Rising Property Taxes in Texas - Any hope in a base year pass through?

[Justin Smith]

Hi all - I own three houses in Austin Texas that are full rented. All has been well however I am noticing property taxes are starting to creep up. Two of the properties have mortgages on them and the property taxes are paid through escrow. I noticed on the annual statement that the annual increase is roughly $100 which is a big dent to the cash flow of $350-400. I'm from CA where we have prop 13 which limits annual property tax increases to no more than 2% annually. Is there any hope in contesting the taxes? In CA I usually screen very well and lease out for a year to start and if they prove to be a good tenant then I renew them for two years at a time to reduce turnover. In Texas I feel like it makes more sense to lease one year at a time and then to adjust the rent every year based on your property taxes. I doubt tenants would go along with that. My day to day job is that of a commercial real estate broker and in our business we have a concept called a base year pass through whereby you can pass those annual property tax increases on to the tenant. Have you ever heard of that on the residential side? That would be great of tenants would go along with it.