2019 Property Tax Values are Out

[drewlaws 126]

I bought a new house this year. TCAD sent me a sales survey about what I paid for the property. Should I fill this out? Will it help them get my value right?

[NeverMarryAStripper 21898]

You should light it on fire and shit in the ashes

[Anastasis 23469]

I was going to go with responding GO FUCK YOURSELF TAXMAN in big block letters but NMAS’ advice is probably better. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by Anastasis

[swraith 346]

Today, I got a letter from Five Stone about 2020 protest. No mention of any change in fee structure.

[TexasEd 8066]

2 hours ago, swraith said:

Today, I got a letter from Five Stone about 2020 protest. No mention of any change in fee structure.

In case you didn't know... They auto renew if you don't cancel.  They got me with that last year and I did not want the service.

[Catpfish 618]

13 hours ago, drewlaws said:

I bought a new house this year. TCAD sent me a sales survey about what I paid for the property. Should I fill this out? Will it help them get my value right?

The answer to this actually depends on the value vs what you paid.  If you paid less than last year's tax appraisal, I would send it in along with a copy of the ALTA (main closing document).  There is a very good chance that you won't have to go through the protest process and you will get the valuation equal to what you paid.  However, if you paid more than the assessed value, I would follow NMAS's advice.

[Murfdogg21 4412]

There is no reason to send it in ahead of time. Wait and see what they appraise you for. If it is more than what you paid, your purchase price is good for up to 18 months. All you have to do is file an online protest and attach a summary sheet from your closing showing what you paid, and TCAD will lower it to exactly that price. But you should wait in (vain) hope that they appraise you for less. And fuck giving them any hard data to screw your neighbors with. 

[SquishMitten 10403]

Do you have to provide any evidence or sign under oath? If not, I'd respond with a number $1,000 higher than their current valuation (assuming you paid more than what they currently have you at). If you do have to provide evidence/oath, then just wait and see as others have noted above.

[Catpfish 618]

18 minutes ago, Murfdogg21 said:

There is no reason to send it in ahead of time. Wait and see what they appraise you for. If it is more than what you paid, your purchase price is good for up to 18 months. All you have to do is file an online protest and attach a summary sheet from your closing showing what you paid, and TCAD will lower it to exactly that price. But you should wait in (vain) hope that they appraise you for less. And fuck giving them any hard data to screw your neighbors with. 

Unfortunately, this is not a given.  I know of one person last year that the county decided that they paid too little and had to be a sweetheart deal (it wasn't), and they didn't give them the purchase price.  I believe that they then went in for the formal protest and got close to their price eventually.  Dick move by the county.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Catpfish

[Murfdogg21 4412]

2 minutes ago, Catpfish said:

Unfortunately, this is not a given.  I know of one person last year that the county decided that they paid too little and had to be a sweetheart deal (it wasn't), and they didn't give them the purchase price.  I believe that they then went in for the formal protest and got their price eventually.  Dick move by the county.

Ok. My experience has been 2 for 2 on getting the first year’s appraisal knocked down significantly to the purchase price with practically no questions asked. If you pitch that you bought it for $200k below market value, then kudos to your savvy real estate prowess and enjoy your capital gains. 

[Catpfish 618]

One other thing while I'm thinking about it.  You should always file a protest to get the evidence packet from the county.  I can count three different people last year that were being evaluated significantly over what the county's own sales comparison data showed.  All three people had to go in for the formal process, but they did get their valuation lowered to match the sales comparison number.  In one case, they had the sales comp value at $235,000 (which was right in line with the sales comps that I showed them), but the county was going to assess at a little over $284,000.  

A five minute formal protest got it lowered to $235,000 but the owner still had to take off of work.  The county knows that a certain percentage will never look at the data and they are going to rake them over the coals for as long as they can.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Catpfish
spelling and shit

[drewlaws 126]

Thanks for the advice. I paid about 8% over 2019 CAD so I will wait and see what value they come up with on their own. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by drewlaws

[ZB'Tejas 593]

Quote

The new fee structure is as follows:

Advance Administrative Fee:

To begin each year, Client will pay Texas Protax a non-refundable administrative fee of $150 per parcel per year protested by Texas Protax.  The advance Administrative Fee will be billed annually each tax year and must be received by Texas Protax by March 31 or 30 days after billed.

