4 Useful Tips to protest against the property tax assessment People are not always satisfied with their property assessment. Most of the time, property assessed by computerized system is divergent. Here are some healthy tips that worked for many people during their property tax protest.
Let’s start with the basics,
1. File your property tax protest Filing your protest is very important and you should not leave it in the “Forget list”. For filing the property tax protest, you will just need visit the HCAD website to login yourself and you don’t even need a stamp to do it. Particularly this year, one should not forget filing or liberate the process as there is a sharp rise in values. It’s just not enough to just filing a protest. You must appear promptly during the hearing.
2. A professional help is really needed? The answer is ‘NO’. This is because, many people are getting positive result on their property tax protest without hiring an agent. Thinking why?
Because, the homeowner is more motivated in reducing his own property tax assessment and he knows the positives and negatives of their properties and supporting documents better than the agents. So, instead of paying to professionals for the job, the owner can do it as he has in depth idea about his own property.
3. Give some time to explore the HCAD website HCAD website has sufficient information about what can be expected during the protest and the information that are considered by HCAD, and many other deep details to help property owners during the protest. Once you have filed your tax protest, the property owner will receive an informal hearing date and the website will show the attributes the computerized models uses to compare it with your property, and to be noted, these information will only be available in the site before 15-20 days prior to the hearing. You should seriously consider this because computerized model comparison will not be similar on most cases.
4. Be polite and be prepared Do not just think the process is just a “Property Tax Protest�. It is more about the discussion and the key points you deliver to justify the market value of the property you propose. You should give good reason to lower your property value assessment with relevant data through supporting documents. Also, the folks in the appraiser review board is also humans who have lot of control. So you must logically state your position with supporting proofs in a friendly manner and do not lose your temper.