Is there a limit to the amount that a county can raise the appraised value of a home in one year?

Question

I bought my house for $107K last yr. According to the county it was only valued at $84K making year end taxes cheap for me! The appraised value of my home went up $24,000 in one year according to the notice I received from the appraisal district. This is making taxes on my home way more expensive this year. Is there a limit to how much counties can raise your taxes in one year? Should I protest this on the enclosed form I received from them? If it helps to know, I live in Texas.

Answer 1

Generally upon sale you have a new assessment based on sales price. This sounds like what has occured to you. Each year the county will have a cap on increased taxes. Generally 1%.

Each county may be different in its assessment increases,

Answer 2

Nope!

Very often when you buy a home the appraised value will automatically be adjusted to the purchase price. Based upon the numbers you have given, this is exactly what happened. And that is standard practice in Texas, by the way.

Your position is very weak. There is little to no chance that you will succeed in your effort to have the appraised value reduced.

I bought a place in UC TX about 17 years ago. The appraised value was $95k but the purchase price was $54k. I had no problem getting the valuation reduced to the purchase price -- the appraisal district dropped the value without question.

When I sold the place last year, the appraised value was about the same as yours as was the sales price -- Hmmm... Maybe you bought my old place? -- so the new owner will almost certainly see the appraised value increased to the sales price.

Setting appraised values is an in-exact science. But when a property is sold at an "arms length" transaction, that sets a firm basis for adjusting the appraised value either up or down as appropriate. TX works things exactly that way and unless you can prove that some unusual circumstances were at work there's little chance of getting the appraised value reduced to something less than you paid for the property.

Answer 3

Most counties in Texas DO have a 10% cap on annual increase of appraised property value, the only exception is when a transaction occured, then the real purchase price will be used as next year's tax value.

For now it will be hard to protest because that's what you actually paid - you agreed that's a fair market value of the property.

Next year, however if the tax value exceeds the annual limit, then you can go protest & bring it back down.

Answer 4

There are no limits on such increases. It appears to me that your purchase/sale triggered a revaluation of your property, since it is now valued at very close to purchase price. Of course, you may protest the increase in valuation, but I find it difficult to imagine any redress when the house is now appraised at fair market value.