Austin Tea PartyPUBLIC NOTICE · TEXAS
Taxation without representation.
Four in five Texas homes went unprotested last year. Of the protests that were filed, seven in ten were filed by a representative.
First we file your homestead exemption — free. Depending on your county that's worth $845 to $1,743 every year you own the house, and most new buyers don't have one on file yet.
Then we protest your appraisal. Nothing up front. Nothing at all if your taxes don't go down.
No signup fee, no minimum fee, and no charge for filing your homestead exemption. We publish our results once we have a season of them.
The Royal Estimate
The county's number.
Every spring the appraisal district mails you a value for your house. We call it the Royal Estimate. It comes from a computer, a neighborhood average, and a set of comparable sales. Nobody asked you. It stands unless somebody protests it, and four in five Texas homes let it stand.
The Declaration
We are the representation.
Free first.
We prepare and file your homestead exemption at no charge. It is worth about $845 to $1,743 a year at school rates.
Win-only after that.
We file the Declaration (Form 50-162, the county's agent-designation form), protest the county's number by May 15, and argue it over the summer. If it comes down, our fee is 40% of the first year's savings, invoiced once.
Held the line, no charge.
If the number doesn't come down, you owe nothing and we go again next April.
One number. That's the whole price.
40% of what we save you, and nothing at all if we don't win. No signup fee. No minimum. No charge for the exemption filing.
Average Harris County reduction, 2024: $33,762 of value
$733
off that year's bill
| Our fee, 40% | $293 |
| You keep | $440 |
Worked from the state's own figures, not ours. Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, 2024 Appraisal District Operations Survey, single-family residential. Your county and your house will differ.
Then and now
1773 / 2027.
| 342 chests of tea | 254 appraisal districts |
| No representation | Four in five homes, no protest at all |
| A tax on tea | A tax on your house, recalculated every April |
| A king across an ocean | A number from a computer |
| Redcoats | The Notice, arriving April 1 to 15 |
Where the county's number is highest
Harris County
$232 million
off Harris tax bills in 2024, from $10.7 billion of value removed.
Average cut: $33,762 of appraised value
Tarrant County
$195 million
off Tarrant tax bills in 2024, from $9.7 billion of value removed.
Average cut: $54,885 of appraised value
Bexar County
$59 million
off Bexar tax bills in 2024, from $2.8 billion of value removed.
Average cut: $24,925 of appraised value
Travis County
$228 million
off Travis tax bills in 2024, from $11.5 billion of value removed.
Average cut: $87,265 of appraised value
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, 2024 Appraisal District Operations Survey, single-family residential. Single-family value removed through informal settlement and ARB determination combined. We publish no win rate from this file, because the survey counts informal “concerns, inquiries or protests” in a wider bucket than protests filed, and any ratio built from the two overstates.
Find out in twenty seconds what the county has you at.
Nothing up front. Nothing at all if your taxes don't go down.
We don't care how you vote. We care what you pay.
Property tax bills are due January 31, 2027. That's 149 days away.
Lower next year's bill