You Got Your Property Tax Notice — Here's Exactly What to Do

That document in your hand is called a Notice of Appraised Value (NOAV). It is not your tax bill. It's the appraisal district's estimate of what your property was worth on January 1 of this year. Your actual tax bill won't arrive until October or November, after the tax rates are set. The NOAV is your advance warning — and your opportunity to challenge the number before it becomes your bill.

Here's what each section of a typical Texas NOAV contains:

• Property Description — Your address, legal description, account number, and the physical characteristics the district has on file: square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, year built, lot size, and condition rating. Errors here are surprisingly common and are an independent basis for reduction.
• Market Value — The district's estimate of what your property would sell for on the open market as of January 1. This is the number that usually causes the sticker shock.
• Appraised Value — For most homesteaded properties, this is lower than market value because of the 10% homestead cap. If you have a homestead exemption filed, your appraised value can only increase by 10% per year (plus new improvements), regardless of how much the market value jumps.
• Assessed / Taxable Value — Your appraised value minus all applicable exemptions. This is the number your tax bill is actually calculated on. For example, a $500,000 appraised value minus the $140,000 school homestead exemption equals $360,000 in taxable value for school taxes.
• Exemptions — A list of exemptions currently applied to your property: homestead, over-65, disability, and others. If your homestead exemption isn't listed here, stop everything and file for it immediately.
• Prior Year Comparison — Last year's values next to this year's, so you can see the change at a glance.
• Protest Deadline and Instructions — Usually printed at the bottom or on the back. This tells you when and how to file a protest.

Understanding these sections is important because your protest strategy depends on which numbers are wrong. An inflated market value calls for comparable sales evidence. An incorrect property description calls for photos and county records. A missing exemption calls for a simple application. Often, there are multiple issues worth challenging.

You don't need a real estate license or hours of research to get a gut check. Here's the 60-second test:

1. Find your market value on the notice (the big number, not appraised value).
2. Check Zillow, Redfin, or Realtor.com for your home's estimated value and recent sales of similar homes within half a mile.
3. Compare. If your NOAV market value is higher than what similar homes are actually selling for, you have a strong case for protest.

That's it. If the district says your house is worth $550,000 but the three most similar homes on your street sold for $490,000, $505,000, and $510,000, you're over-assessed. Period.

But don't stop there. Even if your market value looks roughly right, you may still have a case on unequal appraisal — meaning your home is appraised higher per square foot than comparable homes in your area. The district doesn't have to get your value wrong for it to be unfairly high relative to your neighbors.

The single most important date on your notice is the protest deadline. In Texas, you must file your protest by May 15 or 30 days after the notice was mailed, whichever is later. If May 15 falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline extends to the next business day.

Miss this deadline and you lose your right to protest for the entire year. There are narrow exceptions — if you never received your notice, or if your homestead was appraised at least 25% above correct value — but relying on exceptions is a gamble. The safe move is to file now, even if you haven't gathered all your evidence yet. You can always add evidence later. You cannot un-miss a deadline.

Here's what most people don't realize: filing a protest is not a commitment to anything. It simply preserves your right to negotiate. You can file today and withdraw later if you change your mind. You can file and accept the first settlement offer the district makes at the informal hearing. You can file and let it go all the way to a formal ARB hearing. Filing costs nothing and takes five minutes. Not filing costs you whatever reduction you would have received — typically hundreds to thousands of dollars.

The math is simple: the cost of filing is zero, the cost of not filing is potentially enormous, and there is absolutely no risk that protesting will raise your value. Texas law (Property Tax Code §41.47) explicitly prohibits the ARB from raising your value during a protest.

Let's be direct: if you own a home in Texas, you should protest your property taxes. Every single year. The data overwhelmingly supports this.

Read those numbers again. In Hays County, more than 98 out of 100 homeowners who showed up to their informal hearing walked away with a reduction. In Travis County, 87%. Across the largest dataset ever analyzed (200,000+ hearings in Harris County), homeowners who represented themselves won 82% of the time.

These aren't marginal wins, either. The median reduction in Harris County was $16,784 in appraised value, translating to hundreds of dollars in annual tax savings. In Travis County, average reductions routinely save homeowners $650 to $1,500 per year depending on the property.

The question isn't whether you should protest. It's why you wouldn't. The process is free, takes minimal time, cannot raise your value, and succeeds the vast majority of the time. Even in years when your value barely changes, protesting prevents the district from building on an inflated baseline and signals that you're paying attention.

The homeowners who lose money on property taxes aren't the ones who protest and lose. They're the ones who never file at all.

Before you do anything else, grab your notice and check these three things. Each one is an independent basis for protest, and mistakes are far more common than most people realize.

Filing a protest is not paperwork-heavy or intimidating. Every major Central Texas county offers online filing that takes less than five minutes. Here's how to do it for each county:

Travis County (TCAD)

1. Go to traviscad.org/protests
2. Log in or create an account using your property ID from your notice
3. Select the grounds for your protest — check both “Value is over market value” and “Value is unequal compared with other properties”
4. Submit. You'll receive instant confirmation and a hearing date.

Williamson County (WCAD)

1. Go to wcad.org and navigate to “File a Protest”
2. Enter your property account number and owner name
3. Select both market value and unequal appraisal grounds
4. Submit. WCAD often schedules same-day informal hearings during peak season.

Hays County (Hays CAD)

1. Go to hayscad.com and find the online protest filing link
2. Enter your property details and select your grounds for protest
3. Submit. Hays CAD conducts many informal hearings via Zoom, which is convenient.

Pro tip: When selecting grounds for protest, always check both “market value too high” and “unequal appraisal.” This preserves your strongest arguments and gives you two independent paths to a reduction. The ARB can only consider grounds you selected on your protest form, so check everything that could apply.

If you prefer to file on paper, use Texas Comptroller Form 50-132 and mail or hand-deliver it to your county appraisal district before the deadline. Any written notice identifying you, your property, and your disagreement is legally sufficient.

Once your protest is filed, the process unfolds in predictable stages. Here's the full timeline so nothing catches you off guard:

Everything above is free and doable on your own. But if you want to skip the research phase and get straight to the answer, we built a tool that does the heavy lifting for you.

Enter your address at hometaxreview.com/analyze and in about 60 seconds you'll see:

• Your current appraised value vs. what comparable homes are actually selling for
• Whether your property details (sqft, beds, baths) match the district's records
• Your estimated potential savings if you protest
• How your value per square foot compares to similar homes (the unequal appraisal check)

The initial analysis is completely free and requires no account. If it reveals you're significantly over-assessed, you can purchase a full evidence report for $39 that includes comparable sales data, a formatted evidence packet, a hearing script, and a protest email template — everything you need to walk into your hearing prepared and confident.

Unlike protest companies that charge 25–50% of your savings year after year, you pay once, keep 100% of your savings, and own your evidence forever. There are no auto-renewals, no contracts, and no surprise fees.