Property tax appraisals and assessments are an unending source of confusion and misinterpretation. Many commercial, industrial, and high-end residential property owners assume that local government appraisers use fair and uniform methods to determine property value.
While appraisal districts try to take bias out of decision-making by using computer-generated mass appraisal programs, the reality is that "property value" is a nebulous term. True market value is dependent on a massive number of variable factors—from comparable sales and income production to physical condition and economic obsolescence.
Because these computer models are subject to error, miscalculation, and bad assumptions, it is always a smart financial decision to formally protest your property taxes.
The government assessment is the basis of your tax bill, but it is highly probable that it contains faulty assumptions. A protest forces the district to manually review your specific property, allowing you to correct critical errors regarding square footage, lot size, or incorrect condition ratings.
The most obvious benefit of protesting is a reduction in your property's assessed value, which directly translates to a lower annual tax bill. For residential properties, this immediately lowers your monthly mortgage escrow payments. For commercial and industrial owners, it significantly reduces operating expenses and improves cash flow.
Assessors using a basic "cost approach" to value business personal property are not prone to manually lower values for functional or economic obsolescence caused by rapid changes in technology. Protesting brings these highly subjective issues to light, particularly for industrial equipment and assets.
Property values build on each other year after year. By protesting this year and successfully lowering your assessment, you are creating a lower baseline for next year's starting value. Ignoring an unfair increase today guarantees you will pay compounding taxes on that overvaluation for years to come.
The Texas Property Tax Code (Sec. 23.01) explicitly states that all available evidence specific to the property must be taken into account. Furthermore, the law requires similar properties to be taxed at similar rates. This offers commercial and residential taxpayers an enormous amount of leeway in their protests to prove unequal appraisal.
Because there are so many ways to reduce property taxes through protest, it makes financial sense to appeal every year. PropertyTaxes.Law handles the entire process for you on a strict contingency basis. No savings, no fee.
Start Your Risk-Free ProtestBrandon and his team have proven they can perform with any product type we give them,
from industrial and office property to single and multi-family residential.
At a critical time when a property was in lease-up, we were faced with an unreasonable and unjustified assessment.
Brandon’s tenacity and responsiveness resulted in a fair assessment and the largest value change I've seen in my career.
Outstanding!! These guys are pros - they are great at what they do and great to work with.