I submitted mine the end of April. Haven't heard anything yet.

Apparently a record number of people are protesting this year. Imagine that. I live in a smaller neighborhood near Tomball and we made it a point for everyone on the Facebook page to protest. Going to be hard to raise them again next year if the current rona depression continues.

It's May 15th. Reminder to file your protest. This is the last day for many of us.

For those that have already filed, here's a gif of Laura Lee from Houston's own Khruangbin. If you haven't heard of this band, put on their album Con Todo El Mundo while you WFH today.

Diggity said:

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March of this year?

What do you think triggered HCAD to jack it up so much before it changed hands?

Was it a flip?

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Not a flip. The original market value as of 01/01/2020 was about 50% of what we paid. We did some updates to the house but it was 100% move in ready.

The only thing I can think is the owners bought a new house in December and put the Homestead on it. The market and appraised value on our house was the same so that really shouldn't have mattered.

Whatever it was HCAD two weeks later "revised" their valuation to 50% more of the previous value. It's still 80% of what we paid so I can't really complain too much. It's a pretty large amount so it's cranking up my annual property taxes.

Obviously I was hoping to have kept the value at 50% of what we paid but that's not happening.

I signed up for this guy I found that charges 35% so we'll see what happens on a protest.

I took the iSettle amount yesterday. My original increase was about 5.5% and I settled for a .8% increase.

My iProtest offer was a reduction of about 6%. The plan was to low ball them and hope they settled somewhere in between. I wish it was lower, but now I don't have to go down there and meet in person.

Dumb question, you have to have filed by today but that doesnt mean they will make their decision by today? Just wondering how long this takes? Filed a few weeks ago.

Charlie Murphy said:

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Dumb question, you have to have filed by today but that doesnt mean they will make their decision by today? Just wondering how long this takes? Filed a few weeks ago.

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I filed on 5 properties on 3/25. Received iSettle offers on two on 5/5. One on 5/13. The other two I haven't heard back.

Thanks!

Has anyone gone to a hearing, informal or formal? The building is closed.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Has anyone gone to a hearing, informal or formal? The building is closed.

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My company went to mediation at the mediator's office on the Katy Freeway last month.

I submitted an iSettle request back in April. I gave them the number I got from Jubally, which seemed low to me, and my plan was to accept the iSettle offer if it was reasonable (aka close to last years value). Just got an email back from HCAD stating:

"after reviewing the information we have available, we cannot propose an online settlement for your 2020 protest. Since sales disclosure is not mandatory in Texas, we acknowledge that our market information may not be complete and that you may have evidence unique to your property that may support a reduction in your property's market value."

So they don't have enough information to determine my home value but they can arbitrarily jack up my property value? Oh and I don't get to do the informal meeting because I tried iSettle. I wasn't planning on using the informal meeting but it's still a crappy thing for HCAD to do.

ChemAg15 said:

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I submitted an iSettle request back in April. I gave them the number I got from Jubally, which seemed low to me, and my plan was to accept the iSettle offer if it was reasonable (aka close to last years value). Just got an email back from HCAD stating:

"after reviewing the information we have available, we cannot propose an online settlement for your 2020 protest. Since sales disclosure is not mandatory in Texas, we acknowledge that our market information may not be complete and that you may have evidence unique to your property that may support a reduction in your property's market value."

So they don't have enough information to determine my home value but they can arbitrarily jack up my property value? Oh and I don't get to do the informal meeting because I tried iSettle. I wasn't planning on using the informal meeting but it's still a crappy thing for HCAD to do.

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If its any consolation to you, the informal meeting would have gone the same way. Guy would sit across from you, say the exact same thing as iSettle said and then recommend you go to formal.

I'm sure the informal guy only has the authority and ability to marginally reduce taxes on obvious issues with easy comps. Looks like you've got a hard to comp property and you asked for a big reduction. So either way, it was going to wind up in front of the formal hearing.

one MEEN Ag said:

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ChemAg15 said:

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I submitted an iSettle request back in April. I gave them the number I got from Jubally, which seemed low to me, and my plan was to accept the iSettle offer if it was reasonable (aka close to last years value). Just got an email back from HCAD stating:

"after reviewing the information we have available, we cannot propose an online settlement for your 2020 protest. Since sales disclosure is not mandatory in Texas, we acknowledge that our market information may not be complete and that you may have evidence unique to your property that may support a reduction in your property's market value."

So they don't have enough information to determine my home value but they can arbitrarily jack up my property value? Oh and I don't get to do the informal meeting because I tried iSettle. I wasn't planning on using the informal meeting but it's still a crappy thing for HCAD to do.

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If its any consolation to you, the informal meeting would have gone the same way. Guy would sit across from you, say the exact same thing as iSettle said and then recommend you go to formal.

