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I thought I would share my experience with protesting my property taxes this year. I have owned Austin real estate for many years but this was the first time I had opted to protest my property taxes with the Travis County Appraisal District, and it was definitely an eye-opening learning experience.

In order to protest your property taxes in Travis County, you need to have filed your intent to protest by the May 31, 2009 deadline. If you have missed this deadline then go ahead and call the county to see if they will still honor your request. Remember it never hurts to ask! Once you have filed your intent to protest you will receive an acknowledgement letter from the county with an informal hearing appointment and formal hearing appointment. They will only allow you to reschedule this date one time so make sure you do not miss your appointment.

This is your opportunity to sit down one-on-one with an agent of the county to present your case. If the county does not grant you a reduction at this hearing you then may opt to move on to the formal hearing. If the county does grant you a reduction and you accept the reduction offered, you will waive your right to any additional hearings. In my opinion your best chance is to get a resolution at the informal hearing.

The first piece of advice I will share with you is that you cannot go in and try to "plead" your case emotionally, you need data. The second piece of advice is that you need to request the evidence package before you attend either of your hearing appointments. The evidence package is all the data the county is using to assess your property.

Once you have the evidence package you need to confirm that the county has classified your property correctly in terms of condition, class, year built, square footage, etc. If you find any information that is not correct you need to bring this up in your hearing. You need to have a current market analysis so you can make sure that the sold properties the county is using are the best comparable properties to your home. You can also compare your property's assessed value with those of your neighbors (this is public data can be found on the Travis County Appraisal District website).

When my husband and I arrived for our informal hearing, we waited for a few minutes, and then were taken to a small cubicle with one agent. The meeting was an all-business affair with very little chatting. The agent who met with us focused primarily on using his software to review what data had been used for our assessment. Be prepared to present your own data quickly and in a concise manner. Be organized and again keep emotion in the car!

My situation did have a happy ending though - even though I had loads of data to make my case it was not looking good at the beginning of my hearing. However, working with the county appraiser we noticed that my home's condition had been incorrectly classified in their system and after making the correction we received a 14% reduction in our assessed value!
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As a Realtor in Austin, TX. I deal with this data every day and still found the process time consuming and overwhelming. I spent hours going through the data in my evidence package as well as data on the tax rolls and MLS. I can see how the general public might be willing to walk away from the process in frustration!

If you are in the process of protesting your property taxes and need a market analysis please contact me and I will be happy to help.

Laurie Roberts, REALTOR, (512) 636-8651

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Falconhead is a golf course community in the hill country just west of Austin. We can help you if you need a real estate agent for Bee Cave or the Lakeway Texas areas. We are a local company with agents knowledgeable in the different areas of Austin.

Cedar Park Town Center is a concept community that features a classic American home style. When you drive into Cedar Park Town Center you first cross over a bridge and then pass a large clock tower, at this point your know your there. The community not far from the Cedar Park train depot for the Hill Country Flyer