You may soon receive an appraisal notice from the San Jacinto County Appraisal District. The appraisal district mailed about 29,000 appraisal notices on April 05, 2024. Your city, county, school district and other local taxing units will use the appraisal district’s value to set your 2024 property taxes.
Under Texas law, county appraisal districts are required to notify property owners about changes in their property’s value. The notice contains important information about the property’s location, ownership and property tax exemptions that apply to the property. It must also include a web address where tax information for the property can be found.
Property owners who disagree with the appraised value of their property, the exemptions or any other action by the appraisal district have the right to appeal to the San Jacinto County Appraisal Review Board (ARB). The ARB is an independent panel of citizens responsible for hearing and settling property owner protests. The notice of appraised value includes instructions on how and when to file a protest, a protest form and the Comptroller’s Property Taxpayer Remedies. The deadline for filing a protest with the ARB is May 15th or 30 days after your notice of appraised value was delivered to you.
The Comptroller’s publication, Property Taxpayer Remedies, explains in detail how to protest your property appraisal, what issues the ARB can consider and what to expect during a protest hearing. The publication also discusses the option to request limited binding arbitration to compel the ARB or chief appraiser to comply with a procedural requirement and the options of taking your case to district court, the State Office of Administrative Hearings or binding arbitration if you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your ARB hearing.
Property Taxpayer Remedies is available from the San Jacinto County Appraisal District online at www.sjcad.org, or in the SJCAD office located at 99 Slade Street Coldspring, Texas 77331. The publication is also available on the Comptroller’s Property Tax Assistance Division’s website at comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/. Please feel free to call 936-653-1450 with any questions.
The Texas State Comptroller released the results of the property value study on January 31st and the results threaten to reduce state funding for schools. The post-pandemic sales of homes in San Jacinto County have been extremely high and, although property values were increased by the local appraisal district, the increases were not sufficient to keep up with market sales.
State law requires the overall ratios of sales prices to local appraised values be 95% or greater. If this condition is not met cuts in school funding from the state will occur. 2023 Coldspring-Oakhurst ratios for single-family homes were calculated to be at 82% by the state study, while Shepherd ISD numbers came in at 86%. The state comptroller’s study set home values in Coldspring-Oakhurst at $924,603,850 just two years ago, but they are now claiming that the totals should be $1,409,892,864, a 34% increase.
The newly hired chief appraiser for the District, Troy Carlson said “The state had many sales records that we are unable to access due to privacy regulations, and those state sales records are indicating that we must increase appraised values on homes substantially for 2024. This is the last thing I want to do in our market, but we are required to increase the property values up to the 95% level in 2024 so our schools do not lose state funding.”
At this point, it is not known what the total impact to school funding may be. The schools currently have the state findings under appeal and their lawyers feel it will improve the results.
In compliance with the requirements, adjustments to appraised value will be sent to property owners in April, and owners will have the opportunity to appeal the proposed value if they feel it is beyond the value for which their home would sell. The last Texas election propositions that passed regarding property tax, increased the homestead exemption to $100,000, which will help many homeowners. Additionally, any increases on homestead values are capped at 10%, so that will also help to buffer the change.
New and updated property tax information has just been compiled by The San Jacinto County Appraisal District and is available now to assist taxpayers. This property tax information is current and covers a wide range of topics, such as taxpayer remedies, exemptions and appraisals, and has information for select groups, such as disabled veterans and persons age 65 or older.
“Whether you are a homeowner, business owner, disabled veteran or taxpayer, it’s important you know your rights concerning the property tax laws.” said Sherri Schell, Chief Appraiser of the San Jacinto County Appraisal District. “You can contact us about any property tax issues with full confidence that we will provide you the most complete, accurate and up-to-date information available to assist you.”
This includes information about the following programs.
For more information about these programs, contact the San Jacinto County Appraisal District by telephone at 936-653-1450 or in office at 99 Slade Street Coldspring, Texas 77331. Information is also available on the Comptroller’s Property Tax Assistance Division’s website at comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/
The duties of the appraisal district include:
This website is provided to assist you in learning more about our agency and how it can serve you. It is our goal to provide you with an understanding of how and why we operate as we do and how you can resolve any issue that may arise. We also hope that our users will find our website a source of useful information.
At this site you will find a great deal of information about property located in the SJCAD. We have attempted to make it as user-friendly as possible. However, if you know a few things about a property for which you are seeking information, you can expedite the search process. Account number is always the best tool to use when searching a file. You can find your account number on a tax statement you may have received from one of the entities taxing your property or on any Notice of Appraised Value that you may have received from our agency. If you do not have the account number, knowing the owner’s name or correct address will usually suffice in locating a property.
In addition to property appraisal information, you will also find pages that inform you about your taxpayer rights, exemptions, how to negotiate a value or exemption matter, important dates and other information. Located on our site are links to other local, state and national government sites.
Persons interested in employment with the SJCAD can find a list of open positions and information about our agency. Those seeking telephone numbers, mailing address and staff information can also find this data on our site.
We hope that you find our website both easy to use and informative. We will continue to improve it and solicit your input concerning how this might best be achieved.
The San Jacinto County Appraisal District is responsible for the fair market appraisal of properties within the county’s boundaries. Additional responsibilities include change of address and public information requests.