Frequently Asked Tax Protest Questions
How do I sign up for Chandler Crouch to protest my property tax assessment?
Register on our website, www.freetaxprotest.com
How much does Chandler Crouch charge to protest?
We charge absolutely nothing. Our service is offered with no strings attached. We truly want to serve and help as many people as we can.
How can Chandler Crouch afford to do this for free?
As you might imagine, operating a service like this is costly. Our service is funded by two primary sources. First and foremost, when someone just like you chooses to use our team of expert Realtors, we use the revenue generated to pour right back into serving our community. Second, we accept donations. If you would like to support our mission, you can pay it forward by donating so that we can help more people. Any level of donation helps. The more revenue we generate, the more folks we can reach. The best place to donate is by logging in to your dashboard at www.freetaxprotest.com or you can click this donation link.
What kind of properties qualify for your tax protest service?
We only protest single-family, residential properties in Tarrant County that only have one account number.
What doesn't my property qualify?
We cannot protest for the following homes:
- A home with more than one TAD account number (split among multiple owners)
- A home with a confidential status (properties owned by government officials or people that withhold their property information from being disseminated publicly)
- A home outside of Tarrant County
- Commercial property
How do I protest my property tax value on my own?
- How-to step by step videos can be found at www.freetaxprotest.com/pages/videos
Do I need to let TAD know you are protesting for me?
No. Please do not protest on your own if you want Chandler to protest for you. This could cause errors in your protest. We submit all the necessary documents to facilitate every aspect of your protest from filing the protest, getting evidence the appraisal district will use against you, and using the evidence we compile to argue a lower value.
What happens after I sign up at www.freetaxprotest.com?
Immediately after signing up, you should receive a confirmation email. This email is your confirmation that Chandler Crouch received your protest request and we'll take care of the rest. We file your protest on time, assemble evidence, and do our best to negotiate a reduction.
How long will it take to receive my tax protest results?
Short answer, most likely before August 1, but there is no way to know for sure. After we file your tax protest, the appraisal district assigns a hearing date. They will schedule all of our protests to be completed on this date, which obviously isn't practical. They allow us to conduct as many protests as possible each day until all protest hearings are complete. The appraisal district does not want us to conduct a formal hearing on every single property or else our hearings would continue for a few years. We use this to our advantage and try to negotiate for them to accept a value at the lowest level that our evidence supports. If they agree to this, your protest could be completed well before August 1. There's just no way to tell how agreeable they will be.
How does Chandler Crouch do so many protests? What is your process like?
We operate very strategically and systematically. Depending on the complexity of your protest, we may take several thousand different steps to reach a conclusion with the appraisal district. Here is the simplified version:
- 1. We process your registration
- 2. Send representation documents to the appraisal district to gain authority to protest on your behalf
- 3. File a protest on time
- 4. Process any evidence you submitted through our website
- 5. Obtain all evidence that the appraisal district will use to support the value they are proposing
- 6. Analyze the district's evidence to find flaws in their evidence
- 7. Research all comparable real estate sales data to identify the most effective sales data that supports a reduction for your property
- 8. Assemble the most convincing evidence package possible
- 9. Negotiate informally with the appraisal district to convince them to agree to the lowest value our evidence supports
- 10. If the district doesn't agree to the lowest value the evidence supports, we escalate the protest to a formal affidavit protest hearing
- 11. If we determine that a verbal narrative is necessary to accurately articulate the value, then we escalate it to a formal in-person protest hearing
- 12. We receive the "final orders" (ie results) in the mail and deliver results to the homeowner
How do I cancel your service?
Just log in to www.freetaxprotest.com. Once on the dashboard, click to see the account information and you will see the button to protest. Please cancel prior to May 10 to ensure we do not file your protest. Our process to prepare for our final protest filing takes several days. Last-minute changes may not take effect until after the protest filing deadline. If you decide to protest on your own or hire another tax agent, please make sure whoever you intend to complete your protest files their own protest.
When will I receive my blue value notice?
The appraisal district will send property tax value notices only if a property's value increases by more than $1,000.
The Tarrant Appraisal District sends the blue value notice to your tax agent/tax consultant.
You may view your tax value notice and other important documents on your TAD account or when you sign into Chandler’s new website, www.freetaxprotest.com.
If you need help email us: protest@chandlercrouch.com
If you want your value notice to be mailed directly to your home, unfortunately, you will need to revoke Chandler as your protest agent.
How do I interpret my tax value notice?
Chandler Crouch explains your tax value notice in this video.
The protest deadline is 30 days from when the value notice was mailed.
The top left of the grid shows the previous year’s Market Value and Appraised Value. Directly below is the previous year’s taxable value, which was calculated with your exemptions, for each taxing entity.
The top middle of the grid shows the proposed Market Value and proposed Appraised Value for the current tax year.
The bottom of the grid shows your exemptions applied or canceled. It also shows the value used to calculate your Appraised Value.
