Monday, June 23, 2008

Still awaiting my hearing notification for Property Tax protest

On June 2nd, I filed a protest of my property taxes. As of Friday, I had not received a notice or any type of confirmation from the county, so I called them. They do have my paperwork on file, but the clerk said they had not yet assigned a date for my hearing with the appraisal review board. Hmmm. According to the county, all of the deliberations are to be completed by July 18th. That doesn’t leave much time. The clerk assured me that I would get two weeks notice and she encouraged me to come down to the office now to settle this before the hearing.

I suspect that they have received a lot more protests this year than in the past. Most indicators are that house prices are declining and yet the county is raising the appraisal values.

I have my fingers crossed that the review team will try to settle my claim prior to the hearing, so that I don’t have to miss work for this. To my surprise the clerk said that most hearings only last 15 minutes with the home owner allowed 5 minutes to state their case. She also suggested that I bring lots of photos of the house and estimates for any work that needs to be done.

For now, I will wait until I either get the hearing notice or a settlement. If I get a notice, I will probably go in to their office ahead of time and try to work out a compromise with the appraiser.



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