One more note on Property Tax Protests
Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 2:04 pm 
By Ryan BrownYesterday I had my final TCAD protest of the year, and I posted about the lessons I learned directly. I left out a few indirect lessons from the experience that I thought would be worth passing on:
1 - Anyone and everyone can protest their property taxes.
Yesterday the property tax protester ahead of me in the que was none other than Professional Golfer Tom Kite!
Looking through the public TCAD database website it seems the Kite’s probably had a few properties to protest. I hope he fared well. I’m sure all of his expertise in getting the lowest score came in handy!
2 - For some people the formal hearing is their best friend.
While awaiting my turn for the informal protest I had the pleasure of talking with a TCAD protest veteran. I noticed that while I had a folder full of market data, photos, surveys, etc., he only had his TCAD appraisal certificate. How did he stand a chance?
We started chatting about the process and our hopes for reductions and he revealed he had successfully protested his property values every year for the past 14 years! As he lives near Lake Austin this is no simple feat. I had to ask his secret.
He waved me close and said two words: “Formal Hearing.” He said the informal hearing with the TCAD rep was pointless, that these ‘bureaucrats’ never listened nor gave him a fair shake. (He kept looking in their direction, whispering while hiding his mouth with the back of my hand as my co-conspirator, it was great!) His point - The key to the formal hearing is that the verdict is decided by a panel of citizens, not bureaucrats.
Now I’ve heard horror stories of people flailing in front of the formal hearing panel with tables and graphs of market data clearly supporting their case. They still went down in flames. So what does this man do differently? He said you have to appeal to their emotions.
He reminds them of being on a fixed income, that he has lived in the house for 20+ years, in austin for 30+, of ‘Californians’ driving up prices, etc. In short he knows his audience and gives them arguments with which they can identify. Sounds reasonable to me, but it’s a bit risky to try it out.
What do you think? Do you have a TCAD formal-hearing story?
