Updated August 7, 2026. Quick answer: you can be assessed at exactly what your house is worth and still win an appeal. 🔴 If comparable properties are assessed lower, that is a ground in itself — and in Texas the burden sits with the appraisal district, not with you.
The argument most people never make
Almost every homeowner appeals on value: “my house is not worth that.” The harder argument to rebut is uniformity: “whatever it is worth, I am assessed higher than my neighbours.”
Texas puts it in statute, with three separate tests, and the property owner wins if any of them is met:
the appraised value of the property exceeds the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable properties appropriately adjusted
🔴 Read the direction of the burden. The statute frames this as something the appraisal district must overcome. You are not proving the market; you are proving inconsistency, and inconsistency is far easier to document than value.
And the assessment ratio is the trap underneath it
States do not all assess at market value. Two examples, from the states’ own rules:
- Georgia assesses at 40% of fair market value.
- Kentucky uses a “fair cash value” standard. ⚠️ The common shorthand that this means “100% of market” is an interpretive gloss, not the words of the constitution or statute — we flag that rather than repeat it.
Why it matters for an appeal: in a fractional-assessment state, comparing your assessed value to a neighbour’s sale price is comparing two different things. Compare assessed to assessed.
What evidence actually works
- Assessed values of comparable properties — public record, and the direct input to a uniformity argument.
- Adjustments, shown. The statute says “appropriately adjusted” — for size, age, condition. An unadjusted list invites the obvious rebuttal.
- Errors in your own record card — square footage, bedroom count, a finished basement that is not. The cheapest win available, and it requires no comparables at all.
⚠️ On the widely-quoted claim that “up to 60% of properties are over-assessed”: that figure comes from a taxpayer advocacy organisation, not a government statistic, and the page we found carried no year. We are not treating it as a fact, and neither should anyone selling you an appeal service.
Before anything: the deadline, because it is the only part that cannot be fixed later.
Sources
Uniformity: Tex. Tax Code §41.43(b). Assessment ratios: O.C.G.A. §48-5-7 (Georgia Dept. of Revenue) and Ky. Const. §172 with KRS §132.190(3). All read 7 August 2026. General information, not tax or legal advice. Mineral and property-tax law is state law; confirm anything decision-critical locally.