Step-by-step guide on how to protest your Texas property taxes

This video explains the entire process of how to protest your property taxes in Texas.

Texas homeowners pay billions of dollars in property taxes each year to support local government services like police, fire departments and schools.

The amount of property tax you pay is determined by two numbers: your property value and your property tax rate.

Rates are set by local taxing authorities and you can’t change them.
However, your property value is set by the county appraiser and IS something you can change every year.

Here’s how you can change your property value and lower your taxes: Your county will send you a notice with the proposed value of your property. This is the value you will be taxed on if you don’t protest.

Once you receive the notice, you have 30 days to file a protest. If you miss the deadline there is nothing you can do to lower your taxes that year.

After the county receives your protest, a county appraiser may reach out to discuss your property value. Make sure you have your case ready to go!

If you disagree with the appraiser, you are required to attend a FORMAL hearing with an Appraisal Review Board.

At this hearing, the county appraiser will present their case, and you will present your case.

The board will decide the final value based on who argues the best case.

To present the best case at your hearing, be prepared to make BOTH a sales argument AND an equity argument:

The Sales argument looks at homes like yours that sold recently to see if your value is fair.

The Equity argument looks at ALL homes like yours, even if they didn’t sell recently.

Now the fun part. You must “adjust” the value of every home in your case up or down when it has a characteristic that differs from your home.

It’s very important to get this step correct, otherwise, the county won’t accept your case.

The entire protest process takes 3–4-months and requires hours of research and case preparation to be successful.

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