I'm sure the informal guy only has the authority and ability to marginally reduce taxes on obvious issues with easy comps. Looks like you've got a hard to comp property and you asked for a big reduction. So either way, it was going to wind up in front of the formal hearing.

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Both times I got the informal appraiser to lower a significant amount based on Jubally info. In one he dropped all but one comp and use the Jubally comps.

ISettle accepted.

Ended up 8.02% from last year.

Originally was set up 19.96% on the market and of course the max 10% on the appraised.

Got my iSettle accepted. I hadn't protested in a couple years since it didn't go up much over the past few years, so my accepted offer is actually less than last year.

Still waiting

Also still waiting.

My iSettle was rejected today by those cowards. I'm sure I will get a runaround like last year.

I thought HCAD would play ball this year with the reluctance to do in-person protests, but I guess not. How are they going to handle all these informal and formal meetings? Aren't they against some deadline?

They came back with 65% of the drop I requested on Isettle. I've protested every year since we bought the house. My home just appraised (doing a refi) at $115k more than we bought it for 5 years ago and their offer value is only at 94% of the price of what we actually paid for the house 5 years ago.

I'm tired and worn down from everything going on. I'm settling this year. Best of luck to the rest of you.

Submitted my iSettle on May 15th.

They agreed with my reduction request yesterday.

I'm starting to worry that if you didnt do isettle, they will do a punitive informal where you will get less.

Like they used all their goodwill on isettle.

Still waiting and filed Isettle on 3/15

Up 19% this year in 77007.

I tried iSettle on a whim just to see if I could get what I was seeking. I got an offer for ~50% of what I was seeking using solid Jubally comps.

Off to Formal we go!

Off to formals I go - they didn't like my isettle either.

Submitted to iSettle for 12% off to match I paid for the house 10 years ago just to be a dik. They offered 11% off! **** yes I'm going to accept that!

In the past I got what I wanted at informal or using isettle, this year not so much. They came down a lot, but not as much as I feel is correct. Based on recent sales, the value they offered is actually pretty fair, but based on comparable values, I feel like I'm over valued by about 6%. I've never been to formal, I'm arguing unequal value and have 10 solid comps, do I have a chance?

Crazy Ag 97 said:

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In the past I got what I wanted at informal or using isettle, this year not so much. They came down a lot, but not as much as I feel is correct. Based on recent sales, the value they offered is actually pretty fair, but based on comparable values, I feel like I'm over valued by about 6%. I've never been to formal, I'm arguing unequal value and have 10 solid comps, do I have a chance?

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Yes. Be sure to look at their evidence beforehand to pick apart their comps.

Got an isettle offer back to the 2018 level, took it and ran!

Just accepted an iSettle increase of 2.5% instead of the 9.5% increase they proposed. I just don't have the time to fight them this year. I am fighting Matagorda County over a 75% increase on an unimproved lot down there!

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Crazy Ag 97 said:

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In the past I got what I wanted at informal or using isettle, this year not so much. They came down a lot, but not as much as I feel is correct. Based on recent sales, the value they offered is actually pretty fair, but based on comparable values, I feel like I'm over valued by about 6%. I've never been to formal, I'm arguing unequal value and have 10 solid comps, do I have a chance?

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Yes. Be sure to look at their evidence beforehand to pick apart their comps.

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I have looked at their comps, and it may be a tough sell to get it any lower. I am arguing unequal value as the basis for my protest, Looking at their comps, all 5 of their their value comps are on my street, all 5 are the same builder, almost identical square footage, almost identical houses with just slight variations in the front elevations, same condition, same size lots. To make it worse, none of my neighbors ever protests (even though I have begged them to) so they are all WAY over valued. The average value of the 5 comps HCAD is using would be almost 13% higher than mine if I accept their offer. All of my comps are clustered together on the other side of Shepherd, so anyone that knows the area would know that even though we have the same neighborhood codes, Shepherd is a dividing line when it comes to home prices.

The sales argument is much tougher for me. My sales comps show my value at about what they offered (within $1500). So using sales there is nothing to pick apart as we both agree. Additionally, 2 of their sales comps are on my street (see above) and sold for $25,000 more than the value they are offering.

The original number they gave me was a 24% increase in market value, the new number is only a 7.2% increase. Unfortunately I don't know if it's worth my effort at this point.

iSettle came back and knocked our value back even with the prior two years. Was not expecting that, but it's well below market. I'll take it.

Dang it... No response to my protest and I didn't isettle. Now they are going to be pissed I am coming in and will agree me hardcore! Very jealous of all of you who got good isettle offers!

Still pissed that isettle gave me the shaft. No offer whatsoever

ChemAg15 said:

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Still pissed that isettle gave me the shaft. No offer whatsoever

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I hear you