Property taxes question
Posted by TheRhyminNoodle@reddit | Dallas | View on Reddit | 38 comments
The companies that contest property taxes in Dallas advertise a seemingly high level of failure for individuals attempting to fight them on your own. Is that true or just a fearmongering tactic to sell their services?
The_Erlenmeyer_Flask@reddit
I hired Ownwell because I don't have the time to do the paperwork. They charge 25% of what they saved me and I'm fine with that.
They've brought my property down by $85k in 3 years.
Chronosshotgun@reddit
Ownwell comes with two drawbacks, per google - first is that the breakeven point is about $300 a month apparently (i.e. if they save you that much it's worth it over filing yourself), and they have an 'auto renew' that can surprise you.
maxkilroy@reddit
Can you elaborate on the first drawback? What do you mean by a break-even point, and what does the $300/month number represent?
Chronosshotgun@reddit
Ownwell charges you based on the amount of money they 'save you'.
Divide by 12. Or if given a monthly rate, multiply by 12. So if they save you around 3600 annually, or more, they will have been cheaper than doing it yourself (or other options).
Most people pay property taxes into their escrow and let the mortgage company pay the annual taxes for them. Ergo most people consider the monthly payment on property taxes, rather than the annual.
The_Erlenmeyer_Flask@reddit
Auto renew for helping with lowering my property taxes? Well.. yeah. someone doesn't pay attention from the beginning that they do this every year because.. you have to pay your property taxes every year. Ownwell states that they will auto renew multiple times during the sign up process. I even put the date that they auto renew in my Google Calendar to remind me.
Look. People can cancel using Ownwell. Use them once, happy with how much they lowered your property taxes? Cancel after June 1st. Do it yourself the next year. Plenty of people have shared web sites that help you do it yourself.
Chronosshotgun@reddit
Your post was 100% glazing them. Which is fine. I have not used them, because after I looked into them, I was not sold on the company services and costs.
This sub gets a lot of 'this totally is not advertising guys!!' posts. So I put up the drawbacks.
PenelopeJude@reddit
Wait, so you paid them $21k?
I’ve protested mine myself, and got mine down $60k the last time. Just pulling a couple comparisons from Dallascad and then pics of things wrong in/around the house.
loafing-cat-llc@reddit
u pay based on how much u saved in taxes. not based on how much they reduce the valuation. big difference
PenelopeJude@reddit
Whew! That makes more sense.
blucivic1@reddit
I think I'm going to use them this year and attempt myself for next year. Time is running down fast for me to learn.
Tchaik748@reddit
I may get downvoted for this, but as a renter myself, I feel like people who can afford a house should pay your dang property taxes rather than use twelve ways to Sunday fighting them.
They do, after all, fund the government.
Oh shit, I forgot that this is Texas.
taxdrop@reddit
Worth noting that protesting is only to get your property taxes on the level of neighboring properties -- so that you don't overpay.
Just like income tax write-offs and other tax deductions, it's better to take advantage of them. Then if you feel like you need to pitch in more, donate to charity or start a business and hire people -- it's 1000X more efficient that government spending.
Tchaik748@reddit
If we had a functional government, charity wouldn't be necessary.
taxdrop@reddit
The problem with government and why it can never be functional is that beauracrats don't need to be efficient or deal with market forces. Their incentives are to justify their existence and expand their importance/power.
Charities and business must make an impact and get results - or otherwise their donors and customers will leave them.
Incentives are the key.
Tchaik748@reddit
But my point is that we need to reform government so its primary purpose is to serve the people it represents, not enrich the politicians and their friends/cronies.
Weary-Idea1677@reddit
Damn all I did was take 5 photos of shitty areas around my house and submit it. Like 3 minutes lol. Waiting on the results though
Fearless-Lion9024@reddit
the failure rates they advertise aren't made up, but they're also not the full picture since a lot of individual protests fall apart on weak evidence. for Dallas County specifically, Resolute runs on contingency so theres no cost if nothing changes.
white_castle@reddit
i used chat gpt to write up a protest packet for me, it told me how to download a database from the texas data website and then it came up with a bunch of comps. I got a decent settlement.
Chronosshotgun@reddit
The 'rejected' list is the people who just send in the documents and don't follow up. 10 years ago you used to get an automatic approval if you sent in the form at all. Then they said you need to show up in person, and it slowly becomes more of a 'thing' as more and more people fight it.
