Upset taxpayers prepare for appraisal fights
To set the scene, let’s just say that the St. Vincent de Paul Columbus Club Banquet Hall on Ray Ellison Drive would be the perfect place for a South Side quinceañera.
The street, named for a long-ago developer, may tell you all you need to know. The hall sits west of Palo Alto College, where new developments mix with those frozen in time.
Last summer, the Knights of Columbus Council 5262 celebrated the installation of a new heating and air-conditioning system, but the place otherwise reads 1970s postvietnam pride, from its smoky glass light fixtures to the hundreds of trophies and religious statues behind glass.
If the place had a soundtrack, it’d be piping out R&B, funk and soul along with Tejano and Brown Eyed Soul. I could almost hear Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” on one end of the room and Malo’s “Suavecito” on the other.
More than 75 people waited to hear about what they can do to get their property tax appraisals to reflect the linoleum tile lifting off their kitchen floors.
They’re worried, which is why they spent their Saturday morning at a property tax workshop.
There’s so much to remember about property taxes, like exemptions and deferrals, but none as important as this: You have until May 16 to protest your property appraisal. We get an extra day because the May 15 deadline falls on a Sunday.
District 4 Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia is wellknown in this area, so is Bexar County Tax Assessor-collector Albert Uresti. They’re South Siders.
She welcomed attendees. Uresti followed with a slideshow that condensed the most valuable information property owners need to understand their appraisals and tax bills. That includes applying for exemptions and deferrals that can lower taxable value, which in turn reduces their tax bills, and how to prepare to protest their new, outrageous appraisals.
The sound system, by the way, was perfect, and by that, I mean intermediately working.
Some people sounded angry. They were the first to raise their hands with questions, mostly about how the appraisal office settles on what their homes are worth in an exploding housing market that we can blame on population shifts, new development and gentrification.
Sometimes, what its appraisers look at is infuriating — like what a neighbor (read: gentrifier) did to sell a house.
To illustrate, a friend who moved from Los Angeles to a gated North Side neighborhood paid for his house in cash, outbidding others for it.
The majority sounded stressed about trying to stay in their homes and keep whatever assets they can in an economy that has been awfully good for the ultra-rich and hard for most of the rest.
One property taxpayer wanted to know why someone from the tax appraisal office hadn’t yet knocked on his door to see firsthand why his house isn’t worth what it says it is.
Uresti has lived in the same house on the South Side for more than 40 years. When another resident told him what side of Zarzamora he lives on, Uresti commented, “Oh, that’s the rich side.” Then they both laughed.
His office collected $4 billion in property taxes for 66 taxing jurisdictions, including school districts, the city of San Antonio and Bexar County. They set tax rates but may not raise taxes if new money is raised from higher property appraisals.
Residents here pay their taxes, as evident by the office’s collection rate of 98.9 percent.
Uresti said he sent bills to more than 715,000 property tax accounts, including more than 456,000 residential, commercial and business statements.
The remainder, about 259,000 accounts, are paid by a mortgage lender or lien holder. Most taxpayers pay out of pocket.
Their statements land like a ton of bricks.
They arrive and get right in your face with an annual catastrophic consequence.
Maybe that’s why Uresti’s office has done so much to try to ease the pain, beginning with little things like providing adequate seating and a queuing system that’s more efficient.
Voices were raised as questions were being taken, while other residents lined up to submit protest forms.
I was impressed people weren’t angrier. They want to pay their taxes and stay in homes they hope to someday leave to their children.
It’s their American Dream and all they have, even if their HVAC needs replacing and the foundation must be redone.
The value of homes jumped 28 percent from last year anyway.
Take photos of every flaw, or every improvement you haven’t done. Show what shape your home is really in.
“Hasle la llorada,” as my mother used to say, which translates roughly into “make someone cry” but means to make your best case.
I was recently at a fundraiser at a far North Side realty company. The differences couldn’t have been starker between it and the South Side banquet hall where plate sales are used to fund raise.
It has been rented for a retirement party and, yes, a quince.
It’s a place frozen in time, like bell bottoms and a Chicano afro, and unlike our soaring appraisals.