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?

I can't speak for HCAD, but in my county I disputed my value using the sketch from my appraisal when I purchased the home and had them recalculate the value using more appropriate comparable sales.

and, no, I don't buy a 30% error requirement before a correction is warranted

For 2015 taxes I believe that's true. Protest for 2016.

Yes the 1/3 over is required to correct 2015 due to already being certified. They can fix it moving forward.

If you had protested 2015 last summer before certification it could have been adjusted.

So whenever I receive notice of my value this year I just go in and do a traditional protest and indicate incorrect square footage and provide my floor plan I received and in a perfect world I should be good to go?

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So whenever I receive notice of my value this year I just go in and do a traditional protest and indicate incorrect square footage and provide my floor plan I received and in a perfect world I should be good to go?

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Take comps with you that have similar square footage. My guys made me argue a value and provide new comps since the comps they used were way too big.

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So whenever I receive notice of my value this year I just go in and do a traditional protest and indicate incorrect square footage and provide my floor plan I received and in a perfect world I should be good to go?

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Take comps with you that have similar square footage. My guys made me argue a value and provide new comps since the comps they used were way too big.

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See I hope they don't do that because when we were buying this house we looked at one in the same area that was the exact same floor plan and HCAD has theirs listed at the same incorrect square footage.

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See I hope they don't do that because when we were buying this house we looked at one in the same area that was the exact same floor plan and HCAD has theirs listed at the same incorrect square footage.

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This happens very frequently, by the way.

the beauty of HCAD is that they are consistently wrong that it all washes out in the end.

I can testify to HCAD's incorrect records. For the 17 years I owned the house, it was listed at over 400 sq ft smaller than actual. I obviously enjoyed the lower taxes and never complained. The only rub came when it was time to sell and some buyers refused to look because they thought it was "too small".