This Advance Administrative Fee will be sent through DocuSign and will be required to be paid at the same time you are signing the DocuSign Agreement and Appointment of Agent Form. 

Failure to remit the Administrative Fee cancels the agreement between Protax and the Client for the tax year in which the administrative fee is not paid.  Protax will not represent Client’s property, without the Advance Administrative Fee paid.

Performance Based Fees:

The Performance Based Fee compares two formulas; A) The Taxable Savings Fee versus B) The Market Value Reduction Fee.  At the end of the protest process, both formulas are calculated. The totals are compared and the greater of the two will be the Performance Based Fee. 

The Administrative Fee is taken off when the Performance Based Fee is greater than $150.

For instance, if the Performance Based Fee is $180, then the Administrative Fee is credited off of the final bill. This makes the final bill only $30. If the results of the Performance Based Fee are less than $150, Texas Protax keeps the Administrative Fee to cover costs. No more is charged to the client. 

Taxable Savings Fee: Protax shall be paid 40% of all tax savings to client resulting from the efforts of Protax in excess of the amount of administrative fee paid.

Example only of fee calculation on a taxable value reduction from $1,100,000 down to $1,000,000.

(Notice Taxable Value minus Final Taxable Value) divided by 100 times Current Year Actual Tax Rate times Performance Based Rate = Total Fees in excess of administrative fee.  

(Notice Taxable $1,100,000 – Final Taxable $1,000,000) / 100 x 2.20 Tax Rate x 0.4 = $880 Performance Fee - $150 Administrative Fee = $730 due at conclusion of protest process.

Market Value Reduction Fee: For properties with a capped market value or a special use valuation, Protax shall be paid the greater of the taxable savings fee or $2.50 for each $1,000 reduction in the market value. 

Example only of fee calculation with a capped value – Value reduction from $1,100,000 down to $1,000,000, but capped/taxable value equals $900,000, so no actual tax savings achieved).

*Capped Market Value at $900,000; reduction equals no tax savings*   (Notice Market Value minus Final Market Value) divided by 1,000 times 2.50 = Total Fees in excess of administrative fee.  

(Notice Market $1,100,000 – Final Market $1,000,000) / 1,000 x 2.50 = $250 Performance Fee - $150 Administrative Fee = $100 due at conclusion of protest process.

 

Following this letter will be a DocuSign email from authorizations@texasprotax.com containing the new agreement for your approval. 

In order for us to file a protest on your behalf this year, please sign and return the new agreement and an updated Appointment of Agent form by March 31, 2020. 

If you no longer wish to continue with our services, or do not agree with the proposed fee structure, notify us in writing by emailing clientnotifications@texasprotax.com to close your account.

If we do not receive the agreement back by March 31, we will close your account and not file a protest for the 2020 tax year.

We realize this can be somewhat confusing, so please call us to discuss if you have any questions or concerns at all.  Again, we sincerely appreciate the opportunity to represent you and look forward to continuing to help manage your property tax portfolio!

The performance based fee is new as well this year. I think it used to be you got charged if they actually reduced your tax bill. Now it seems that just by reducing the market value (even though taxable value stays the same and you don't save anything) you will get charged a portion of that. 

[Tailgate 3021]

Wasn’t there a cap passed in legislation last year where values can only go up by x amount? Like 2% I think I remember hearing.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Tailgate

[ZB'Tejas 593]

49 minutes ago, Tailgate said:

Wasn’t there a cap passed in legislation last year where values can only go up by x amount? Like 2% I think I remember hearing.

