Fort Bend County Central Appraisal District - 2014 (sales, new home)

[Rip808]

FBCAD has been updated with 2014 numbers. We purchased a home in 2013 and the tax increase is 15% from what we thought to be a high purchase price.

Can we start a thread on how to go through the appeal process? If there is already an old thread feel free to include it on here. My taxes are $2,500 higher than I expected them to be!!

Edit: Just noticed...they have my sq footage incorrectly listed. How can I go and fix this? (They overestimated by almost 1,000 sq ft!!)

[DSL_PWR]

I will be calling on Monday to discuss mine for sure. They're crazy.

[swopoe]

We purchased a brand new home last year in March. Is that why ours looks so wacky? It is appraised for almost $200 k more this year.

[Aliana926]

I just checked my appraisal online, and there's a 10% increase, 30k. I never seen this before. In the past, it's only a 1k or 2k, but 30k?! This is crazy!

[Rip808]

I would advise everyone to check the sq footage that the district has on you. Mine was terribly off. I am in a subdivision where there are other houses exactly like mine...so I am looking up what values they were appraised at and trying to come up with a value that is like the rest.

[NY to LA]

We have a 50k increase, still less than the what we paid last year. Can we appeal?

[longhorn96]

Originally Posted by Rip808

I would advise everyone to check the sq footage that the district has on you. Mine was terribly off. I am in a subdivision where there are other houses exactly like mine...so I am looking up what values they were appraised at and trying to come up with a value that is like the rest.

Yes, definitely review your information carefully. Ours is tied to the wrong house number!! It has the owner address listed as our correct address, but the property address lists a home on the same street with a different number.

So now I don't even know if the appraisal amount is correct because it may be for a different house altogether.

[trbstang]

Yes, check the square footage!!! Mine was about 280 sqft higher, and when I looked at the floorplan they had on file, it included an extension on the second story that did not exist. That lead to an error in the calculation and an overvaluation of my house. It happened to my SIL also on her house. We both got it changed back to what the builder plan said. Mine was a few years after the builder left, (the value had finally gone over what I paid for it) so I had to find several homes with the same floorplan, look at their floorplan on record at the appraisal district, take pictues to show the homes were the same floorplan, and they promptly dropped the sqft down and recalculated the value at the informal hearing. Of course I picked the 4 homes that had the lowest appraisal values as comps! It was easy because I had plenty of documentation. If you have a copy of the builder floorplans or even the mini floorplans they include with their sales packages that will help. There is probably an option to build out part of your house for more sqft, and they probably assumed you had that option. That is what happend to my SIL. It was floored attic storage area, but it could be configured as a 4th bedroom and bath if selected.

Good luck on it!

[trbstang]

Originally Posted by swopoe

We purchased a brand new home last year in March. Is that why ours looks so wacky? It is appraised for almost $200 k more this year.

Was the prior year appraisal close to what you paid? Our first year appraisal was only $140k on a $202k house since it was not completed when they did the first year appraisal. The next year it was raised to $170 which was the price of the base house with no options. Often the first year they have to catch up on it. If the value was close to what you paid, that is certainly a good reason to protest. What are the same homes selling for now, if they are still building? Certainly check the values in your neighborhood and see if they are comparable to yours based on sqft and same number of stories. Generally 1 story homes have a higher value per sqft, and larger homes have a lower value per sqft, so you have to compare a similiar sized home (within 10% or so sqft) with the same number of stories.

[hx2010]

Just got my appraisal and mine increased by $113k from last year! My house was fully completed last year, too.