Protesting your Property’s Proposed Taxable Value

I’m here to help you protest your property’s taxable value.

First, if you purchased your property last year, then it’s easy to protest this year. Just find your closing disclosure from when you purchased the property and you can use that as your evidence for the protest. If you don’t have it handy and I helped you purchase your home, just reach out. I’m glad to send you a copy. If you purchased your home with somebody else reach out to either your realtor or the title company where you closed.

I purchased a home in Rockwell last year, so I’m going to the Rockwall Central Appraisal District website. There’s lots of information on the site about filing your homestead exemption. If you haven’t done that, it’s important to do. It gives two tax benefits. It lowers your taxable value. When they set the value, they subtract your homestead exemption and then apply the tax rate. So what you pay is less because you are living in the property with the homestead exemption filed on it. The second benefit is they can’t increase the value that you pay taxes on more than 10% annually. They may increase the market value by more than 10%, but they will include a homestead cap that maxes the amount that you pay to no more than 10% of last year’s taxable value. So getting that homestead exemption on your property is important. If you haven’t yet, just reach out. I’ll help you do it. It’s easy. It doesn’t cost anything. And, it will save you money.

When you go to your county’s appraisal district website, look for an online protest option. Set up your username and password. There’s usually an e-sign pin number you’re going to need when you register. Once registered they will ask two questions. One – what do you think the taxable value should be? And, why? Copy this link into your browser, promo.propertytax.io/P42667 This is a special link that has a discount attached. PropertyTax.io is a fantastic service.

It’s guaranteed, not necessarily to save you money but guaranteed not to cost you anything if they can’t save you money. So I really like that. When you go there and register they’re going to set you up with a dashboard. Add your property to the dashboard. You will have an opportunity to edit the profile and to choose which service you want, but they’re gonna make a recommendation. They have several different packages ranging from bronze, silver, an expedited gold package, and a gold package. I suggest going with the silver package if that’s what PropertyTax.IO suggests. That is their most popular package and what gives the maximum benefit for the least amount of money.

They will look up your property and check the proposed taxable value. They do a quick analysis and let you know, yes, we think we can get your tax value lowered or no, we don’t think we can help you. If they do not think there is evidence for a reduction, you are done and you don’t pay them anything. It’s a very straightforward process. If they do think that they can help you, their normal charge for the silver package is $75. It’s a flat fee and it is refundable. If you use their report and don’t get a reduction in your value to cover that $75 they will refund it to you. But if you use the link above or my code [P42667] you’ll only pay $65.

They will create a report with charts and with graphs to back up your protest. You can upload photos. You can upload estimates if there’s work that needs to be done to your property. And they’ll walk you through that just like I would. Then give you a downloadable report to use as evidence for the suggested reduced value. If you agree with that, then go back to your county’s website, log in, and there’ll be a place for you to upload your evidence. Upload the report and wait to hear back from the taxing jurisdiction.

When the taxing jurisdiction responds they will either agree with you and lower the taxable value. They’ll say no, but give you an opportunity to have a hearing with an appraisal review board or they’ll give you something in between. A proposed settlement. If the settlement is reasonable, you may choose to take that. If you still want to protest, but you don’t want to invest the time to sit with the appraisers to review your case Propertytax.IO has Gold package and will do that for you. Instead of a flat rate, they charge a percentage of the amount of tax saved. There is a cap on the amount depending on your home’s value., If you choose this option, you don’t have to go to your county’s website at all. PropertyTax.IO will do the work for you. And they will take care of filing it for you every year.

If you decide to use PropertyTax.io this year and you get a tax reduction I would love to hear about it. Let me know what kind of tax savings you were able to get or if it wasn’t as helpful. I’d like to know that as well.

I’m here to answer any questions about your protest or about the process of protesting your taxes. Let me know what questions you still have and go protest your property taxes!