Travis Central Appraisal District, Austin TX

Yes I did my protest. Now I'm hiring a lawyer to file a lawsuit. This whole ARB protest process is a sham. They literally are 3 dopes that don't know anything who side with TCAD blindly. Everyone should know TCAD fabricates local sales figures higher then they actually are! How do I know? My nearby friends showed me their assessment packages and my home sale was used as a comp and it was listed for 50 percent more than I actually paid for it! The TCAD rep was a smarmy conman who lied left and right who perjured himself! See you in court!

Just off from my review and as anticipated the data and facts were ignored and the county representative flat out lied. Said that our zip code was an outlier in the reduction from september 22 - december 22 - which of course is not true. This was in response to showing the decline in the market of 14% during that time frame.he went on to talk about national increases.the ARB person then asked a question which indicated he wasn't paying attention.so they found in the favor of the county with no data no facts and lies without evidence but that's politics/government.so let's see an increase without merit and and get less services - i am sure my appeal will yield nothing and then next year we can see the value plummet to meet the market.

@TCAD after the response. Yes the ARB is "independent" and a challenge in and of itself. They took in the data from both parties - the owner - me and the TCAD employee. After my presentation the TCAD Employee FLAT OUT GAVE FALSE information under oath with not supporting materiel. You can't just make up data and influence the "independent" board.

Save your responses since the canned responses don't do anything to solve for the problem - just restate things on your website.

TCAD are liars crooks and scumbags. I'm suing them right now. Everyone else should too. Those ARB losers are on the take and are in on with TCAD. Who is ARB? 3 nitwits that TCAD controls.

TCAD should be ashamed of themselves. I bought a house in December of 2021 and in March 2022 they appraised it for twice what I bought it for. They lied about the year my home was built (1935 vs 2006) and compared my old home to luxury mansions twice the size. ARB reduced it back down and now again this year TCAD again assessed it falsely. They are literally terrorizing my life and I'm a senior citizen. Every year it seems they're going to come back with their bogus assessment and every year I have to fight them tooth and nail. The TCAD reps at the both hearings just flat out lie lie lie and lie some more. They literally will say and do anything to cheat people in this city. They're sickos. All my friends get 10 percent yearly increases or have to deal with the same bull that I deal with. Everyone I know hates these rotten rotten rotten scoundrels.

We attended our formal hearing on October 5th. The hearing was infuriating. We presented the facts and the facts were ignored. Our 3 person board was just a rubber stamp for the appraisal district.

In 2023 our home had a TCAD market value of $589 per foot. Our next door neighbor's home, built about the same year, with the same build quality and same sized lot had TCAD market value of $284 per foot. This property is 1,675 square feet larger than my property and valued $395,000 less.

Another home 2 doors down from my property is 3594 square feet, same build quality and same sized lot and had a TCAD market valuation $1,121,000 or $312 per square foot. This property is 198 square feet larger than my home and valued $714,000 less.

There was one sale in our neighborhood - again built about the same time, on the same size lot, same build quality and this property sold for and had a TCAD market value $1,140,000 - $278 Per square foot. This house is 704 square feet larger and valued $695,000 less than my house. Oddly enough, this house was included as a comparable from the TCAD representative and he had an incorrect sales price / TCAD Market Value listed as over $2.6 Million dollars (when the property sold Dec 30,2022 for $1,140,000.)

Whenever we tried to ask a question (for example how does the TCAD decide to include properties in their equity grid that were not in our neighborhood, or were on lots 5 times larger) we were told that we couldn't ask any questions.

Because we pointed out the error of the one sale (talking when we were not allowed to speak) our appraised value for 2023 was lowered to $540 per foot. This is still way out of line with the other properties in out neighborhood with a 2023 TCAD market value of between $278 - $312 Per foot.

One final note - The chair of the panel complained that she didn’t like the format of our presentation and suggested that we hire a professional next year to handle any appeal. She also complained that I should have included a map with our presentation instead of just describing a comparable properties as being next door, 2 houses down the street, or on the street behind our property.

Words cannot express my shock, horror and disbelief after dealing with those nasty people at TCAD and TARB. How are they allowed to do such terrible things to people? I bought my retirement home and 5 months later TCAD more than doubled the assessment year over year, double other similar homes nearby. At the protest hearing the TCAD slimeball lied and claimed my 80 year old home was in fact brand new! Not one shred of evidence to back up his insane claim! What a slimeball lowlife.

I brought in 20 comps to show the house was worth half what TCAD claimed. Some of my comps were only 2 or 3 doors away. I brought in maps and everything. At the end of the hearing the TARB officer said my comps were not acceptable because they were 5 to 10 miles away. When I tried to say that's nonsense and said look at the maps and documents the hearing officer hung up on me. I complained to the head of ARB and after a 5 minute so called investigation they determined the hearing officer was in the right.

