faq

As a property owner, and therefore an investor, this is ultimately the most important question that you must answer.  According to the National Taxpayers Union, a nonprofit group that promotes lower taxes, these are the facts:

- As many as 60 percent of properties across the country are over-assessed in property value.

- Property values declined an average of 18 percent each year between 2006 and 2009.

- Despite the decline, property taxes have increased 7 percent.

Given these statistics, if you believe that there is any possibility that Appraisal District has over-assessed your property, our professional opinion is that you should file a protest.  There is no cost for filing (and Proper Taxation charges no fees if we are unsuccessful in lowering your assessed value), so filing a protest is essentially a risk-free opportunity to save significant money in taxes.

By law, any property owner may file a protest for his/her property and is not required to use an agent. Regarding the process of filing a protest, here are more statistics from the National Taxpayers Union:

- Only 2 to 3 percent of homeowners attempt an appeal to their Appraisal District Board.

- Of those who attempt an appeal, 20 to 40 percent of appeals are successful. In contrast to these statistics, for the tax year 2010, over 97% of the clients we negotiated for received a reduced property value assessment. We offer years of experience in the real estate industry as well as specialized expertise in strategies for building an effective case to present to the Appraisal Board. In addition to our industry knowledge, our clients have noted that our services saved them an invaluable amount of time spent on housing market research and appearing before the Appraisal Board. We also value relieving the stress of navigating a complicated process for our clients. To hear some real stories from our clients, click here.

The deadline for officially filing the protest is May 31, or no later than 30 days after the Appraisal District mails your preliminary value notice, whichever is later. If you are utilizing our services, we need to know as soon as possible to begin collecting data on comparable properties to present your case. To begin the process, click here.

Surprisingly, no. The housing market is not driven by the government-assessed value of homes, but rather by the potential buyers interested in your property.

Our fee structure is direct and straightforward. Our clients pay us 40% of the amount we save them in property taxes for the year we file a protest. If we are unsuccessful with your protest, there are no fees for our services.

Potentially yes. Because of the difficult task of assessing every property in a given region, it is common for county governments to only assess property values every three or four years. However, the housing market changes annually in every community, and in recent years, the prices buyers have been willing to pay for property has significantly decreased every year.

Yes. We will need your written consent to represent you to the Board before your hearing date, so please contact us immediately to get the proper paperwork in place.

We use several sources of information, provided by you as well as our market research. If you have purchased your property recently, your purchase price is a key factor. We will locate properties in your neighborhood that are approximately the same size and age that have sold recently to evaluate their market values.

If you have rental properties you would like for us to evaluate, we can use the property income as a method to determine value. To use this method, we'll require documentation on your expenses for the property as well as how much income the property has generated in the past year.

No. Once you sign up for Proper Taxation services, we can handle the full process for you.

We maintain annual communication with our clients to inquire about any significant changes to the property that would affect property value.

We analyze the value of every property for our clients every year. If our analysis indicates that a property is overvalued, we file a protest for that property. However, as your appointed agents, the ultimate authority on whether or not we file a protest is you. If you would like for us to refrain from filing a protest in any given year, just let us know.

No. The Appraisal District does not consider past protests when it appraises a property.

Since we re-evaluate our clients' properties each year and the Appraisal District informs us about their annual assessment of our clients' properties, we are able to provide continued benefit to our clients year after year to ensure their taxes stay as low as possible. As clearly stated in our agreement, we never charge a fee except in those years we actually reduce the appraisal. If, however, you wish to only appoint Proper Taxation as your agent for a set period of time, please let us know and we can send you a revised agreement form.

Documentation on the condition of your property very helpful in building your case for the Appraisal Board. To document the condition of the property, we utilize pictures provided by our clients of the property in its current state. If you've recently purchased your property, a copy of your HUD-1 Settlement Statement will be very important. Other helpful documentation includes property surveys, repair receipts, engineers' reports, or a current appraisal of your property.

When we complete your paperwork and formally file your protest, your property will receive two hearing dates. The first hearing is informal, and will be attended by Proper Taxation and an Appraiser from your District. We will present our research to the Appraiser, and many of our protests are successful in this initial hearing. If the Appraiser informs Proper Taxation that he/she feels that the value of the property should be raised instead of lowered, Proper Taxation will inform the client and the client will choose whether or not to maintain the protest for a formal hearing. In the event of a formal hearing, this hearing is with Proper Taxation, an Appraiser from the District, and an independent panel of three citizens. This panel has the authority to raise or lower values, though values are rarely raised and are typically either retained or lowered in this hearing.

All correspondence will be sent to you as the property owner as well as Proper Taxation as the appointed agent.

Yes. Our clients are comprised of commercial property owners, investment property owners, and homeowners.