. If they show a trend of being consistently under-appraised, the comptroller will give them a grace period to correct it and bring values up to "reasonable" levels. If they fail again, the head appraiser is likely to be terminated with the CAD taken over by the comptrollers office.

Galveston was inspected in 2021 or 2022 I believe. As a result, properties (conveniently to the owners) which had been previously and historically appraised between 35% and 50% of actual market value have now been brought up to 75%-90% of current market value.

Yes, it sucks. But you saved a lot of money for many many years compared to neighboring counties. A 100%-150% increase in a single year is never planned for, but most owner's valuation are likely still very reasonable. At least compared to other counties.

In your instance, it's likely just a product of the formula. You should be able to take your closing statement and a list of comps that are near, slightly over, or slightly under, and get your valuation lowered.

I have an active listing in Crystal Beach for $498k. New construction listed for over 4 months with no offers. Tax value is $791k.

Another that I closed on March 1st for $445k. Tax value is $578k. They are just making **** up and hoping people don't protest.

Well you gotta raise that list price my friend!

That there is evidence!

The problem is including a completely arbitrary moving target in a tax calculation.

Galveston: forcing all to protest. Crazy crap - trying to steal money.

Has a county ever been slapped down for being over market? I am guessing no. So the immediate impact of them getting the warning would be to jack the values to almost unheard-of levels to keep control and their jobs.