Appealing Property Taxes for Commercial/Apartment Owners

Property taxes are one of the largest line item costs incurred by apartment owners. However, many owners do not appeal effectively. Even though owners realize that property taxes can be managed and reduced through an appeal, some view taxes as an arbitrary estimate provided by the government which can’t effectively be appealed. It tends to boil down to the old adage, “You can’t fight city hall”.

Fortunately, the property tax appeal process in Texas provides owners multiple opportunities to appeal. Handled either directly by the owner or by a property tax consultant, this process should involve an intense effort to annually appeal and minimize property taxes. Reducing the largest line item expense has a significant effect in reducing the owner’s overall operating expenses. While it is not possible to entirely escape the burden of paying property taxes, it is possible to reduce taxes sharply, often by 25% to 50%.

Why some owners don’t appeal

Some property owners don’t appeal because they either don’t understand the process, or don’t understand that there is a good probability of achieving meaningful reductions in property taxes. Some owners believe that since the market value of their property exceeds the assessed value, then it is not possible to appeal and reduce the property taxes. Although appeals on unequal appraisal are relatively new, there is a clear-cut way to appeal property taxes at the administrative hearing level based on unequal appraisal. Unequal appraisal occurs when property is assessed inconsistently with neighboring properties or comparable properties. Also, some owners are reluctant to hire a property tax consultant, even though many consultants will work on a contingent fee basis, in which there is no cost to the owner unless property taxes for the current year are reduced.

Overview of appeal process

The following are the primary steps in the annual process for appealing property taxes:

· Request notice of accessed value

· File an appeal

· Prepare for hearing

. Review records

. Review market value appeal

. Review unequal appraisal appeal

· Set negotiating perimeters

· Administrative hearings

· Decide whether binding arbitration or judicial appeals are warranted

· Pay taxes timely

Requesting a notice of assessed value

Property owners have the option of requesting a notice of assessed value for their property annually. Section 25.19g of the Texas Property Tax Code provides the owner the option to request a written notice of the assessed value from the chief appraiser. Owners benefit from requesting and receiving a written notice of assessed value for each property because it ensures they have an opportunity to review the assessed value. This notice should be sent on an annual basis. The appraisal district does not have to send a notice of assessed value if the value increases by less than ,000. However, if an owner was not satisfied with a prior year’s value and the value remained the same, the appraisal district probably will not send a notice of the assessed value for the current year. In this situation, the owner might forget to protest since a notice of assessed value for the property was not received.

How to file and appeal

On or before May 31st of each year, the property owner should file an appeal for each property. However, while many owners are comfortable with an assessed value, in many cases there is a basis for appealing. Two options for appealing include:

unequal appraisal, and
market value based on data the appraisal district provides to the owner before the hearing.

You can appeal by completing the protest form provided by the appraisal district and indicating both excessive value (market value) and unequal appraisal as the basis for appeal. In addition, the property owner can simply send a notice that identifies the property, and indicates dissatisfaction with some determination of the appraisal office. The notice does not need to be on an official form, although the comptroller does provide a form for the convenience of property owners. (You can access the protest form at www.cutmytaxes.com .)

House Bill 201 – helpful information

House Bill 201 is the industry jargon for a property owner’s option to request information the appraisal district will use at the hearing, and to receive a copy 14 days before the hearing. The name House Bill 201 is derived from the bill used to enact the law. The details for House Bill 201 are located in sections 41.461 and 41.67d of the Texas Property Tax Code. When filing a protest, the property owner should additionally request in writing that the appraisal district provide a copy of any information the appraisal district plans to introduce at the hearing. The appraisal district will typically require the property owner to come to the appraisal district office to pick up the information and charge a nominal fee, typically .10 per page. While the cost for House Bill 201 requests are quite low (typically .50 to .00 per property for residential and commercial) the information is invaluable in preparing for the hearing. In addition, filing a House Bill 201 request is important because it limits the information the appraisal district can present at the hearing to what was provided to the property owner two weeks before the hearing.

Preparing for the Hearing

Start by reviewing the appraisal district’s information for your property for accuracy. If the appraisal district overstates either the quality or quantity of improvements, this will justify a deduction. The next step is to review the information on market value and unequal appraisal provided by the appraisal district in the House Bill 201 package. If the subject property is an income property, review the appraisal district’s income analysis versus your actual income and expense statements. Consider the following areas as opportunities to rebut the appraisal district’s analysis:

· Gross potential income

· Vacancy rate

· Total effective gross income, including other income

· Operating expenses

· Amount of replacement reserves

· Net operating income

· Capitalization rate

· Final market value

Many property owners and consultants start with the actual income and expense data, and use one or two of the assumptions provided by the appraisal district. However, they primarily utilize information from the actual income and expenses in preparing their own income analysis and estimate of market value for the subject property.

