Month: April 2022

Anyone know of any law firms that handle damaged housing where the responsible party won’t pay up? I’ve been trying to find a lawyer but all google shows me are personal injury attorneys.

So, quick background: we bought a house in February 2021. Historically, in 2020, the house was assessed at ~85% of what we paid for it, in 2021, it was assessed at 92% of what we paid for it, and in 2022, it is assessed at 99% of what we paid for it. (We paid approximately 2% less than the list price after negotiating about some needed repairs.) We never reported the actual purchase price, and I know our agent didn’t either, but I also know that might still be known by HCAD somehow.

I know I should just be grateful that it isn’t assessed at a huge mark-up from what we paid (according to redfin and other semi-shady online calculators, it is now valued at about 10-11% higher than what we paid, fwiw). I am still wondering if it is worth putting in an appeal, though. My logic is that we had to tear down the ADU in the back (it was falling over), and we are building a new one, but it is still nowhere near complete (probably will be by the end of the year, though). I’m concerned that if we don’t appeal, once the new ADU is done, the assessment will shoot up astronomically. In the assessment breakdown, the ‘improvement’ value did go down a bit from last year, but the land value went up HUGELY (from ~55% of the total value to 68% of the total value). So, I kind of feel like we are paying a ‘fair-ish’ amount this year, but could see that changing rapidly.

In essence, then, what I’m wondering is if HCAD will ‘punish’ us for appealing the assessed value? Can they raise the assessment above the initial one, or put in a note to jack it up next year, or anything like that? This is our first go-round with this process, and in the city where we previously lived, oh, brother, would they get you in a later year if you dared to appeal.

Thanks for any insight on this! You can also feel free to just tell me to lump it, of course!