On the 11th of October, Patrick and Ian Brown spoke to the club about property taxes. Patrick has worked at three different appraisal districts and had some great insights into the tax appraisal process. Ian runs a business that helps property owners protest their taxes. The Travis County Appraisal District is the fifth largest in state. Before appraisal districts were created, property owners would get differing appraisals from each taxing authority, which each heard their own protests. Appraisal districts were formed to fix the problem of differing appraisals - one for each county except combo of the two counties in which Amarillo is located. Most appraisal protests are worked out by settlement or mediation. The appraisal districts do valuations of real property and personal property for business owners. There are three phases in the process. 1st there is the discovery/field phase – during which the appraisers drive areas of the district and review of the properties. The 2nd phase is the valuation period - cost is compared to sales - do market adjustments - residential; commercial valued by income - look at rental rates and sales and create valuation - lower interest rates create lower values. There is not a lot of time to create the valuations, so they do mass appraisals, which are not always completely accurate. The 3rd phase is the protest season - May 15th deadline to file your protest. It is an enormous task - 1 in 4 properties protested in Travis County. They begin with informal hearings before going through mediation or a formal protest hearing. Agent represented protests are more successful - plus 90% success rate - home owners less successful. Many interesting questions were asked during the Browns’ presentation.