AND THE GENTLEMAN ASKED, “CAN YOU REALLY LOWER PROPERTY TAXES?”

Last weekend my wife and I we were at dinner talking about the anticipated property tax increases for 2017 for Houston home and business owners.

A young man sitting at the table next to us, with his wife and four children, leaned over and graciously said, “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to listen into your conversation but I couldn’t help but to hear you say that you help people reduce their annual property taxes? Is that right?

Can you really do that? Our taxes last year were crazy high!”

I smiled and assured him that yes, in fact, we help all kinds of people and business lower their property taxes year in and year out.

We exchanged business cards and went back to having dinner.

The encounter reminded me that often people believe that the property tax bill they receive is set in stone. They don’t realize that the property tax bill is tied to a report prepared by the local tax assessor, based on the assessor's estimation of the market value of your property.

Further, they don’t know that property assessing is an inexact science, so you may have grounds to challenge your bill and save hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars in annual taxes.

We’ve been doing this for so long we forget to state the obvious. “Yes!!! You can reduce your home and business property taxes.”

The laws that surround challenging property tax assessments is complicated. Moreover, the facts of each homeowner or business owner’s case are unique. That’s why hiring a