I'm looking for feedback on a property tax website that my son is building. His page queries the public county appraisal websites for your property and then builds a protest packet for you based on the appraisals of similar, nearby properties (the statutory unequal appraisal argument) and gives you instructions on how to file the protest.

His plan is to provide the website and self-service for free and ask for a tip/donation from those who benefit from it. The packet it provides is similar to that of AppealDesk.com ($50) or SquareDeal.com (~$99), but looks at similar appraisals rather than similar sales. (He's looking at adding the sales data, but that requires MLS access and would require a fee.)

Please check it out and give feedback on the website, protest packet and business model:
Citizens Tax Protest Service Texas Property Tax Protest

It's not intended to be used for this year, but since it's protest season, we wanted to share it now while property tax is on people's minds. Williamson County and Brazos County are fully operational and should give representative protest packets if you enter addresses that you are familiar with in those counties.

Thank you!

Main questions:
1. Feedback on overall concept and business plan.
2. Have you filed a protest on your own before? If not, why not?
3. Any thoughts on the comps it provided automatically? Do they seem reasonable?
4. If you've protested before (especially with the unequal appraisal argument), how much and what kind of pushback did you get from the CAD on your protest? Any ideas for how we could proactively address/mitigate this pushback?
5. How important would it be to you to have MLS sales data in the service? It would basically mean we'd have to look for a relationship with a realtor and probably charge a fee to recover the MLS costs.

There was a service on here several years ago called Jubally that did the same thing, but in addition to unequally appraised data, they would also use sales data and pick the best comps of the two.

From my understanding, they are no longer in business. Not sure why.

The biggest savings come from those who not only protest, but those who follow-through after the initial protest and into litigation. This takes a lot of time and has a cost of using a protesting company. A website that pulls general comps, either from nearby assessments or nearby sales, without the nuance of understanding what drives the reductions, in my opinion will be rather useless.

Part of the game is understanding the jurisdictions and what drives them. Right now, jurisdictions are desperate for income and more unwilling to negotiate than recent years. You also have to consider that in years where values are up significantly, the income cap for jurisdictions has kept tax rates falling. So even people claiming they are getting screwed are really not paying that much more than the previous year. That is about to start not being the case. We are likely entering years where counties are going to be very stubborn about lower values while at the same time possibly raising tax rates.

I think hiring a professional who is able to negotiate hard on the front end while also have a strong record of success in litigation is going to benefit more than ever before.

Just my opinion.