Hey guys, this is my first year having Homestead Exemption and I expected to see a discount on my various tax bills, including the two Mud bills. I am in MUD districts 419 and 157 and can't discern from the www.wheelerassoc.com website whether a homestead exemption should or should not be reflected on my bill.

I plan to call them tomorrow but figured I'd post here as well in case anyone can clear this up for me.

Thanks

Side note - paying $4800 in mud taxes PLUS $1500/year in water bills sucks a big one

http://www.hcad.org/resources/jurlist.asp

Thanks for the link.

So they don't give you any discount. Fun stuff.

Dayum, what is your overall property tax rate? +4%?

It is up to the homeowner to make sure that their HE is on file with the taxing entity if they ( the entity) collects their own taxes. Some taxing entities use the regular county tax office to collect so its a no-brainer, file your HE and its done. But some taxing entities collect their own taxes, a HUGE inefficient and totally un-necessary stunt. Unfortunately its usually MUDS that don't use the county but collect their own taxes and ,of course, steal a ton of money that could go to infrastructure or bond retirement and funnel the funds into a redundant brother in law tax office within the MUD management firm. MUDS are one of the most corrupt entities on the planet. They are set up by a small group of lawyers ( talking about Houston but its the same in the other big cities) in 2 firms in cahoots with the developers. They are mangeed by so-called maagement firm also owned by these same 2-3 law firms. They collect enormous amounts of money and waste MILLIONS paying themselves all type of useless and absolutely corrupt "management" fees. I lived in one where ,after a LOT of work and threats, finally got a copy of the books and found that ,among other things, the MUD was paying an "investment" counselor $ 350,000 a year to "manage" the approx $ 6,000,000 cash reserve account. He put the damn money in a money market , booked not a SINGLE transaction a year and collected $350,000 to do it. The guy was the brother of one of the MUD "commissioners" who was ,as usual, a lawyer in the firm.
These people are good. The law states that they must publish the notice of the MUD election in the subdivision and in a newspaper. What is normal is a note on the unused club house at the swimming pool in December when the pool is closed and a notice of election is published in the Katy Times or the Pasadena Courier even though the subdivision is in Cypress...... Go find me a home owner who has ever heard of the election, ever voted in one or even knows that there is a MUD board that is elected. MUDS are a good way to build infrastructure in the un-incorporated areas but have morphed into an out of control den of thieves ( Harris County) and due to a LOT of brilliant lobbyists, ton of "contributions" and AGGRESSIVE legal threats to ANY individuals who dig and try and complain seem to be totally immune to ANY oversight nor light of day.

Crossbow, our tax rate is 3.7%.

To the poster above, that story absolutely makes my blood boil about the $350,000 cronie salary. Did you ever get any recourse? And are you saying the MUD will honor a homestead exemption, I just have to go fight them for it?

Ag76 rants should be taken with a grain of salt.

Exp, some honor homesteads. It's up to the taxing authority.

Just to confirm, they do not offer exemptions in my mud districts.

So moving on, I want to hear more about this 350k salary. What did you do one you acquired this information???

We tried going door to door in the neighborhoodwith the budget sheets and after 3 weekends and virtually nothing more than " damn that's bad" ... We have up. Tried to get folks worked up for the stealth MUD board election but only got 4 households to bother and vote.
Ended up moving. I'm not going to even bother looking at my new MUD budget knowing that the homeowners just don't care.

Have you looked at the latest audit, Original Ag? If the investment counselor really is a brother of one commissioner, I'm pretty sure that should be a related party disclosure in the footnotes. Not that anybody in the District reads the audits, but it should be there for the few that do.

Moved away from that hood years ago. In order to get the budget you have to make an appt at the law firm AT THEIR pleasure during what THEY decide is business hours and pay lawyer rates to make copies of each page ( as in $.50 page) . It took the guy in my old hood almost a year to finally get the entire budget.

darn...I was expecting some hard evidence of this maleficence.

It's probably to late for this year but next year you might want to attend the budget meeting. It should be around Augustish.