Taxes rates can only go up by 2.5% without voter approval. I think appraised values on homes can still go us as much as prior years (capped at 10% for ones with Homestead exemption)

[Tailgate 3021]

10 minutes ago, ZB'Tejas said:

Taxes rates can only go up by 2.5% without voter approval. I think appraised values on homes can still go us as much as prior years (capped at 10% for ones with Homestead exemption)

Gotcha...how can the appraised value go to 10% since that is what you would be taxed on...so a 10% increase? Where does the 2.5% come into play? Thanks for clarifying...not a math guy just trying to figure it out for this years Ass kicking.

[ZB'Tejas 593]

20 minutes ago, Tailgate said:

Gotcha...how can the appraised value go to 10% since that is what you would be taxed on...so a 10% increase? Where does the 2.5% come into play? Thanks for clarifying...not a math guy just trying to figure it out for this years Ass kicking.

I took it to mean that the underlying tax rate could only increase by 2.5%. For example the City of Austin tax rate is .4431%. That could go up only 2% but your appraised/taxable amount on your house could still increase from 500K to 550K. 

I also think that was only on City and maybe county taxes. It might not apply to the School District tax which is the highest rate anyway. (Austin ISD was 1.122% last year)

Edited February 10, 2020 by ZB'Tejas

[XYZ 2154]

What’s there to figure out? We’re all gonna get our asses kicked. Hard.

[Texas Jeff 1945]

Well we may not need a 2020 thread in Travis Co.  The Statesman is reporting that the Travis chief appraiser told some local school districts that the appraiser will not be re-appraising residential properties for 2020.  Evidently TCAD is not allowed access to MLS data, but somehow they were deriving the data from other sources and the Austin Board of Realtors sent them a cease and desist order to stop doing that.  TCAD says they can't do their job without this data (which, in theory, they are not supposed to have?) so they don't plan to reappraise residential properties this year.  Seems like that is kinda their job.

So, if you live in Travis County your appraised value from 2019 may be your appraised value for 2020.  Will your taxes still go up?  Of course!  If you were limited last year by the 10% per year cap, your taxable value will rise even if your appraised value does not.  Also, I think the new SB2 caps on tax (2.5% for schools and 3.5% for county and city -- I think) apply to tax revenue and not to tax rates.  If true, this means that everyone except the school district can probably just crank up the tax rate to account for not having higher appraised values, to hit the maximum revenue values allowed under law.  And they will.

The school district tax works a little bit differently.  I'm not sure if Austin ISD is currently maxed out on tax rate or if there is a little room left to crank it up.

 

[Pasken 1309]

"As for getting information from homebuyers voluntarily, Martinez said, “Last month we mailed out 22,000 questionnaires to Travis County property owners about their recent purchase of property and only got 2,300 back.” Some of the answers they received were less than helpful. Martinez said one new homeowner reported that “they paid $6 and gave a sexual favor” for their new home. "

[Anastasis 23469]

19 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Well we may not need a 2020 thread in Travis Co.  The Statesman is reporting that the Travis chief appraiser told some local school districts that the appraiser will not be re-appraising residential properties for 2020

Is that why protax chewing their fee structure?

[Guest Lobo]

59 minutes ago, Pasken said:

"As for getting information from homebuyers voluntarily, Martinez said, “Last month we mailed out 22,000 questionnaires to Travis County property owners about their recent purchase of property and only got 2,300 back.” Some of the answers they received were less than helpful. Martinez said one new homeowner reported that “they paid $6 and gave a sexual favor” for their new home. "

A 10% response to a government mailer in a Texas is actually pretty good.  Also, my friend wants to know this this $6 blowjob gal is, as his condo is on the market soon 

[mapplewhite132 309]

20 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Well we may not need a 2020 thread in Travis Co.  The Statesman is reporting that the Travis chief appraiser told some local school districts that the appraiser will not be re-appraising residential properties for 2020.  Evidently TCAD is not allowed access to MLS data, but somehow they were deriving the data from other sources and the Austin Board of Realtors sent them a cease and desist order to stop doing that.  TCAD says they can't do their job without this data (which, in theory, they are not supposed to have?) so they don't plan to reappraise residential properties this year.  Seems like that is kinda their job.

