Humble brag

Better to bring hard copies or digital copies of proof your property is a ****hole?

Hard copies. When I tried to show pics on my phone as a last ditch attempt one year the guy told me they had to be able to keep them. He may have been FOS, but I've taken printed copies every year since and haven't had any issues.

Informal is tomorrow. On my way to pick up the hard copies of the photos I took. Any other suggestions?

Take lube

Guitarsoup said:

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Informal is tomorrow. On my way to pick up the hard copies of the photos I took. Any other suggestions?

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I've had way better luck being friendly with HCAD. And if you're using a Jubally report don't show it to them just take the info from the report and discuss it with them. They get way more defensive when they see that report come out.

YellAg2004 said:

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Take lube

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Texted my doctor asking for a prescription for the good stuff

welp

They wouldn't accept my pictures because they weren't good enough.

Offered 10k off or formal hearing

Considering your profession did you say anything?

Which one did you take?

If I had your talent I probably would have had some not nice things to say to them if "my pictures weren't good enough."

*******s!

Edit to add: My actual photo taking ability is crap. I would have drowned them in spreadsheets and price analysis that they would have ignored in addition to actual bad photos.

Two years ago at my informal, they accepted all my photos and lowered my home grade.

This year, they reviewed the photos from then and their notes from that formal then I presented photos that were similar to show the current state of the property.

HCAD "These aren't good enough"
Me "What specifically isn't good enough"
HCAD "The pictures, we can't accept them. They don't adequately show anything."
Me: "You have similar photos on file that were accepted by HCAD and we just read the notes together about that."
HCAD "They aren't good enough."
Me: "What can I do to take pictures better so that you can better understand the condition of the property"
HCAD "Take better photos"
Me: "What specifically do you want and need to see"
HCAD "The condition of the property"

We added a garage apartment over the garage. HCAD contends that that adds 100% of the cost of the improvement to the home sale price.

So they estimate that our structure cost 100k to build, so they say it adds 100k of value to the home price. They also agree that you only get a smaller percentage of what a building costs back in a sale.

It honestly didn't matter what I said, did, or evidence I brought in. I am not sure why they even wasted my time

Bondag said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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It honestly didn't matter what I said, did, or evidence I brought in. I am not sure why they even wasted my time

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Because they are getting paid

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Because they are a government worker and this is how they do things. This was the informal.

Are you going to the formal?

I wonder how much they would save if they ultimately just gave every one who came in person $10k off, so that they maybe drastically reduced the need for a formal, where people ultimately end up with a bigger reduction a lot of the time.

Zemira said:

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Are you going to the formal?

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Are you asking him on a date?

Zemira said:

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Are you going to the formal?

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Yeah, no question.

Bondag said:

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Zemira said:

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Are you going to the formal?

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Are you asking him on a date?

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haha no. I don't want his wife to kill me.
Just curious if he's going to see the *******s again after telling him his photos weren't any good.

went through my formal hearing this morning and good gawd this is such a racket.

background, live in a converted warehouse with a total of 10 units. 9 of the 10 units are identical.

One of my neighbors managed to get his market value $100k less than everyone else. when i presented this information to the HCAD mafia, they basically walked back my increase to last years value (a reduction of $26k). Asked why i'm not getting the full $100k, they gave some limp d*ck excuse that i didn't present enough information as well as didn't check the correct box on my protest form.

The cowardly appraiser stayed behind his dual monitors the entire time and the "fair panel" just immediately sided with the appraiser.

The fact that we have a 7 story building dedicated to "fairly assessing value" is ridiculous. I understand that tax moneys need to be collected, but there has to be a more efficient way.

sorry...rant over

PS, I will run this to an appeal

Well, the 2019 tax year war is finally over for me. Longest HCAD experience for me to date.

I watched all you guys complain about the appraisals while ours stayed pending until 6/14/19. I had until 7/15/19 to protest and it went all the way down to the wire to get it in because we were out of town for business or vacation basically the entire month. I finally filed on 7/15/19 based on the Jubally report.

Home in Shepherd Park Plaza (77018) purchased in 2015.

HCAD Appraised up $23.5K
Jubally report said up $4K.

Against Jubally's suggestion I tried the iFile to just get the protest going before the clock ran out. The packet specifically says this is a waste of time (and has for multiple years). I uploaded the report and copied in the summary to the text box on the iFile protest. I removed the fancy language or formula explanation to keep it simple. Finally received a notification today 8/7/19 that they accepted my proposal.