When comparable sales are the primary issue in determining market value, start by reviewing the comparable sales data provided by the appraisal district versus the assessed value for your property. Convert the sales prices from the appraisal district to either a per square foot or per unit basis. Then compare the sales to the per square foot or per unit assessment for your property. Sales can be helpful during the hearing.

The cost approach is not typically used in the property tax hearings except for brand new or relatively new properties. If your property is new, the appraisal district will probably want to review the cost information and you probably won’t want to show it to them. In many cases, the actual cost of a property is higher than the estimate provided by the appraisal district. If this is the case, you will likely want to appeal on unequal appraisal instead of on market value. No matter how good your argument or how passionately it is expressed, the appraisal district staff and Appraisal Review Board (ARB) members tend to believe that cost equals value for new properties.

Deferred Maintenance and Functional Obsolescence

Another issue that is important for the market value appeal, and to some extent for a unequal appraisal appeal, is information on deferred maintenance and functional obsolescence. Deferred maintenance could include items such as:

· rotten wood

· peeling paint

· roof replacement

· substantial repair

· landscaping updating and other similar items

Most appraisal districts give minimal consideration to requests for adjustments based on deferred maintenance, unless the property owner provides repair costs from independent contractors. There are some exceptions where a cooperative informal appraiser or sympathetic ARB will take an owner’s estimate of deferred maintenance and make adjustments based on those costs. Most appraisers and ARB members are much more inclined to make adjustments if third-party cost estimates are provided. In addition, the appraisers and many ARB members are inclined to only deduct a portion of the total cost using the argument, “we’ve been giving a replacement reserve allowance for this item for the past years and it’d be double-dipping to deduct the whole value off it in the current year.” While this is an incorrect appraisal argument, it does tend to be the practice at many appraisal districts. The reality is, the cost of curing deferred maintenance is deducted from the offer by a prospective buyer.

Examples of functional obsolescence would be a three-bedroom apartment unit that only has one bathroom, or a two-bedroom apartment that does not have washer/dryer connections in an area where those connections are

Accounting principles are the basic assumptions, rules of operation, and essential characteristics that make up the framework for the construction of accounting financial statements.

Long ago, I was perplexed to discover that there was no “set” of accounting principles that was presented in one form such as you might find in the Bill of Rights. This is not to say that the principles are incomplete or vague, it only means that the definitions of accounting principles can be presented in various formats, which may lead to confusion for some people, especially beginners.

Be that as it may, accounting principles are absolutely necessary when preparing financial statements, just as the rules of a particular card game make the card game possible in the first place. Accounting principles are like the glue that holds the accounting process together. For example, financial statements have an overall objective, which is to provide the user of the statements a useful tool for making business decisions.

In order to be useful, the accounting information must have certain characteristics, such as being dependable and practical. To be dependable, the accounting information must be unbiased, accurate, and verifiable. To be practical, accounting information must be predictable, prepared in a timely fashion, and be able to provide meaningful feedback. Additional characteristics are that the accounting information must be consistent, comparable, serve a utilitarian need (such as cost/benefit), and make a material difference.

Besides characteristics, certain operational rules are established as to when revenue and expenses are reported; how expenses are matched to revenue; what to do when a choice can be made that might overstate or understate figures; and, what information should be disclosed so that the reader will fully understand the circumstances under which the information is being presented.

There are also basic assumptions that the reader can count on, such as: the information is related to the business entity only and doesn’t have any unrelated information mixed in; the business is a going concern and won’t cease operations soon; the financial information presented is measured in specific time intervals such as a month, quarter or year; the financial information is using a certain unit of measure such as dollars, not board feet, etc.; the information is presented at historical cost, i.e., when received, paid, or incurred; and, the method of accounting being used is double-entry and not some other method.

These are accounting principles as opposed to accounting standards. An accounting standard is an agreement as to how an accounting issue will be treated. For instance, a standard might state what type of inventory system is appropriate to use for a certain type of business; how capital leases should be recorded; how many years intangible assets should be amortized; what methods of depreciation should be used, and so on. There are literally thousands of accounting standards that have been issued over the years. These standards are constantly being revised or discarded as they become outdated.

If you want to play the accounting “game of cards”, you must become familiar with the “rules of the game”, which are accounting principles and standards. If you choose to not play by the rules, you do so at your own peril, as we have seen recently in the U.S. corporate accounting scandals.