Everyone Needs to Protest Appraisals
To the Editor:
I received my property tax appraisal last week, I was shocked and appalled at the values that the Appraisal District came up with. Fortunately for me, I had met with a realtor the previous week to discuss selling my property and had been given a realistic fair market value of my home. That value was 20% lower than the County’s appraised value.
On Monday morning, I filled out the protest form, went down to the Appraisal District and filed for a protest. But before I did that, I did my due diligence. I looked at the appraised values of properties in my neighborhood, I also looked at the values of properties in nearby neighborhoods. I found that my land was appraised at 27K/acre while several of the properties in more affluent neighborhoods were appraised at 18K/acre.
The protest process is relatively easy, the form titled “Property Owner’s Notice of Protest” is less than a page and a half of filling out simple information, why you are protesting, providing information to justify your protest and what type of hearing you would like to have. I didn’t choose to have an informal conference before the hearing but an appraiser was available and I discussed my findings with him. He was kind, receptive and hopefully, the value will be corrected before having to take my case to the ARB panel.
If you haven’t protested the Appraisal District before, it’s easier than you think. Your property value is broken down between the buildings and the land. Take the appraised value of the structures and divide by the square footage to get the price per foot of the home. Then take the appraised value of the land and divide by the size of the lot. The legal acres are listed on the Notice Of Appraised Value but you will have to go online to find the square footage of the buildings you are being taxed on. Go to esearch. fayettecad.org and enter the Property ID to get complete details, you may find that you’re being taxed on a building that’s no longer on your property. While you’re on the website, go to the interactive map and look at the properties around you, properties similar to yours and any other properties that may help you build your case.
Let’s overwhelm the Appraisal District with protests this year! Deadline for filing a protest is Wednesday, June 14. If you need help, please feel free to give me a call after 7 p.m. during the week and I’ll look at the numbers with you. My number is (979) 743-1786.
The above is only a shortterm solution to a much larger problem. While individuals can protest their local taxing authorities, we are pretty powerless against the state government which has forced the Appraisal District to raise our appraised values to a fictitious number created by pencil pushing bureaucrats in Austin.
If we want to enact real change to these policies then we must petition the groups that our property taxes go to, specifically the schools and the county. We need to fill up the rooms at school board meetings and commissioners court meetings to let them know that enough is enough. We don’t have to speak but plenty of us will. If they don’t make the necessary changes in spending or nudge our elected officials in Austin to make real changes then we take them out, at the ballot box. We keep voting them out until we get people in there who will represent the taxpayers of this county.
Commissioners Court meeting are on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month at 9 a.m. at the Courthouse. Check your local school’s website to find the time and place of their school board meeting.