So, if you live in Travis County your appraised value from 2019 may be your appraised value for 2020.  Will your taxes still go up?  Of course!  If you were limited last year by the 10% per year cap, your taxable value will rise even if your appraised value does not.  Also, I think the new SB2 caps on tax (2.5% for schools and 3.5% for county and city -- I think) apply to tax revenue and not to tax rates.  If true, this means that everyone except the school district can probably just crank up the tax rate to account for not having higher appraised values, to hit the maximum revenue values allowed under law.  And they will.

The school district tax works a little bit differently.  I'm not sure if Austin ISD is currently maxed out on tax rate or if there is a little room left to crank it up.

 

I bought a house in 19 with an appraised value 35% less than purchase price. I'm going to do cartwheels if they don't reappraise. 

[Murfdogg21 4412]

11 minutes ago, mapplewhite132 said:

I bought a house in 19 with an appraised value 35% less than purchase price. I'm going to do cartwheels if they don't reappraise. 

Same. I bought in 2018 and got the purchase price for my appraisal for 2019. I won’t see an increase until 2021 and have the homestead exemption to slow it down. We’ll probably move in 2022 (for school zoning) anyway so this is great. 

[Murfdogg21 4412]

21 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Well we may not need a 2020 thread in Travis Co.  The Statesman is reporting that the Travis chief appraiser told some local school districts that the appraiser will not be re-appraising residential properties for 2020.  Evidently TCAD is not allowed access to MLS data, but somehow they were deriving the data from other sources and the Austin Board of Realtors sent them a cease and desist order to stop doing that.  TCAD says they can't do their job without this data (which, in theory, they are not supposed to have?) so they don't plan to reappraise residential properties this year.  Seems like that is kinda their job.

So, if you live in Travis County your appraised value from 2019 may be your appraised value for 2020.  Will your taxes still go up?  Of course!  If you were limited last year by the 10% per year cap, your taxable value will rise even if your appraised value does not.  Also, I think the new SB2 caps on tax (2.5% for schools and 3.5% for county and city -- I think) apply to tax revenue and not to tax rates.  If true, this means that everyone except the school district can probably just crank up the tax rate to account for not having higher appraised values, to hit the maximum revenue values allowed under law.  And they will.

The school district tax works a little bit differently.  I'm not sure if Austin ISD is currently maxed out on tax rate or if there is a little room left to crank it up.

 

I have to say shame on TCAD. There may be a legitimate argument that the sale prices are the most accurate values for appraisals and should be used. But that argument is forfeited when TCAD went sleazy and paid the CoreLogic company a bribe with our tax money to steal the MLS data instead of raising the issue and putting public or legal pressure on the realtor associations. Now they are fear mongering about school districts getting screwed by greedy realtors and home owners not wanting to “pay their fair share.” Austin city and Travis county populations have exploded, new properties created, appraisals way up, tax rates up...all these things compound for exponential growth of tax revenues. I haven’t seen exponential growth of city services, police, firemen, teachers, etc. Don’t cry about being underfunded. 

[CooterBrown 18006]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

Is that why protax chewing their fee structure?

I'm gonna guess ProTax knew this ahead of time and got as many $150 fees up front to stay in business until next year. They got my $150 a week ago unfortunately.

 

[Podrick's Magic Cock 191]

I closed my Protax account.  This new fee structure frightens and confuses me.

[Shaggybevo 353]

Austin 2020 property taxes are out.  

I live in central Austin, no change from last year for me and the houses on my street.

Wow!

Edited April 10, 2020 by Shaggybevo

[AUS-97HORN 11757]

same here.  no change at all, identical

[CooterBrown 18006]

Austin 2020 property taxes are out.  
I live in central Austin, no change from last year for me and the houses on my street.
Wow!

Since you just woke up from a coma, I’ll just let you know that they weren’t reappraising valued this year since the appraisal district got in a pissing match over using the MLS data for comps.

[Anastasis 23469]

So how will the contesting go?  I cancelled protax over that admin fee bullshit and moved to five stones. 

