Property owners often find themselves dissatisfied with the results of their initial protest at the local Appraisal Review Board (ARB) level. When this happens, it is often necessary to continue the fight by filing a property tax lawsuit in a Texas District Court.
Once you enter litigation, the Texas Rules of Evidence kick in. For many property owners in this situation, it seems mathematically impossible to continue the fight. They assume they must hire an expensive, third-party expert appraiser to testify in court, even if their property is overvalued by half a million dollars.
The Problem: The cost of hiring an outside appraisal expert to prepare a report and give trial testimony usually costs between $15,000 and $25,000. In this scenario, you could reduce your taxable liability by $500,000, but the upfront costs of hiring the expert completely outweigh the potential tax savings.
There is a powerful legal alternative to spending thousands of dollars on an expert appraiser just to present admissible evidence at trial.
In Texas, the "Property Owner Rule" creates a rebuttable presumption that a landowner is personally familiar with their own property and knows its fair market value. Therefore, the owner is legally qualified to express an opinion about that value in court.
Our attorneys at PropertyTaxes.Law have successfully used this rule hundreds of times, saving our clients massive expert fees while still winning significant reductions.
The "Property Owner Rule" falls under Texas Rule of Evidence 701. It permits a property owner to give opinion testimony about the value of his or her property. (Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America v. Justiss, 397 S.W.3d 150, 155 (Tex.2012)).
However, your testimony cannot be based solely upon your "say-so" (ipse dixit). The Texas Supreme Court has determined that a property owner's valuation testimony must have a basis in fact. To be admissible, you must substantiate your opinion with concrete evidence such as:
If you base your valuation opinion on an older appraisal, the opposing counsel will likely object, claiming the old appraisal is hearsay or irrelevant.
Does a property owner fail the legal requisites if their opinion is based on hearsay? No. Like expert testimony, landowner valuation testimony may legally be based on hearsay. (Justiss, 397 S.W.3d at 158).
Furthermore, while an appraisal performed closer in time is given more weight, an appraisal completed years prior is not legally irrelevant. It still provides a proper factual basis for the property owner’s valuation testimony pursuant to Rule 701.
If you need to appeal an ARB decision but are worried about the cost of litigation, we can help. PropertyTaxes.Law leverages rules like the Property Owner Rule to strategically fight your assessment without burying you in upfront expert fees.
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Brandon’s tenacity and responsiveness resulted in a fair assessment and the largest value change I've seen in my career.
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