TYLER, Texas (KLTV) – Property tax value notices have begun to pour into East Texas mailboxes, leaving some homeowners with questions about what to do next when the number may not look quite right. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that actually establishes what your home is really worth in real life is what a buyer is willing to pay for it,\u201d real estate broker and senior property tax consultant Chandler Crouch said. \u201cRight now, if no buyer is trying to buy your home, then the appraisal district\u2019s opinion of the value of your home is no better or no worse than your opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Homeowners have the right to challenge the assessment, as your county uses that value to calculate how much property tax you\u2019ll pay later.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey bring their evidence to the table. You get to bring your evidence to the table. And if you do a good job presenting evidence that they see as valid, then you can get a reduction on your property tax value, which will allow you or cause you to pay less property tax this year,\u201d Crouch said. <\/p>\n
Crouch said appraisal districts simply don\u2019t go from home to home, resulting in estimates that may not be accurate. <\/p>\n
\u201cAbout half of the properties are valued too low. About half are valued too high. And you won\u2019t know if your house is valued too high unless you go protest and you actually do the research,\u201d Crouch said. \u201cNo appraiser has looked at the inside of your home, and they probably haven\u2019t looked at your home specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n
Filing the protest<\/p>\n
The first and easiest step, Crouch said, is filing the protest and submitting it to the Appraisal District by May 15, or 30 days after the district mails out the value notice. <\/p>\n
\u201cFiling your protest is as simple as taking your value notice, turning it over and filling out the back side of your value protest,\u201d Crouch said.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t have the notice, Crouch says a bank sheet of paper will also do. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can take a sheet of paper and just say \u2018I am protesting my property tax value\u2019 and you give them the address, you sign the document,\u2019 Crouch said. \u201cYou have to put two things on there. You say, \u2018I\u2019m protesting the market value and I\u2019m protesting that it\u2019s unequal when compared to other properties.\u2019 That\u2019s as technical as it needs to get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gathering evidence <\/p>\n
The next step is gathering the evidence to prove the value is lower. <\/p>\n
For this, Crouch said homeowners can take a defensive or an offensive approach. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe defensive strategy is you need to ask the appraisal district for the evidence that they plan to use against you if it were to go to a protest hearing,\u201d Crouch said. \u201cAnd then you look at the evidence they\u2019re going to use and if they\u2019re not proving their case, then you\u2019re going to automatically win.\u201d<\/p>\n
An offensive strategy involves documenting home conditions in photos and getting repair estimates. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe more substantial the issue, the better the evidence. So, you want to stick with plumbing, foundation, roof, electrical, that kind of thing. Things that don\u2019t carry as much weight are issues like landscaping or dirty paint, dirty carpet, those kinds of cosmetic issues,\u201d Crouch said. <\/p>\n
Then, Crouch said to reach out to a realtor and look at the prices that nearby houses have sold at since January of last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd most realtors are more than happy to provide sales data like that for you for free,\u201d Crouch said.<\/p>\n
All of that evidence is then sent to the appraisal district. <\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the time, you\u2019re going to be able to upload information online and handle it in an informal way before you have to go to a hearing. And they\u2019ll oftentimes offer you a reduction, and you just weigh the cost,\u201d Crouch said.<\/p>\n
Factors at play<\/p>\n
The average Smith County home value is about $269,000. This is down 1.2% over the past year. <\/p>\n
A recent change in state law may also help, but it\u2019s separate from your home value.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe property taxes that you\u2019re going to end up paying are going to be probably less than they have been in recent years due to recent legislation that improves the homestead exemption for your property,\u201d says Crouch.<\/p>\n
A simple way to think about it is with this equation:<\/p>\n
(Home Value) x (Tax Rate) – (Exemptions) = Your Tax Bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut right now we\u2019re dealing with the first part of the equation, Crouch said. \u201cThe rest of the whole property tax system, and how they calculate your actual bill, that takes place later on in the year. You don\u2019t have near as much control over what happens after this little window.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Everybody should file\u2019<\/p>\n
He said all homeowners, regardless of whether or not they agree with the value, should file a protest. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody should file a protest,\u201d Crouch said. \u201cIt\u2019s within your right to file a protest. It\u2019s not going to hurt you by filing a protest. You\u2019re not going to sell your house for less money…The government fully accepts and appreciates these protests. It helps them make the values accurate, so there\u2019s no reason they shouldn\u2019t be okay with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said even if homeowners agree with a value, they could be missing out on a discount. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody else is getting a discount on their property tax value, even if the value is accurate, you should get that same exact discount,\u201d Crouch said. \u201cAnd so that\u2019s another reason for filing a protest is just to make sure there\u2019s not any money that you\u2019re leaving on the table, and in many cases, there almost certainly is.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said after this 30-day window, homeowners have much less say in what they pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rest of the whole property tax system, and how they calculate your actual bill, that takes place later on in the year,\u201d Crouch said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have near as much control over what happens after this little window.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KLTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TYLER, Texas (KLTV) – Property tax value notices have begun to pour into East Texas mailboxes, leaving some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6608,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-259098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-property-tax","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}