510Kyle@reddit
I've used freetaxprotest.com last few years, first year submitted a bunch of pictures last few years didn't send anything just clicked the link to let the guy protest on your behalf, usually save around $6-700 a year
gt0163c@reddit
That's Chandler Crouch's site. I had him (his company) protest my taxes for the past few years and he's always gotten me a reduction. I appreciate that he's trying to make the whole system better, keep the tax assessment board accountable and educate homeowners. Plus he seems like a genuinely nice guy.
Puzzleheaded_Gift245@reddit
I did my own appeal and won....but I'm a lawyer. I think if you research how to do it, it's fairly easy to do yourself.
Icy_Huckleberry_8049@reddit
the apprasial letter tells them exactly how to protest
Icy_Huckleberry_8049@reddit
I've done my own every year since 2007 and I've always won. Some years more than others, some years less than others. I've done it all online and it's only taken 5 minutes of time to do so.
Most people are just too lazy to do it themselves or are afraid that they can't do it.
This year alone I got my appraisal reduced by almost 40k. It was all done online.
bigdknight157@reddit
The past couple years I accepted the initial lower offer. This year they offered a lower amount by about $15,000, but still $4,000 over the current valuation. I included a comp in my same neighborhood, same floor plan, newer construction date that went for like $30,000 less than the revised offer in February. Going to opt for the more formal process this time. I know my house would sit indefinitely if I listed at their valuation.
ShimeUnter@reddit
I compare to other properties lower than mine in my neighborhood in a pdf and have always get them to drop it to match those
Environmental-Fox961@reddit
We’ve used Resolute for years. They’re probably more successful than just doing it on your own…the biggest save is my time and effort having to protest. They’ve successfully dropped our appraised value every year. Unfortunately we are still capped out so they don’t actually save us any money…meaning we don’t ultimately end up paying anything.
beaute-brune@reddit
I do my own every year with a little PDF of “look how shitty my home is, look at all these issues” and it gets me to a settlement that is within an acceptable range. So it would depend on how these companies are defining failure - you didn’t get the number you asked for, or you didn’t get any lowered value at all?
the_Modul0r@reddit
This was always my dad’s approach for appealing the valuation of our 1950s ranch house in Preston Hollow many years ago. He always kept a few things unpainted or unrepaired just to stick it to the county on appraisal. He could always get some reduction on the “improvement” valuation but the county would never budge on the land valuation.
Spare_Ad_9657@reddit
The only challenging part of doing it yourself is getting the comps. Probably the reason people fail is that they don’t know what to provide or they put 0 effort into it.
bobua@reddit
There's no way those services are putting in personal effort on protesting your property taxes. They make their money by filing thousands of protests and accepting the default offer(the tax office will offer you a small reduction in exchange for not doing an in person protest). The same offer you'd get by filing that protest yourself with zillow pulls. Unfortunately, it creates a system where they build in a $10k buffer so they can offer that default reduction because the staffing to handle all those protests were people to follow through would be crazy.
I pay for the service, because I always end up forgetting to file. I'm part of the problem.
HomeTaxDefense_com@reddit
I will say we can provide you with comps that support a lower value, refute their comps they use, and provide a pdf packet to upload to them for initial and/or the ARB if it gets to that. Takes less than 5 minutes.
And we will tell you (for free) what your target valuation will be before you decide if you want to pay $10 for the full report.
www.hometaxdefense.com
pacochalk@reddit
I did my own appeal years ago and it was a breeze. I just assembled some comps and that was it. I suspect if you're able to assemble your own comps, you'd have an easy time with it. My guess is some people show up empty handed.
Cansum1helpme@reddit
I protested last year (initial), and they sent me a rejection with a list of about 10 comps they assembled. Collin co.
HomeTaxDefense_com@reddit
You can refute those comps. hometaxdefense.com will provide new comps and provide refuting evidence to theirs.
JRLDH@reddit
This is probably different for others.
I for example had a professional appraisal done (with comps pulled by the private appraiser) and it still was difficult to get DCAD to lower their appraisal. I didn’t want the additional effort of a hearing and settled at a slightly higher number than what the private appraiser determined but I can say that my experience was not a breeze but like pulling teeth.
Aggressive-Ad-5148@reddit
I tried doing it myself. I spent a good bit of time collecting comps and making a presentation. This was probably 2 hours a night for a week (\~12 hours of work). Went to my appointment at the tax office (about 2 hours). The experience was cordial, but the person I talked to was not willing to budge as much as I would have liked. He was willing to change the material grade of my exterior one level lower which helped some with the appraisal value.
Weighing the effort I put into it and the time it took (12 - 15 hours total) and the result I got, I decided to hire a company to represent me. I only pay a fee if the company is able to get a reduction. The fee is a percentage based on the reduction.
bananabob23@reddit
You underestimate my laziness