Our Property Tax Reduction Process
Multi-Disciplined Approach
Our firm consists of property tax consultants, data specialists, attorneys and licensed appraisers that all work together to lower our clients’ property taxes. Each team member contributes their unique perspective and skillset to help create the most effective strategy for property tax reduction.
We are a full service property tax firm that utilizes every legal avenue to reduce your tax appraisal. We first try to negotiate with the appraisal district during informal hearings and if we do not get a satisfactory reduction, we will proceed to ARB formal hearings to present our carefully prepared evidence. In certain complex situations, we will proceed to judicial appeal with our client’s approval.
Our Process
File Your Protest
Our team will file all the appropriate paperwork with the appraisal district in a timely manner to protest your property’s tax appraisal.
Research
Our research team, which consists of data specialists and analysts, collects all the data we will need to prepare our case for a value reduction. This includes pulling the property’s data card from the county, researching the property’s history and reviewing neighborhood trends.
Sales, Equity, Income & Cost Approaches
For residential properties, we perform an extensive comparable marketing analysis (CMA) to compare your property’s value versus recent sales in your area. We select the recently comparable sales which are most favorable for a reduction in your value and prepare an analysis to show the county. In addition, we will perform an equity analysis to determine if your property was appraised unfairly versus similar properties in your area. We often uncover overlooked or missed information about your property that can be used to help reduce your taxes.
For commercial properties, appraisal districts often determine appraised value based on an income approach or cost approach to valuation. The income approach makes assumptions about your income & expenses while the cost approach makes assumptions regarding the cost to build your property.
When we protest properties that are appraised by the county using the income valuation method, we analyze the property’s previous year P&L along with industry metrics to determine an appropriate NOI for use in the tax appraisal. From there, we use comparable sales and market conditions data to negotiate the cap rate that the CAD uses to generate a final value. Please note, we never share P&L reports that would negatively impact your tax value.
When we protest properties that are appraised by the county using the cost approach, we leverage building cost metrics specific to each region of Texas to negotiate with the CAD. We analyze every part of the building and other improvements. Separate from building cost, we perform a land analysis based on sales and equity values nearby.
Represent Client in Hearings
We will represent you in the informal and ARB hearings. We will present the most compelling evidence we have gathered. If appropriate, we will also represent you during the judicial appeal stage of the protest. For more information on the different stages of hearings, please refer to our ‘levels of appeal’ chart below.
Provide Annual Support
We will continue to protest your property taxes every year, automatically. Once you sign up, you can rest assured our team will provide on-going and continual tax reduction services to ensure your taxes stay in check.
Levels of Appeal
We take an aggressive approach to protesting your property taxes during all levels of the protest process. We utilize every legal avenue available in order to get you the best result. Our team attends all hearings and proceedings on your behalf, presenting only the best evidence to support a reduction.
Informal Hearing
During the preliminary stages of the protest process, our consultants speak with the appraisal district staff to determine if we can settle on a new property value which is favorable to our client.
ARB Formal Hearing
If we are unable to get a tax reduction during the informal process, we will attend a formal hearing with the Appraisal Review Board (ARB). During the hearing, our consultant will present a compelling case to reduce your taxes, backed by data gathering from our proprietary tools.
Judicial Appeals
If we do not feel the informal or ARB hearings resulted in a fair outcome, we can proceed to binding arbitration or litigation, depending on what is best for the client and how aggressively they would like us to fight their taxes. We will consult with the client individually prior to this stage.