Bell Lawsuit Property Tax Savings over $113 MM in 2021

Bell property taxes will be substantially reduced by the 68 lawsuits filed by owners of Bell property regarding 2021 ARB values. Owners filed lawsuits rejecting the Bell County Tax Appraisal District value after the ARB for: houses (0), multifamily (37), commercial / BPP (26), industrial property (1), utilities (0), oil and gas (0) and "other property" (2). The total assessed value for property subject to new lawsuits in 2021 was $528 billion. These include lawsuits to reduce the ARB value for houses ($1 billion), multifamily ($390 billion), commercial / BPP ($120 billion), industrial ($104 billion), utilities ($0), oil and gas ($0) and "other property" ($15 billion).

Judicial Appeals by Property Type Bell CountySource: Texas Comptroller, compiled by O’Connor, and not affiliated with any appraisal district.

	Judicial Appeals
	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Total Number of lawsuits	8	12	32	33	23	76	87	68	71	94	84
Single Family Residential	0	0	1	1	0	0	2	2	4	2	3
Multi Family Residential	3	4	17	9	10	35	38	37	34	37	34
Commercial real and personal property	4	8	14	22	13	34	43	26	33	55	47
All Other	1	0	0	1	0	7	4	3	0	0	0

Texas property owners should protest annually since You can’t evaluate the strength of your appeal until you obtain the hearing evidence file. You have to protest to obtain the hearing evidence file (available free upon request via U.S. mail).

Bell County Judicial Appeals
of ARB Hearing

Judicial appeals at Bell County and other Texas appraisal districts provide a fresh chance to energize the property tax appeal process. The volume of protests is large (over 1.8 million in Texas in 2018). The limited staff at appraisal districts is sometimes unable to give adequate attention to complex valuation issues. Most appraisal districts and ARBs do not consider unequal appraisal evidence. So, for most property owners, if you want to appeal on unequal appraisal, a judicial appeal is your option. This is exacerbated since binding arbitration is not considered a reliable alternative for appeals on unequal appraisal.

The average value of a property subject to a 2021 lawsuit against Bell County Tax Appraisal District was $7 million. The average value for a multifamily lawsuit was $10 million and the average value for a commercial property in a Bell CAD lawsuit after the ARB was $4 million. Contrast this to O'Connor; our minimum threshold for coordinating a judical appeal for commercial property is $750,000. O’Connor is an order of magnitude more aggressive compared to other property tax consultants in using all available options to reduce our client’s property taxes. O’Connor reduced client property taxes by an estimated $167 million in 2021.

A property tax appeal without judicial appeal, when appropriate, is only doing half the job.

BellCAD Judicial Appeals Filed By Property Type

Tax Appraisal District Of Bell County judicial appeals focus primarily on commercial properties. Unlike informal hearings and ARB hearings, the volume of commercial judicial appeals far exceeds the judicial appeals for homes. It simply is not financially feasible to pursue a judicial appeal for most houses.

Home owners filed lawsuits against Bell CAD for 2 houses in 2021 versus 0 in 2014. This underscores the level of frustration of Bell County homeowners with steadily increasing property taxes.

Value Involved in Judicial Appeals - Bell CountySource: Texas Comptroller, compiled by O’Connor, and not affiliated with any appraisal district.

	Billions of $
	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Value of All Judicial Appeals	0.043	0.051	0.127	0.178	0.151	0.724	0.731	0.813	0.895	0.837	0.918
Single Family Res	0	0	0.003	0.005	0	0.001	0.001	0.003	0.005	0.004	0.045
Multi Family Res	0.028	0.021	0.078	0.068	0.073	0.366	0.388	0.524	0.66	0.565	0.572
Commercial	0.008	0.03	0.046	0.089	0.078	0.315	0.321	0.273	0.225	0.268	0.301
All Other	0.007	0	0	0.015	0	0.042	0.021	0.013	0.006	0	0

Texas property owners should protest annually since An annual appeal minimizes property taxes, sometimes well below market value.

BellCAD Value Involved in Judicial Appeals

Tax Appraisal District Of Bell County market value for judicial appeals is far higher for commercial / industrial compared to single family. There are a variety of factors that lead to this reason.

1. The costs of filing fee, attorney and expert witnesses discourages most homeowners.
2. The values of commercial property often exceed $4 million, while few homes exceed such a value.
3. Bell County property owners with an issue on unequal appraisal after the ARB have no real option except a judicial appeal. Unequal appraisal is not typically considered at the informal hearing. Unequal appraisal is rarely considered at the formal hearing. So the primary option for unequal appraisal is a judicial appeal.

Judicial appeals for 2021 against Bell County Tax Appraisal District were for property with a total value of $528 million. This included judicial appeals against Bell CAD for $1 of houses, $390 million of multifamily and $120 million of commercial.

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