property taxes, I'm confused (Austin: assessor, credit, house)

[iguanas4]

Ok, so everyone said property taxes were high in Texas... I was expecting that. But I just got my first bill and it looks as if I have to pay the taxes for the entire year of 2006, although I've only owned the house since Sept. 2006. Is that right? How can that make sense? Why do I pay taxes for the period of time when it was owned by someone else?

And the bill wasn't nearly as high as I was expecting (about half as much). If I'm reading the assessor's website correctly, they are giving me the over age 65 deduction. I am no one's spring chicken anymore, but I'm not there yet! I did buy the house from an older lady, so I'm assuming that's why the deduction is there. It looks like the tax for 2007 will be much higher, closer to what I was expecting this time.

I don't get it!

[southaustingal]

What county are you in? Sometimes it takes a while to get things changed over, but I'd imagine they'd have it done by now. If I were you, I'd take things up with the country. In our case, whenever we've purchased a home, the seller paid taxes at closing for the time he/she lived in the home. I'm not sure what happened there with your deal. But definitely contact the county and correct the bill.

[gigi927]

When we closed on our house in September,we were given a credit by sellers to pay their prorated portion of the property taxes when we paid the taxes at the end of the year.

You should check your closing statement to see how the debits/credits for taxes were handled; I'm guessing that's what happened with yours.

[AustinTraveler]

Contact the tax assessor for your county. You need to apply for Homestead exemption before the time lapses. Obviously your current tax bill is based on the previous owner's age. As Gigi said, you should have been credited with taxes on your closing statement. I wouldn't wait around and hope the tax assessor doesn't notice or something like that, or you could find yourself with a surprise tax bill in the mail.

[jthomas45]

When I got to Austin with my child who has mild autism I thought thing we're going to be a little bit though with getting him in to school and making a new a start here ,not knowing that texas is just about last in the report in today austin american-statesman "chance for success index ' in the front page of the metro page , I've been trying my best to find the help we need and the bottom line is , if your rich you get what you need and if your not your have to fight with all the people who are coming in from mexico . I'm just bummed out .

[iguanas4]

Thanks everyone! I had a look at my closing statement and it looks like I was indeed given a pro-rated credit. I think I'll confirm with the title company and the assessor, though. Fun, fun!

[gigi927]

Originally Posted by jthomas45

When I got to Austin with my child who has mild autism I thought thing we're going to be a little bit though with getting him in to school and making a new a start here ,not knowing that texas is just about last in the report in today austin american-statesman "chance for success index ' in the front page of the metro page , I've been trying my best to find the help we need and the bottom line is , if your rich you get what you need and if your not your have to fight with all the people who are coming in from mexico . I'm just bummed out .

I know this is off the tangent of this thread and hoping the mods will move jthomas' and my post....jthomas, I just read the article on the Statesman site and I had a different takeaway altogether. I had read a news bite on this article on NBC this morning and freaked out, thinking that Texas education was ranked 48th out of 50. I think the article is really saying what we already know - that demographics play a huge part in future success. It's no surprise that in areas where there is a prevalence of low-income population where English is a second language, the state is not going to rank as highly in largely white-bread, upper middle class areas like virginia and Connecticut, both of which were ranked at the top. The article touched several times on how the Texas education system is both improving and one of the high points of the success factors for children. I found this very encouraging. Considering that we moved from Arizona, where the schools leave much to be desired, I have been very pleased with the school system thus far here in Austin.

I also think that Austin is its own micro-culture which sort of separates it to a large degree from most of the rest of Texas. Texas is so dang huge, it's hard to extrapolate the study's findings across both rural/agricultural areas and urban areas. Just my view, though Don't give up!