LARGE AMOUNT OF WASHINGTON CO. PROPERTY OWNERS APPEALING TAX APPRAISALS
A large number of Washington County property owners are unhappy with the appraised values of their properties.
According to Chief Appraiser Willy Dilworth, the county has received nearly 2,000 total protests, with over half of those protests filed formally before the May 31st deadline. Just over 23,000 tax appraisal notices were mailed out in May.
Dilworth said, at its highest, the county has seen around 1,400 formal protests filed.
Due in no small part to the oil activity in the west part of the county, Dilworth said property values have, and will continue to, go up. Upon notices going out in May, he noted the average homestead in Brenham this year went up around 8 percent in value.
Dilworth added that, while the date to file formal protest has passed, there is still time for property owners to bring their concerns forward before tax rolls are certified.
Dilworth encourages anyone with questions to call or visit the Appraisal District Office, on 1301 Niebuhr Street in Brenham. He said he tries to work with everyone in hopes that out of the formal protests filed, many can be handled informally, and very few will need to go to the appraisal review board.
Click here to visit the Washington County Appraisal District website.
The state tells our appraisal district how much to raise our property values each and every year. The state. They go by what property of every description is sold for in the individual counties. Additionally they are motivated to substantially increase values to in turn decrease the states contribution to the support of our public schools. It is a lose ,lose for the property owners and school districts. There is only ONE place to change this injustice to taxpayers.
As a taxpayer I am sick of these “back door” tax increases. This process is ethically questionable and somewhat of a scam. I have watched my property value rise at rates higher than the annual rate of inflation on a year over year basis and any attempt to appeal this valuation of my plain 3/2 home built that late 1960’s is immediately denied without any logical review. It is time to reign in these tax increases and time to tell BISD to quit spending money on extremely high paid central office personnel and specialists who have little to no contact with students. Maybe if our taxing entities spent our money more responsibly our taxes would be lower.
Let’s say I have 20 acres in the country with a home and have 100 % of the mineral rights. They drill a well on the back portion and it produces so they set up large tanks and put in a road to the pad.
Now I decide to sell and keep al the mineral rights. Do you really think the property is worth $18,800 the district claims it is?
I realize there are some pieces of property in the county that have nice views, ice trees, and no eyesores that are probably worth this amount.