Protest Deadlines in a World with COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused enormous trials and issues on nationwide, statewide, and personal levels. We're not going to pretend that property taxes are the highest priority in your life right now, but we live in a world where the lower priority things matter too and sometimes just have to get done. We decided to put together this short article and chart to hopefully give you information concisely so you can make informed decisions on how to handle your property taxes this year in light of the disruption to our typical happenings.

What you need to know

• Many appraisal districts have shifted their schedules back. We have included a chart with the counties that we track below so you can see the schedule that matters to you.
• Property Tax Code dictates that values are to be set as of January 1, 2020 - meaning that the COVID-19 outbreak will likely have no effect on your noticed value this year. This has always been the case.
• Appraisal Notices - March 15th through April 15th is usually the time that you’ll receive your appraisal notice, but this year COVID 19 has changed that entirely. Some counties, Harris county for example, have kept to a normal schedule but many of the other counties (especially in the North-Texas area), are pushing back their deadlines. Take a look at the chart below to find what your county’s protest schedule will be.
• What an Appraisal Notice is - This is the value the county intends to tax you on. The valuation is not set in stone, so it’s possible to protest and get the valuation changed. If you leave it alone, 99.99% of the time, this is the value that you’ll be taxed on.
• Protest Deadlines - May 15th is usually the deadline by which you need to file your protest with the appraisal District. Texas Tax Code simply states that the protest deadline is no later than May 15th or the 30th day after the date of notice (appraisal notice) was mailed to the property owner. So in COVID 19 world, many of the districts have decided to push back all of their Appraisal Notices - meaning almost all of the properties in that specific county will have the same protest deadline.
• The chart below contains the largest counties that we track. It contains the dates that most of the notices will be going out and when most of the protest deadlines will be.