So I bought my new house in 2015. I have already begun filing for homestead exemption, but i am having difficulty understanding the protest process.
My problem:
When I bought the house I contacted the builder because the stated square footage just didn't seem right to me. I have since received a copy of the builders floor plan with the square footage. Come to find out the appraised square footage is off by almost 400 square feet. HCAD states 3,181 and actual is 2,799.
It seems as though the HCAD website is saying for issues like this they will not make any changes unless the impact changes the value of by more than 1/3. This doesn't seem right because that means I am stuck paying more taxes each year (even if it is a small amount) than I should be.
The math indicates that my value would have to impacted by $77,000 in either direction before they will make a change but if they were using the correct square footage my value would go down $30,000-$35,000, which at a tax rate of 3.4% would mean a difference of roughly $1,000 a year. I realize that isn't significant, but I like to have things be correct.
Does anyone have any experience with this to know if the 1/3 value impact is true?
My problem:
When I bought the house I contacted the builder because the stated square footage just didn't seem right to me. I have since received a copy of the builders floor plan with the square footage. Come to find out the appraised square footage is off by almost 400 square feet. HCAD states 3,181 and actual is 2,799.
It seems as though the HCAD website is saying for issues like this they will not make any changes unless the impact changes the value of by more than 1/3. This doesn't seem right because that means I am stuck paying more taxes each year (even if it is a small amount) than I should be.
The math indicates that my value would have to impacted by $77,000 in either direction before they will make a change but if they were using the correct square footage my value would go down $30,000-$35,000, which at a tax rate of 3.4% would mean a difference of roughly $1,000 a year. I realize that isn't significant, but I like to have things be correct.
Does anyone have any experience with this to know if the 1/3 value impact is true?