BELL COUNTY, Texas — Check your mailboxes -- property appraisal notices are being sent out across Central Texas, and some locals are not too happy with what they're seeing.
Some Bell County property owners told 6 News they saw little to no change in their values, while others saw changes worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars in property value.
Julio Rojas owns several dozen properties. He told 6 News he received the appraisal notices for all of them, but there was a specific one that he was struggling to believe.
"I was just shocked, I couldn't believe a $400,000 increase and I almost passed out at that point," Rojas said. "That one specifically is just kind of unique property and comps in the area are maybe around $100 to $150,000, but for whatever reason they have it showing it to be $650,000 which is a $400,000 increase between what it was valued at last year and what it's valued at this year."
The Bell County Tax Appraisal District is in charge of sending the notices out. Chief Appraiser Billy White said values can increase for numerous reasons and it just depends on each property.
"Some reasons that they could jump up largely could be changes in the property," White said. "We didn't generally see a lot of properties go up that much just based on market, so it could have been changes that they had done to the property or changes that we expected they had done from the prior year if they had come in and told us about issues and we assume they were going to get fixed."
White and his team sent notices out based on recent market conditions, which in Bell County included 3,000 new houses and sales slowing down.
"Most houses in this county were selling for less than they were the prior year and on average, or median, they were right at about flat from last year," White explained.
But, values can still go up.
"It will happen even when the market is coming down in value if it has been assessed at quite a bit lower from there before from the increase we had in the huge real estate market last few years, the assessed value still haven't met the market value. "
The good news is, you can protest your appraisal if you think the value set isn't justifiable. White said you should go through the protest process if you think the market value on your notice is more than you could sell your property for.
However, White wants property owners to understand that it might not necessarily help them.
"If your market value gets changed, but it doesn't go below your assessed value, it's not going to make a difference in your taxes because your assessed value that gets multiplied by the tax rate is still the same," White added.
Rojas has protested before and tells 6 News he also plans to this year. He also encourages other property owners to do the same. However, he wishes there was a better system in place all around when it comes to appraisals because "there's a lot of opportunity for properties to be misvalued".
"There's a duty for us as citizens or members of the city to pay, so we can support the infrastructure and support improvements to the city," Rojas said. "But at the same time, you don't want to charge us an exorbitant amount of tax that you're pricing people out of their homes, and they're no longer able to afford a place to live."
The deadline to protest in Bell and McLennan County is May 15, 2024. Be sure to check the dates if you live in a different county.
Click here for information about Bell County's protest process. Bell County also offers a protest walk-in service until May 3.
Click here for information about McLennan County's protest process.
More from 6 News: