Homestead exemption for prev years - Williamson County (Austin: renting, vehicle registration)

[dwetlpro]

I moved to my house in Oct 2010 and missed to file the homestead exemption and only filed it this year. I see that my property has the HS exemption updated for 2011 and 2012. I know I would have paid some extra taxes for 2011 and 2012. Is there a way to get back the extra $$ that I paid in taxes for those years? Thanks.

DW

[ericsami]

I don't know about Williamson.

but I had the same exact issue with Travis country.

I bought my house in 2010 as well.

I went there. after 1.5 month I got a check back from RRISD. for 2011.
for 2012 they will basically send a letter for my bank telling to pay less.

for 2010. that year that you bought the house you inherit all the exemptions of the previous owner. unless they decided to buy another house and take their exemptions with them.

[dwetlpro]

Thank you. I will try approaching them. This was a new house that I bought.

[TexasHorseLady]

Here's the way it works.When you buy a house, its exemption status for that year is already in effect. (Whether or not the seller gets the homestead exemption on the next house they buy or not has no effect on this whatsoever, because the exemption status of THAT house is already set for that year.) You can't apply for your own homestead exemption until after January 1 of the next year. (You have to be living in the house on January 1 for it to qualify for a homestead exemption for that year.)

If you bought the house in 2010 and didn't apply in January 2011 for your homestead exemption, but did apply in January 2012, I'm not sure whether they will backdate it or not. But you seem to say it shows on your tax records that they did. The worst they can do is say no, so it can't hurt to contact them.

If it's a new house, built in 2010, your taxes for 2010 should have been based on the lot value, not the house value, because the value is set as of January 1 of each year, and would have gone up considerably in 2011 because it would then be valued at the house value. Some people are quite shocked when this happens.

[salmuabe]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Here's the way it works.When you buy a house, its exemption status for that year is already in effect. (Whether or not the seller gets the homestead exemption on the next house they buy or not has no effect on this whatsoever, because the exemption status of THAT house is already set for that year.) You can't apply for your own homestead exemption until after January 1 of the next year. (You have to be living in the house on January 1 for it to qualify for a homestead exemption for that year.)

If you bought the house in 2010 and didn't apply in January 2011 for your homestead exemption, but did apply in January 2012, I'm not sure whether they will backdate it or not. But you seem to say it shows on your tax records that they did. The worst they can do is say no, so it can't hurt to contact them.

If it's a new house, built in 2010, your taxes for 2010 should have been based on the lot value, not the house value, because the value is set as of January 1 of each year, and would have gone up considerably in 2011 because it would then be valued at the house value. Some people are quite shocked when this happens.

Thank you for this response! Our first two homes were new construction. We just purchased our third home, an older house in central Austin, over the summer and I was very confused how to proceed with the homestead exemption. You explanation was times better than anything I have found online!

[TexasHorseLady]

You'll be able to find the application for a homestead exemption here. (It's the third section down in the right column; the second section down has general exemption information if you want that.) Do NOT pay anyone to file it for you (you may find yourself getting mail offering to do so for you for $45 or so); all you do is follow the instructions on the form and it's free.

[Idlewile]

THL - question for you you might know the answer to since you are well-versed in this subject... you now are required to have your car registered at the address you wish to file a new exemption on. That said, we are about to file a HE for our Travis County home we bought last spring BUT our cars were both registered in Wilco when we were renting. Can we simply have the address on the registration updated to Travis Co. or must we actually re-register both cars - with all annual fees - in order to meet the HE requirement? That seems like highway robbery if that is the case, forcing you to pay those hundreds of dollars of fees six months before you would normally be responsible for them.

Online it says they must be registered at that address but does not give any other info. I would think I'm not the only one moving counties and wanting an HE on my new home, I'm guessing there might be others with this question as well...

TIA if you can shed any light on this conundrum.

[TexasHorseLady]

I don't have the answer to that question, but I'll see if I can find out. I'd think it would be just an address change, but that's logic and we all know what comes of applying logic to things like this!

By the way, hundreds of dollars of fees? What hundreds of dollars of fees? How much IS the annual registration on your vehicles, anyway?

[TexasHorseLady]

Okay, as near as I can figure it out this fast, changing your address involves going here and downloading the form and making the change that way. Then (at least two days later because it takes that long for the change to go into effect), request a duplicate vehicle registration receipt, which should have your new address on it and only cost a couple of bucks.

Oh, and the standard fee to register a car or light truck is $50.75 for vehicles weighing less than 6,000 lbs. What do you drive that it's costing hundreds of dollars annually to register it?

[Idlewile]

Oh that's great info, thank you very much for uncovering it! I looked and looked on the county homestead exemption pages but to no avail. That's a relief if that solves it.

We paid at least $200 per car; both cars are nothing special, both 2003s. Perhaps the bulk of that was from the new resident fee?