Every spring, Travis County homeowners open a Notice of Appraised Value and feel the same jolt: the number went up again. We are Ross Speed and Lindsay Neuren, Austin natives and the founders of The Speed & Neuren Group at Compass, and one of the most common questions we get from clients and neighbors is whether they should protest their property taxes, and how. The short answer is that protesting is your right as a Texas homeowner, it costs nothing to file, and a well-built case can lower your bill for the year.

This guide walks through the protest the way we coach our own clients through it: why the assessment matters, how the Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD) process and deadline work, the evidence that actually moves the needle, the homestead exemption and other relief, and how an appraiser-trained team helps you build a case the Appraisal Review Board takes seriously. None of this is legal or tax advice, and you should confirm the specifics for your own property, but it is the practical playbook.

Why Protesting Your Assessment Matters

Your property tax bill is the product of two things: your appraised value, set by TCAD, and the tax rates set by the taxing entities (the county, your school district, your city, and any special districts). You cannot change the rates by protesting, but you can challenge the value, and the value is the lever you actually control.

A Higher Value Compounds Every Year

Texas appraisal districts reassess values annually, and in a market like Austin that has appreciated sharply, valuations have climbed fast. If your appraised value is set too high in one year, you do not just overpay that year. You can carry an inflated baseline forward, because future increases build on top of it. Correcting an overstatement now protects you in the years to come, not just this one.

The Stakes in a High-Value Market

In the Westlake area and across the premium pockets of Travis County, combined effective property tax rates often land in roughly the 1.7 to 2.0 percent range of assessed value. On a home valued near $2 million, every $100,000 of overstated value can mean close to $2,000 a year in tax you should not be paying. That is real money, and it is why we treat the protest as a routine part of owning here, not a fight to be avoided.

Protesting Is Common and Expected

A protest is not an adversarial act. TCAD expects a large share of owners to protest, and the process is built to handle it. You are simply asking the district to show its work and to correct the value if the evidence supports a lower number.

The Travis County Protest Process and Deadline

The mechanics are straightforward once you know the sequence. TCAD is the agency that appraises every property in the county, and it is where your protest lives from start to finish.

Step One: Read Your Notice of Appraised Value

TCAD typically mails Notices of Appraised Value in the spring, often in April. The notice shows your new appraised value, your prior value, and instructions for filing a protest. Read it carefully and note your specific deadline, because it is printed right on the notice.

Step Two: File Before the Deadline

The Texas protest deadline is generally May 15, or 30 days after TCAD mails your notice, whichever is later. Most Travis County owners are working toward a mid-May date. You can file online through the TCAD portal, by mail, or in person. Our advice: file as soon as your notice arrives, even if your evidence is not finished, because you can supplement the case later and missing the deadline forfeits your rights for the year.

Step Three: The Informal Review

TCAD usually offers an informal meeting with a staff appraiser first. Many protests settle here. You present your evidence, the appraiser presents theirs, and if you reach an agreed value you are done. A clean, organized packet of comparables makes this conversation go faster and better.

Step Four: The Appraisal Review Board

If the informal review does not resolve it, your protest goes to the Appraisal Review Board (ARB), an independent panel of citizens. You present your case, TCAD presents theirs, and the board sets the value. It is less formal than a courtroom, but it rewards preparation and organized evidence.

Building Your Evidence (Comparables and Condition)

A protest is won on evidence, not opinion. The board has seen every version of “my taxes are too high.” What persuades them is a tight, factual case. There are three pillars.

Comparable Sales

The core of most residential protests is recent comparable sales: homes near yours, similar in size, age, and quality, that sold for less than your appraised value implies. Raw sale prices are not enough. You adjust them for differences in square footage, lot size, condition, finish level, and view, then show what your home should be worth on that basis. This is the same work an appraiser does, and selecting the right comparables rather than the convenient ones is where cases are won or lost.

Condition and Defects

TCAD generally values from the outside and from records, so it often does not know about problems inside your home. Document anything that lowers value: a dated kitchen or bath, foundation or roof issues, plumbing or HVAC at end of life, a steep or awkward lot, drainage or flood exposure. Photos plus written repair estimates from contractors carry real weight and are frequently the difference maker on a home the district has not seen up close.

Factual Errors in the Record

Pull your property record from TCAD and check it line by line. Districts sometimes carry the wrong square footage, an extra bathroom, the wrong lot size, or an improvement that no longer exists. Correcting a simple factual error can lower your value without any argument about the market at all.

Evidence type	What it shows	How to document it
Comparable sales	Similar homes sold below your value	Recent sold comps, adjusted for size, lot, condition
Condition and defects	Your home is worth less than a clean comp	Photos plus written contractor repair estimates
Record errors	TCAD has wrong facts on file	Your TCAD record vs. actual square footage and details
Equity / uniformity	Similar homes appraised lower than yours	Appraised values of comparable nearby properties

The Homestead Exemption and Other Relief

Protesting your value is one lever. Exemptions are the other, and many owners leave money on the table by not claiming everything they qualify for.

The Homestead Exemption

If a property is your primary residence, the Texas homestead exemption reduces its taxable value and lowers your bill. Just as important, it caps how much your assessed value can rise each year, currently 10 percent annually, so over time a homestead can keep your taxable value below true market value even when prices surge. You generally apply once with TCAD and the exemption carries forward year to year. If you have bought a home and not yet filed, this is the first thing to fix.

Exemptions for 65-Plus and Disabled Owners

Homeowners who are 65 or older or who are disabled qualify for additional exemptions, and in many cases the school-tax portion of their bill is frozen or further reduced. These can produce meaningful savings and are worth confirming with TCAD if you or a family member qualifies.

How Exemptions and Protests Work Together

The homestead cap and a successful protest are complementary. A protest corrects the market value the cap is measured against, and the exemption then limits how fast your taxable value can climb. Owners who do both, file every exemption they qualify for and protest in years when the value is overstated, generally pay the least over time.

How an Appraiser-Trained Team Helps Your Case

This is where our background becomes genuinely useful, and we will be honest about what it does and does not do. We are not your tax consultant or attorney, and we do not appear before the board on your behalf. What we bring is the part of a protest most owners struggle with: reading value the way the district does.

Ross’s Appraisal Background

Ross Speed began his career in appraisals before co-founding the team, which means he reads comparables, adjustments, and value the same way a TCAD appraiser and the Appraisal Review Board do. When a protest comes down to which comps are truly comparable and how to adjust them, that perspective is the difference between a packet the board respects and one it sets aside.

Local Sales Data Across Travis County

As the #1 Compass team in Austin and the Austin Business Journal’s #1 real estate team four years running, with more than $1 billion in combined sales, we have deep, current sales data across Travis County. That lets us pull a defensible comparable set, not a generic per-square-foot average, for the specific street and pocket your home sits in.

Honest Guidance on Whether to Protest

Not every assessment is worth protesting. Sometimes the district’s value is fair or even favorable, and there is nothing to gain. We will tell you that. Lindsay, a third-generation Austinite and relocation specialist, and the rest of the team are glad to look at your notice and the comparables and give you a straight read on whether a protest is worth your time this year. Confirm the details for your own situation, but you do not have to start from scratch.

Frequently Asked Questions About Protesting Travis County Property Taxes