I'm suing these scoundrels now. Their crooked attorney is putting up a big fight. This is how they treat homeowners. My suggestion to everyone is to fight these crooked bums. They rob elderly grandmothers now!

Their customer service staff tells you one thing and then it’s a completely different story via the email they give to you. Super mismanaged. It’s like they’re intentionally giving you the run around in order to have an excuse to reject your tax protest.

They are a big scam and they need to be sued. They increased our property appraisal during our formal hearing even after we presented facts on home values. Total bogus process that works in their favor.

Nothing but a bunch of greedy, corrupt wanna-be politicians lining their pockets and multi-billion dollar state surplus. They will quite literally blatantly ignore raw data from actual comparable’s and supported market data in favor of their diluted 14 month old hand-picked “market data. ” This is precisely why the homeless populat ion is increasing and people are selling their homes drastically under-value today, because they can’t afford to live in Travis County (or Austin for that matter). If there were a better system of checks and balances in place and they were obligated to use data that actually supports what a home’s true market value is. Likewise use an unbiased third party moderator instead of a county “Yes man. ” Maybe then things would look a lot different. Additionally, if you’re going to propose an egregious “market value, ” and it’s rejected on multiple accounts by the homeowners, at least have the decency to stick with that number instead of “settling” at an even higher amount than was already nothing but some farfetched money grab. Unfortunately, this would require county employees to operate in a human-centered manner with integrity, empathy and logic. None of which they have. Oh, and good luck even knowing how to protest this joke of a process, because they don’t send any actual communication related to it. This, of course is by design like the rest of this convoluted scam.
Criminal at best, unscrupulous at the least.

I would like to give them 0 star if I can. TCAD did appraisal without applying time adjustment. The homes in Travis county were appraised to the peak value in 2022. No excuse for such an obvious mistake. The chief appraiser should get fired immediately.

A person liied to me said they send a offer within 24 hours it's been 2 weeks still nothing. Left side don't know wat right side is doing either and take 45 min in hold

An Outrage: they don't answer the phones-yet you lose rights by missing deadlines. The online portal, managed by a 3rd Party, is a hellscape: non-functional sections of the website and mysterious, meaningless no-reply emails.

Thank you for your quick response.
May i now what is the exact" Certain time period". December 2022 ~Feb 2023 is much more accurate for me to evaluate Jan 2023 market price, isn't it? Unfortunately, they picked up the July, August, September 2022 (Listing June, July, August) sales record as TCAD evidence. Just need to pay another 10+% for 2023 property tax after 50%+ for 2022. Interesting.
Using 2022 July sales data as evidence for 2023 Appraisal?

I had a question about the legitimacy of a survey that I received in mail from TCAD as there are a lot of scammers out there who have synonymous names and addresses. I called in to verify and was expecting an hour long wait on the phone line but to my surprise, it was answered immediately and all my concerns were explained. Additional questions about exemptions were also answered. Super impressed with the customer service. Kudos!

Just anticipate things move slow with the appraisal district for requests. Getting through via phone is difficult, but customer service is prompt and helpful via their online chat.

Some good appraisers some terrible. Department is poorly run as a whole. Hours during week ridiculous I waited 5 hours past my appointment time to watch 3 brain dead apathetic "volunteers' $150.a day rubber stamp the incompetent valuation assessment I came to fight with facts and figures. It is not always that way. But a terrible appraiser with a lazy apathetic volunteers in the formal hearing is really bad news. Now we go to court no other way to correct.

Oralia Cortez and Blanche White where very helpful, kind and polite! They are exceptional workers with lots of experience in their jobs! A pleasure to meet both of them!

I think that things have improved from the process changing on us for years, like a gaslighting experience when we were trying to go off the last year expecting we knew what we were doing, when we were supposed to do it, but we got absolutely no relief. Also, I can't believe how amazing the search function is now. Well done.

Staff is very helpful. Line move fairly quickly. Honor system with who’s in line. Kinda noisy area to discuss your situation. Can’t hear them very well.

UPDATE TO YOUR REPLY. I don't have any issue with the Tax Office- they referred me to your office, as you are the folks that do the valuation for the tax assessment. My issue is that I never received the notice of assessment, which I would have appealed. Your site says the deadline to appeal was in May. My home wasn't completed until September 20th. So, now who do I call? What form do I submit and to what address? The assessed value on a framed house is outrageous, even by Travis County standards, which we were prepared for.

I've been trying to call this office since last week when I got my ridiculous tax bill. The message last week said they are too busy. Today, I've been calling and it's like the phone has been disconnected and won't go through. The portal says I missed my deadline in May to appeal the assessed value- I never got an assessment? Where did you send it? To the address for a house that wasn't completed yet? USPS wouldn't deliver until two weeks after it was done. OH and our house was JUST finished in September. How can you assess my HOUSE before it's a completed house that we could live in?