[bluto 4916]

That residential rolling of last year’s values has LOTS of layers/ins/outs to it. Amazed they went through with it.

Commercial owners should be burning that bitch to the ground based on the few values I’ve looked at so far. 20% increase on retail is some shit.

[drewlaws 126]

I bought a house last year for over the 2019 appraisal and they kept the value the same. That’s nice.

Before we start giving those crooks too much credit, they maxed out the rate increase, if I remember correctly.

[drewlaws 126]

Double post

[Guest Lobo]

Adler and Co. running the same gambit.  Can't wait to see how this ends for them.  

Also to be fair to them, ACC taxation group is the most blatant group of criminals in the entire bunch.  But we can't talk about it...

[Telegraph_it 3357]

HCAD increased my value by 10%. I guess that’s the cap since it’s homesteaded. I don’t know what they are smoking. 

[ftf82 485]

41 minutes ago, bluto said:

That residential rolling of last year’s values has LOTS of layers/ins/outs to it. Amazed they went through with it.

Commercial owners should be burning that bitch to the ground based on the few values I’ve looked at so far. 20% increase on retail is some shit.

Valuations are, in theory, as of January 1. In other words, before the shit hit the fan.  So commercial valuations, in theory, should be increased.  I went ahead and paid ProTax the 150 for my house on the bet that they wouldn’t have as many clients this year since the Tax Assessor said they would keep everything at last year’s values. 

 

And yeah.  If your tax value was below your market value last year, you’re going up.  Which is another reason the protest. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by ftf82
Telegraphs post

[ZB'Tejas 593]

Well I retained ProTax despite their rate change so hopefully they can do the job.

My improvements went up not quite 10% despite my immediate neighbors stayed unchanged from last year.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jimmyjazz 45899]

I haven't paid ProTax the $150.  What's the theory here for what I should do going foward?  Neither assessed nor appraised values changed.

[StruggleBus 3922]

So everyone will be poor, homeless, or dead next year. Any chance we actually see them go down in 2021?

[Texas Jeff 1945]

The valuations only really determine how much tax you will pay relative to everyone else.  Looks like this year is mostly frozen for residential.

The real kicker will be when tax rates are set, which determines how much you'll pay.  Will our city and county government have the courage to raise taxes as much as the legally can during a recession?  I'm thinking yes...  They will say if they don't raise it to the max they lose out on the ability to raise it even higher in later years.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Texas Jeff

[bluto 4916]

The valuations only really determine how much tax you will pay relative to everyone else.  Looks like this year is mostly frozen for residential.
The real kicker will be when tax rates are set, which determines how much you'll pay.  Will our city and county government have the courage to raise taxes as much as the legally can during a recession?  I'm thinking yes...  They will say if they don't raise it to the max they lose out on the ability to raise it even higher in later years.

I have zero doubt the rates will be maxed out. The amount of sales tax, hotel tax, etc lost from the shutdown plus freezing resi values, they won’t have a choice.

[jimmyjazz 45899]

I've owned a home in Austin every year but one from 1989 on.  That's the standard plan -- valuations plateau, rates bump, then valuations bump while rates stay level.  Magically, rates eventually go up.  "Limits" seem to be ephemeral.

[Anastasis 23469]

8 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I haven't paid ProTax the $150.  What's the theory here for what I should do going foward?  Neither assessed nor appraised values changed.

Five stone doesn’t charge the fee. 

[Burt Macklin 19020]

So basically if I wasn’t paying attention to any of this until now and my appraised and assessed value stayed the exact same as 2019, then ProTax billed me $150 in February for doing absolutely nothing this year and they knew that would be the case ahead of time?
 

Anyone had success canceling and getting their money back? I’m guessing since ProTax knew, they provided for no refunds in the agreement. Either way, that’s total bullshit, and I’ll be cancelling and switching to a different company for next year. 

[immamac 42839]

My zilker house started flat in 2020. Yippee

However just refinanced my hays house so got it appraised and I thought it came back way low. The county tax bill arrived and it was +170k from the appraisal. Now I know the market appraisal was bogus, the comps he used were nothing like my property except the 1 which placed my value much closer (within 50k) of county appraisal. I'm pretty pissed off about that. 