......And I couldn't be happier not to have to deal with informal or formal or arbitration this year!!!!

So I went to my formal hearing and I won without much of a fight. HCAD agreed to the appraised value I requested. However, I just received a letter that recaps my hearing. It lists the previous appraised value and then lists the value we agreed upon.

Then comes the second paragraph that has me puzzled.

"The board determined that it does not have the jurisdiction to consider or grant the relief requested. It is, therefore, ordered that the motion and/or protest be dismissed without further hearing or final determination for lack of jurisdiction"

Uhhh what? I live in Harris county so I'm not sure what they mean by dont have jurisdiction. If HCAD doesn't have jurisdiction then who does?

I checked HCAD.org and my property now shows the value we agreed upon in the hearing. Does anybody have an idea what this letter means? Is this just a misprint?

ChemAg15 said:

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OISo I went to my formal hearing and I won without much of a fight. HCAD agreed to the appraised value I requested. However, I just received a letter that recaps my hearing. It lists the previous appraised value and then lists the value we agreed upon.

Then comes the second paragraph that has me puzzled.

"The board determined that it does not have the jurisdiction to consider or grant the relief requested. It is, therefore, ordered that the motion and/or protest be dismissed without further hearing or final determination for lack of jurisdiction"

Uhhh what? I live in Harris county so I'm not sure what they mean by dont have jurisdiction. If HCAD doesn't have jurisdiction then who does?

I checked HCAD.org and my property now shows the value we agreed upon in the hearing. Does anybody have an idea what this letter means? Is this just a misprint?

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There are two different entities. The Appraisal Review Board which conducted your hearing, and the Appraisal District which was your opponent. Your hearing was "dismissed" because you and the appraisal district agreed to a value, therefore the review board no longer had jurisdiction to make a determination of value themselves. Since you and the district agreed in front of the panel, the value that was agreed upon was recorded and the hearing on your protest was dismissed at that point.

If the board actually has to make a decision, it will send you an "Order Determining Protest" with different language, including your remedies for appealing the decision so that's why the language is different. It doesn't mean "dismissed" as in "no change"

If you still have the piece of paper they gave you back when you had your hearing that showed the results, if you look at the hearing result notes in the middle of the page it will say "Dismissed-Parties Agree On Value" or something similar.

Just a quick follow up to my previous post on 25-July when I had my informal. I had my formal ARB meeting this past Monday and used the same argument I provided during the informal, but end result was both the ARB and the HCAD appraiser agreeing with my assessment. I was able to knock >$60k off the HCAD market value assessment and the whole thing took about 7 minutes (half of that was the intro and swearing in of the ARB).

Maybe I had a bad appraiser during my informal but she didn't seem to even want to listen to what I had to say so the ARB was a night and day experience.

Anybody else having trouble viewing their online property tax bill through the HCAD website? When I click on it, I get an error stating I don't have permission to view the page.

Yes. Go directly to http://www.hctax.net. 2019 statements are not out yet.

Can tax savings be back dated? As in can a protest company argue with HCAD that the value was high in 2017 and 2018 as well, and try to get back overpaid tax?

Got a letter from TexasTaxProtest.com and that's what the letter says they can (or may be able to) do.

No, deadline to protest is end of May of that year. Or a certain amount of time (15 days?) after you receive notice.

Certain errors in the tax roll can be corrected going back 5 years if they are due to clerical errors, multiple appraisals, ownership, or if the property in question did not exist. If you did not file a normal value protest for 2019, there is also still an avenue available for that year to correct the value if you can show at your hearing that your value is overvalued by more than 1/3, but that needs to be filed before the delinquency date (ie by January 31)

JJxvi said:

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Certain errors in the tax roll can be corrected going back 5 years if they are due to clerical errors, multiple appraisals, ownership, or if the property in question did not exist. If you did not file a normal value protest for 2019, there is also still an avenue available for that year to correct the value if you can show at your hearing that your value is overvalued by more than 1/3, but that needs to be filed before the delinquency date (ie by January 31)

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You can also get back taxes refunded if you were eligible for an exemption that you didn't claim. My sister was able to get 2 years of refunds when she finally added her homestead exemption and claimed it back to when she bought the house.