A Tale Of Two Protests

Appraisal districts throughout the land got frisky this year after the state slapped their wrists and instructed them to raise property appraisals to market value.

I was alarmed to see my home go up 18 percent, but I've heard of much higher hikes throughout Southeast Texas. Meanwhile, my mom over in Houston also was horrified by her appraisal.

I decided to protest mine, as did she.

Mom took to the task with a vengeance, getting help from a realtor to get sales figures on homes in her neighborhood. She also assembled a mile-high stack of complicated paperwork.

She wanted me to be her muscle, so on a recent Saturday morning, I loaded up her and her paperwork and drove her over to the gleaming Harris County Appraisal District building on Houston's north side.

I figured we'd sit before some board, I'd lay on some charm, get a few bucks knocked off the appraisal, shake hands and go home.

From what I understand, this is kind of the way it used to be. If you took the time to protest, you at least got something knocked off the appraisal.

But this isn't how it works anymore.

First, we were called to some cubicle, where a snotty man with some kind of weird European accent immediately began picking apart our case, as if he were a hard-nosed defense lawyer. This flustered Mom, who began futilely fumbling through her mile-high stack for weapons to throw into the battle. I didn't know how to defend her, because I hadn't had time to go through her stuff.

Mr. Snottybritches would only look at me during the discussion, which I found highly rude and sexist. It was clear we were going nowhere with him, so I took the cap off my smart ass and started finding little buttons to push, picking out hypocrisy and absurdity in his points, tossing in some nice mockery along the way.

"It looks like we are not going to come to an agreement," Snottybritches said, throwing up his hands.

"What's to agree on? You're giving us absolutely nothing!" I replied, chuckling at his frustration.

The way I figure it, these guys argue all day for a living. Every day, all day, they argue. In the hierarchy of humanity, they're about one rung up the ladder from online solicitors and bill-collection agencies.

The next step was going before some kind of appraisal board, where I figured I had a better chance anyway.

But I needed an argument.

While waiting to be called in, I began rifling through Mom's stack in search of something, anything, with which I could make some kind of point. Ultimately, I boiled it down to one point.

Using my mom's appraised value (and a pencil and paper because I didn't have a calculator), I calculated the value per square foot. Then, I took a recently sold home across the street and did the same calculation.

Bang!

Mom's home was appraised at $186 per square foot, while the neighboring home sold for $136 per square foot.

That sounded like an argument to me.

Minutes later, we were called before the appraisal board, and the atmosphere was more like the Supreme Court than what I expected. Everyone on the board was formally dressed. The tone was courtlike. After a lot of formalities and whatnot, I argued our case - and won!

A few weeks later, it was time to argue my case before the Hardin County Appraisal Board. I figured it would be a little less formal, and it was.

When I arrived, they were all waiting for me, one of them outside on the porch of what looked more like a barn than a government building. "You Brian?" one of them asked. "Yep!" I said. A voice down the hall said, "Is that Brian? Is Brian here?" A voice in some faraway home said, "OK, Brian's here! Let's do this!"

It was kind of surreal. All those good ol' boys up there, waiting on me.

Instead of going through the Mr. Snottybritches phase, we all gathered in a back room. They just said, "You're on!" And off I went.

I noted that the neighbor's home value went up only 13 percent. I talked about all the problems with the house and the current lethargic real estate market. (I've seen homes out there sitting on the market for more than six months now.) I talked about last year's flooding.

And then, for the grand finale, I whipped out the old picture of Dopey, the name I awarded to one of the 80-plus bats with whom we once shared the home.

The review board was impressed - and highly entertained - with my presentation. They sympathized with all our problems. They congratulated me on a job well done.

Then, politely and with a little humor, they rejected my protest. Despite all the problems, and all my evidence, they couldn't get past the fact that my home appraisal was nowhere near out of line with market value.

The Hardin County experience was far easier than the one in Houston, albeit one that ended in failure.

Last week, we got the notice that there was some certified mail from the Hardin County Appraisal District, a formal rejection.

However, I'm not going to go bother to pick it up. If I have to pay more property taxes for my appraisal, the last damned thing I'm going to do is blow gasoline to go to the post office to pick up a piece of paper.