This TAD video also explains how to interpret your tax value notice.
What is the difference between "Market Value" and "Appraised Value?"
This can be pretty confusing, but the explanation is simple. Chandler explains it all in this video.
Market Value
This is the value the appraisal district concluded was the value of your home as of Jan. 1 in the current tax year. Since this is just an opinion, this is the value you are allowed to protest. It is the only value you are allowed to protest each year.
Appraised Value (homestead capped value):
This value has nothing to do with an appraisal. It is calculated using the Market Value and your exemptions. You cannot protest this value because it already includes your tax breaks.
The government provides protection to certain homeowners by limiting how much your Appraised Value can increase each year. If the property is your primary residence and you file a homestead exemption, your Appraised Value cannot go up by more than 10 percent year to year, no matter how much the Market Value increases.
How does TAD determine the Market Value?
The Tarrant Appraisal District uses a mass appraisal analysis to create a statistical bell curve of values. This video explains.
It compares homes in your neighborhood based on comparable sales and several other variables, such as square footage, a pool, lot size, etc.
The values are adjusted to reflect current market trends. The value of the home is also separate from the value of the land when making adjustments.
How to File a Tax Protest Without Your Blue Value Notice
This video explains how to file a tax protest without your blue property value notice
Can you help me with my homestead exemption?
Chandler made this simple step-by-step homestead exemption video to explain everything you need to know about homestead exemptions.
What is the 65 and over property tax exemption?
Homeowners will qualify for the Over 65 exemption immediately during the current tax year in which they reach age 65.
Texas law requires school districts to offer an additional reduction on homesteads for persons age 65 or older.
Other taxing entities may offer additional benefits, such as a cap or freeze on the amount paid.
Check here for the property tax exemptions offered locally.
If it says “yes” in the column labeled “Ceil,” the tax amount is frozen in the year you qualify for the exemption.
The over-65 exemption caps the actual amount of money the homeowner pays. It caps the amount paid on your tax bill, but does not affect the tax rate or property value at all.
How do I submit evidence for my tax protest?
Upload evidence by logging into your account at www.freetaxprotest.com. Please don't email your evidence. Protest evidence the Tarrant Appraisal District commonly accepts includes:
- Professional repair estimates
- Photos of damage
- Professional appraisal
- Refinance appraisal
- Closing documents
Will protesting hurt my actual resale value?
No. No reputable appraiser or Realtor or appraiser will give weight to your tax value when determining the true market value of your home. Chandler made this video to explain how protesting could actually improve the amount a buyer can pay for your house.
Should I protest if my tax value went down?
Yes, you are encouraged to protest yearly. It is the only way to ensure your proposed Market Value is correct. A reduction this year improves the odds that they won't increase the value next year.
What is your success rate?
We cannot guarantee any level of success. If you have ever protested on your own, you likely experienced how a well-thought-out argument backed by convincing evidence doesn't always work. Oftentimes, the success of your protest will depend on the temperament of the appraiser or 3 person panel (ie jury) we are assigned to. Our success rate has been, at times, well into the 90%+ percentile of protests filed.
Something else to keep in mind, other tax agents will tout strong winning percentages, but as you might guess, there's always more than meets the eye. If you consider a successful protest as any property that gets any amount of reduction (even as low as a $1 reduction), then it's easy to justify a high success rate.
Also, we're the only property tax consultant I'm aware of that actively targets low-property-value homes. This approach kills any chance we have to create impressive statistics. For example, if we reduced a $100,000 property by $20,000, this is a huge win for the homeowner. If, however, we reduced a $1,000,000 property by only $20,000, I would consider this a pretty sad result. If our goal is to brag about how much value we have reduced, the small houses just don't add up very much to produce impressive statistics, but to the homeowner receiving the reduction, it means a whole lot! We also encourage everybody to protest, even homeowners that don't think they can get a big reduction. Most tax agents can't afford to focus on low-value properties because there just isn't enough money in it to make a good living.
Ethical tax consultants will actively discourage property owners from hiring a consultant if the potential reduction vs cost to hire the consultant is cost prohibitive.
What do I send to my mortgage company?
The central appraisal district automatically reports the results to the county tax assessor, which sends the tax bill to your mortgage company's escrow account.
The tax bill is paid with funds in your escrow account accumulated from your monthly housing payment.
How do I calculate my property tax bill?
Two major components of your property tax calculation are tax exemptions and tax rates, which are each determined by your taxing units (school district, county, city, etc.).
Your property tax bill is calculated using this formula: (Appraised Value - Exemptions) x Tax Rate = Tax Bill
If you want to calculate an estimate using last year's property tax rates, you can use a tax calculator on the assessor's website. I demonstrate how to do this starting at 5:48 in this video.
You won't be able to truly calculate your new property tax bill until this year's tax rates are set, which is usually after the protest.
