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A FAMILY-0WNED PUBLICATION SERVING THE AUSTIN METRO AREA AND SURROUNDING CITIES VISIT US ONLINE AT REALTYLINE.US
VOLUME 27, ISSUE 1 | MAY 2022
EVENT PICTURES IN THIS ISSUE Santa Rita Ranch Evening 1. Under The Stars 2. TREPAC Cake Auction SouthStar Bank Community 3. Breakfast 4. AYREP Happy Hour
and much, much more!
Your Property Taxes Just Jumped Upward of 50 Percent, Now What?
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by RIKI MARKOWITZ Contributing Writer It’s difficult to say what season homeowners in Travis County worry the most. Is it the end of January when their tax bill is due? Or maybe mid-April when notices of appraised value are sent out? After homeowners receive an assessment that’s higher than usual (extremely common these days in the Austin metro area), they then have 30 days to formally file a protest to the Travis County Appraisal District (TCAD). It might sound like a sufficient amount of time, but when your clients have jobs and kids and soccer practice and dentist appointments — four weeks goes by in a snap. And then, after protests have been filed, it can take several months for TCAD to schedule and then hold the client’s informal hearing.” Those months feel like a lifetime as stressed homeowners wait to present evidence for why the body overvalued their home or condo. And what if your client doesn’t get the results they want: a lower tax bill? That’s a very realistic outcome. There’s just one other option, which is to go to the Appraisal Review Board (ARB). It’s an independent office that works to resolve disputes between TCAD and taxpayers. If an owner’s protest is successful, they might breathe a sigh of relief. But even that small amount of comfort may not last long. Tax rates for the current year are soon set in August and September; in October, property tax bills hit mailboxes and the whole cycle starts anew when payments are due at the end of January. Last year, according to the Austin Bulldog, the chief appraiser with TCAD, Marya Crigler, said the body received nearly 150,000 protests. Now it’s about mid-May in 2022 and it’s been close to four weeks since your clients saw last year’s property tax assessment. What it said about previous years in Austin basically came down to, “If you thought the twenty-teens were rough, hold my beer.” To say that homeowners had “sticker shock” is the understatement of the decade. Austin-Round Rock owners are used to seeing their appraised tax values go up year after year.
[Assessment continues on page 8]
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