FAQ
Most Common Questions
We typically finish hearings in the late summer and fall months. Occasionally hearings can last throughout the winter months as well. We do not have much control over timing, since the appraisal district assigns our hearing dates.
The appraisal district uses a mass appraisal system to generate a value for your property. This means they use a large database that often contains inaccurate or outdated information about your property to determine a value. Generally, no one from the appraisal district actually reviews your individual property. The mass appraisal process often leaves plenty of room for us to lower your property taxes.
We are often able to find property tax reduction opportunities even when a property is already valued much lower than its potential sales price. This is because there are multiple strategies for protesting, including finding inequalities in how you are being taxed versus other similar properties in your area. We were able to reduce the property taxes for 83% of our clients in 2022, which means we are highly effective at finding savings opportunities!
We offer our property tax protest services to commercial & residential properties in all 254 Texas counties. This means you can work with one company for all your Texas properties. Our experienced team maintains close relationships with local appraisal offices. We also understand the local market dynamics that influence your property tax appraisal, enabling our tax consultants to provide the best arguments to help lower your taxes.
Signing up with us typically only takes a few minutes! You can sign up online via the get started page on our website.
We are paid based on performance, so our interests are aligned with our clients. We charge clients a 25% success fee, which is a percentage of the property taxes we actually saved them from our property tax reduction process.
If we don’t actually save you money, our success fee is zero. This means our team is motivated to work as hard as possible to maximize your savings.
For more details, visit our transparent pricing page on our website.
Just like you hire an attorney to represent you in court and a CPA to help you with your income taxes, you should hire a property tax consultant to protest your property taxes. Our team of experts have intimate knowledge of property valuation methods, local tax laws, and appraisal district procedures. Since our compensation is based on our performance, we are motivated to do the best job possible year after year!
Property Tax Protest Questions
The appraisal district uses a mass appraisal system to generate a market value (sometimes also referred to as the appraised value) for every property in the district. The assessed value includes any exemptions subtracted from your market value. The most common exemption for residential property owners is the homestead exemption. As a property owner, you pay taxes based on your assessed value.
If your property is valued for more than other similar neighboring properties, there are likely certain data points in the appraisal districts database that are causing your property to be valued for more than other similar properties. After we file your protest, we have access to the detailed report showing their calculations. In this report, there are often inaccurate or outdated details. We review the appraisal districts report and correct discrepancies that help lower your property tax bill. Even if your property is valued for less than your neighbors, we are often able to uncover savings opportunities!
It is not possible for a property value to increase during our informal negotiations. While it is technically possible for the value to increase using the formal ARB hearing, it is extremely unlikely. Out of the thousands of formal ARB hearings we have attended as a company, we have never seen a property value increase.
It is impossible to provide a savings estimate until we pull the evidence file from the appraisal district and perform diligent research on your property. If other websites or consultants try to provide you an instant estimate, it is likely an inaccurate guess at best.
The deadline to file a protest is May 15th, or 30 days after the Notice of Appraised Value is issued, whichever is later. Additionally, if May 15th falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline is pushed to the next business day. It is best to sign up with us as early as possible so we can get a headstart on filing your protest.
After you sign up with us, we will send you a link to a property questionnaire. We will ask you to send us any documentation you have that could help us argue for a lower value for your property.
Yes. Even if you purchased the property for more than it was appraised for, it is important for us to know the sales price. We handle your purchase documents with fiduciary care, so we will only disclose the sales price in the hearing if it helps lower your property taxes, and if no other methods to achieve a stronger reduction exist.
Most of the time, yes! We can build the strongest case if you have recent documentation of your deferred maintenance. It is most important to document problems with big ticket items such as the roof, foundation, plumbing, electrical, A/C and others. When you work with our team, we make it easy for you to send us photos, documents and all relevant info securely and electronically.
If you would like to cancel, please email us at support@realvaluepropertytax.com
Most lenders have a department dedicated to checking certified tax values many times per year. When we achieve a reduction, our values are certified and then publicly available on your local appraisal district website. Most lenders automatically collect this information, and adjust your monthly escrow amount.
If your lender is slow to adjust or if you need assistance, please contact our team and we can easily provide you with certified documents to share with your lender to expedite the process.
For property owners who pay a lump sum property tax payment at the end of each tax year, the monthly escrow does not apply to you!
Pricing & Billing Questions
Our service agreements automatically renew, so there is no action needed!
Each year our service agreement auto-renews on March 1st. We set this date so that we can prepare for informal settlement hearings with appraisal districts, which begin in April. Furthermore, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes paperwork preparation we perform ahead of the protest season. If for any reason you want to cancel our service, just send us an email to support@realvaluepropertytax.com.
The county tax office collects taxes in one bill for all the local jurisdictions, including the school district, fire department and other local entities. Some tax bills also include special taxing jurisdictions such as a MUD.
Most effective property tax rates in Texas are between 1.5% and 3.5%. Most of the time, when we send our invoice in the summer or fall of the current tax year, the currently known tax rate is the previous year’s tax rate.
We cannot protest your tax rate, unfortunately. This is set by voters, specific budgets and local entities. We use official data in our tax rate calculation that can be verified by the county tax collector’s office.
We will send you an invoice for our success fee once we are done with the property tax protest process and your final value is certified. This is typically in the late summer or fall months. Our success fee is based on how much we are able to save you on your tax bill. If we do not save you anything, the success fee is zero.
If you have multiple properties, we still send results as soon as they are certified, so that you can stay updated. If you have multiple properties, we send summarized reports once your portfolio is completed towards the end of the year, or upon your request
Property tax savings are calculated based on the difference between the assessed value on the initial Notice of Appraised Value (which is the value the appraisal district assigned your property) and the final assessed value (which is the value after our protest is complete) multiplied by the latest known tax rate. Our success fee is based on how much we actually save you on your tax bill!
Our success fee is based on how much we save you on your tax bill. We will only charge you 25% of whatever we actually save you. You get to keep the rest! We do not charge an upfront or minimum fee.