Track your taxing units with Tarrant County’s new website, tarranttaxinfo.com, to find out about public hearings, and exemptions, or even leave comments for officials.
What is a over-65 property tax deferral?
Tax deferrals are only offered to homeowners over 65 years old. The tax deferral does NOT change the appraised value or tax bill. A tax deferral is a request to defer, or put off, paying your taxes. A 5% interest is charged on unpaid taxes. You may still pay your taxes when a tax deferral is in place if you prefer, but if you are unable to pay taxes, the 5% interest is more beneficial than the late penalties that can be imposed. Chandler recommends every person over 65 apply for a tax deferral as a safety net to ensure that the government can never take your house for non-payment of property tax.
How do I contact TAD?
Records and Ownership
Email: webmastersup@tad.org
Ownership and Mailing Address Change
Email: mailingaddress@tad.org
Phone: 817-284-4063
Exemptions
Email: exempt@tad.org
Phone: 817-284-4063
Residential Valuation
Email: res@tad.org
Phone: 817-284-3925
Website Issues
Email: webmaster@tad.org
Commercial
Email: webmastercom@tad.org
Phone: 817-284-2025
Business Personal Property
Email: webmasterbpp@tad.org
Phone: 817-284-9101
Mineral Questions
Email: mineral@tad.org
Phone: 817-926-7861
Appraisal Review Board (ARB) Questions
Email: webmasterarb@tad.org
Phone: 817-284-8884
Georeference (Addressing)
Phone: 817-595-6123
How do I contact Chandler Crouch?
The only way we can help so many people is by working around the clock. Chandler and our team can reply to your emails any hour of the day without concern of disturbing your sleep etc. If you have a question that we can't answer via email, we are more than happy to escalate your situation to the phone, but it would help tremendously if you could start by sending us an email.
Email: protest@chandlercrouch.com
Chandler on Social Media
TAD Board Election - Who to vote on?
Chandler is not personally endorsing anyone for this election but he did interview all the candidates so that you can get to know them.
Here's a link to Chandler's blog article with each candidate's interview video.
https://www.chandlercrouch.com/blog/Everything-You-Need-to-Know-About-the-New-Appraisal-District-Board-Election
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Did your protest increase my taxable value?
No, it is impossible to increase the value by protesting. Confusion is caused by the unnatural use of words. The appraisal district and tax code create different definitions for commonly used terminology. This video explains the difference between appraised value and market value.
Why did my tax bill go up when I got a reduction on my property value?
The appraisal district often proposes a value this year much much higher than the value last year. If we decrease this years proposed value, it could still be higher than last year's value. This short video will help clear up confusion.
Will the appraisal district raise my property tax value if I make any updates to my property?
The appraisal district will track the permits pulled for major improvements to your property, such as adding a pool, or a new structure. They will not track cosmetic improvements, such as fencing, flooring, countertops, etc. If the appraisal district determines that additional property value has been added to your property, they will conduct an assessment on the new property added. This added value could "bust" the value cap currently applied to your property via a homestead or over 65 exemption.
How can I reduce my housing expenses?
Chandler assembled this list of 13 things you can do if you can't afford your house payment. This list ranges from ideas to reduce your housing expenses to alternative ways to make your housing expenses more manageable.
What else is Chandler doing to help fix the broken property tax system?
State Level
People don't realize that their biggest enemy isn't the county appraisal district, it’s the state property tax code itself. And, we have begun to wage war on it!
In 2019, I worked with state Rep. Matt Krause to write pieces of the major property tax reform bill that was signed into law. You can read the actual bill here, and watch Chandler testify in Austin here.
These are just a few of the changes to the tax code as a result of our collaboration with Rep. Krause:
- It's now illegal for appraisal district employees to work for entities that receive property tax revenue.
- Appraisal districts will now keep a list of licensed professionals willing to help homeowners for free with property tax issues.
- Owners will be able to request tax notices via email.
- If your exemption is getting canceled, TAD must now send out additional notices.
- Appraisal districts are now required to send additional notices if you qualify for a homestead exemption.
Local Level
The Tarrant Appraisal District staff and even high-ranking leadership at TAD have treated me well and offered a great deal of support over the years, which I am very grateful for. However, just like every organization, there is always room for improvement.
Chandler played an instrumental role in the TAD board of directors election.
In my experience, it's futile to expect improvement if the same exact leaders continue to make the same kind of decisions. I discovered this is exactly what has been happening at TAD.
The TAD board of directors remained virtually unchanged for years. After investigating, I found that the election process for the board of directors lacks transparency and has many issues.
Chandler exposed a flawed voting system, which he thinks a lot of it should be illegal.
Thanks to your involvement, there is a completely new 5-member board of directors for the Tarrant Appraisal District. You can read more about what we did to influence the election here.
Chandler's efforts to reform the voting system and turn over the board ruffled a few feathers. Plenty of shenanigans ensued allowing Chandler to expose corruption. Check out the news articles here for more details.
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