bl^5

I just bought my first house in Feburary. I noticed while purchasing that the appraisal value that my taxes are based off was 10K less than the amount I purchased the house for. I asked my realtor if my taxes would go up based on the amount I paid for the house. He said no, the appraisal district has no way of knowing how much you paid for your house. So I thought cool!

So my property appraisal value for 2005 came in the mail in April. The house was appraised at $13K MORE than than it was last year. So I was like WTF! After some research I found that houses on my street just like my house were still appraising at the same value my house was appraising last year if not less. So I quickly filed the protest papers with the appraisal district. They sent me back a letter with two dates, an informal protest meeting and a formal protest meeting spread a week apart in that order.

Informal meeting:

This meeting was just myself and an appraiser. I took printouts of the appraised values of the similar homes in my neighborhood to meet with the guy. I explained my case and he then blindsided me with THE AMOUNT I PAID FOR MY HOUSE! I was like WTF? How did you find that out? He said some about a paper that they sent to me asking me what I paid for the house and that I FILLED OUT THE PAPER AND RETURNED IT TO THEM! I was like AWW FUCK NOW I DIDN'T! I understand how the taxes/appraisals work and there is NO WAY I would have sent you any info like that. So I asked him to produce this magical paper that I sent in and he said that they had SHREDDED IT . So his best offer was to drop the amount of the appraisal to $3K to the amount I paid for the house. I told him, nope that's quite alright I'll happily show up at the formal meeting!

Formal meeting:

Today was the formal meeting . It was setup with an appraiser and a board of 3 regular independent people. It was up to the appraiser to prove that the new appraised value was correct. Once again I went in with the same documentation as before. I past out a copy to each person in the room, they were nicely organized, highlighted, and numbered (I referred to them as my exhibits ). The board asked me to make my case. I quickly explained that my appraisal was raised $13K from the previous year and that other houses on my street were not raised. I then pointed out an expert from a pamphlet they sent me on reasons to protest. This exact situation was clearly outlined as a reason for protest. So the board then turned to the appraiser and asked for his side of things. He then brought up from his a list of 10 houses on my street exactly like mine and their values. Only one other house was appraised as high as mine and all of the others were appraised at my last years amount. He then started blabbing on about why it might be so high and pointing out that my house was symbol 5 while the others were a symbol 4. I asked him what the hell does they symbol stand for. He said some shit about the upgrades to the house and the builder of the house . I told him all of the damn houses in my neighborhood are built by the same builder! so WTF? The board then asked him what symbol was used last year and sure enough it was symbol 4 ! I said well I know I haven't done anything in the past 5 months to raise it from a 4 to a 5 so WTF? The board then asked him what my value would be if it were a 4 and sure enough it was right on par with the rest of the houses down the street. I then noticed on the computer screen there was an added value for a fireplace. I then said I DON'T HAVE A DAMN FIREPLACE this is TEXAS! So the board asked him to remove the fireplace too.

All in all I walked out with an appraisal $12K less than the appraiser at the informal meeting offered, $15K less than the initial offering, and $2K less than it was last year!

I am a HAPPY CAMPER!

jlukja

for you.

sipark

Nice!

G

Awesome! Great job!

Scrib

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

Nice job. Guess the system does work sometimes.

BigPimp

Fawking government, sounds like mafia only with documentation.

scl23

Great job on principle. But on cash basis??? Based at 1.0% (don't know what Texas property taxes are) we are talking $150. I guess $150 is $150 though.

bl^5

Its actually more like 3% so it only comes to 30 or 40 a month which isn't big money but it is money nonetheless. The principal behind it is more important to me as well as the sense of accomplishment knowing it was something I made happen and most importantly knowing I won against da man!

VTEC11

Good for you, also good info to know, thanks for sharing.

scl23

In CA, you get reassessed at your new purchase price no matter what and it goes up 2% each year. But in times of declining prices, you can request that your property be reassessed.