Property tax protest TX

[Amy Lin]

Hello,

I have a property in Texas was vandalized by the previous tenants and squatters last year. I spent about 7k to restore the property back to operating condition. For this year property tax protest, could the money I used to restore the property be counted as repairs in attempt to lower the tax value?  

[Andy Webb]

You sure can, and in fact I find that right now arguing the value on the basis of condition works a heck of a lot better than using comps in most cases, since the market is sky-high right now.

One footnote: the county appraisal district sets the value as of January 1 for a given year, so the question may come up: when did you do the repairs?  If the property was in the vandalized condition at the start of the year, then you have a good argument.  If you repaired the property BEFORE the end of 2021, theoretically you do not.  Though I would try.  Good evidence for your case includes pictures of the damage and any repair estimates (if they support your case - $7k is not a huge number, so perhaps leave the bids out).

Andy