[bluto 4916]

Use that fee appraisal to lower the tax value at least

[ZB'Tejas 593]

I looked into my tax appraisal a bit more and the increase is from an ADU that’s now showing up this year. It’s a structure built years ago that actually houses all the pool equipment with a sun deck on top.

So now this is showing up for 2020 and I’m on the hook for a significant amount more in taxes.

Question to the group is have you seen a structure like this classified as an ADU on the tax rolls before?

How did they decide to put this on their this year? Are they walking the neighborhoods and saw this and figured is what a garage apartment?

If it’s a mistake I suppose ProTax will be able to have it taken off however that means I will owe them for the tax savings when it was a literal mistake not the good work of being down actual appraised rates.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Anastasis 23469]

3 hours ago, Burt Macklin said:

So basically if I wasn’t paying attention to any of this until now and my appraised and assessed value stayed the exact same as 2019, then ProTax billed me $150 in February for doing absolutely nothing this year and they knew that would be the case ahead of time?
 

Anyone had success canceling and getting their money back? I’m guessing since ProTax knew, they provided for no refunds in the agreement. Either way, that’s total bullshit, and I’ll be cancelling and switching to a different company for next year. 

Yeah fuck them.  I let them do my contest every year for at least the last 7 or 8 or so I think. I even let them rake some gravy when I gave them a slam dunk reduction just to save the trip down to the office and hand the appraiser my HUD form. And then they pull this bullshit.  They will never see another dime from me. 

[bluto 4916]

In front of my computer now so I'll go into a little bit more detail on Travis CAD's decision to roll the resi values (rambling warning)....

Even before the pandemic TCAD decided to roll resi values. While they laid that blame on their sudden inaccessibility to MLS sales data, it runs a lot deeper than that. TCAD has been at war with tax consultants for ~5 years now, many of their tactics completely dishonest and in opposition to the tax code. I don't know why it has turned into such a shit show, but it has. I have no doubt that this played some part in their decision to roll values as they knew it would effectively sink two of their most outspoken critics/targets in Protax and Five Stone - if values don't increase then tax agents don't have any work to do, especially in an appreciating market. Protax realized that their fee model was unsustainable, hence the $150 fee, with how TCAD was scheduling their hearings and requiring them to have more hands on deck to handle the work load.  

One of their tactics with screwing the agents/owners over last year was scheduling dozens of hearings simultaneously for one agent/company which resulted in many hearings being dismissed for 'no showing.' It was all an orchestrated effort from the beginning in how they operated during the appeals season, essentially doing away with the 'informal' process. TCAD rightfully caught a lot of shit for how much it costed taxpayers in $, time, and frustration. The $ is doubly true as it caused TCAD's budget to explode due to how many extra ARB members were needed along with requiring them to rent an entire building to house the circus. Now that values are frozen, residential appeals and hearings will be cut by ~90% making their process look like it's effective both operationally and economically. 

Another layer is that Travis Co probably has a significant amount of pent up taxable value appreciation on homesteaded properties so the residential market values might freeze but the taxable values will still increase to catch up. I haven't run the numbers on it to say for sure, but that's a fairly strong hunch. 

TCAD and taxing entities were both bailed out when Abbott announced the disaster declaration that allows taxing entities to increase YOY rev by 8% (again) after last leg session lowered that cap to 3.5%. When I say cap, I mean the taxing entities have to hold general vote to approve tax rate increases that result in YOY revenue increases by those percentages. So allllllll that work last summer that went into the main issue of SB 2, lowering the 'rollback tax rate', is tossed out the window for 2020 and I think 2021 as well. Even if your value rolled, your taxes will go up YoY. 

Yet another angle on TCAD freezing values is their attempt at putting a stake in the ground for why we must have sales price disclosure in Texas, we're currently a nondisclosure state. Both sides have merit on the argument, but good luck getting Texans to agree to allow the government any further view into their private life/money.