Note: BCP Real Estate is not a law firm and its employees/owners are not acting as your attorneys. The information contained on this website is provided for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter.
When you start dealing with property taxes, you’ll run into two different offices, and people often mix them up. The appraisal district and the tax assessor-collector both touch your property taxes, but they do very different jobs. Knowing which is which saves you time and a lot of confused phone calls.
The county appraisal district, often abbreviated CAD, is responsible for determining the value of property. Each year it appraises the real estate in the county and sets the assessed value that taxes are based on. The appraisal district is also where exemptions are handled, such as a homestead or over-65 exemption, and where you’d go to question or protest a property’s valuation. In short, the appraisal district answers the question of what your property is worth for tax purposes.
The tax assessor-collector, by contrast, handles the billing and collection side. Once the values are set and the taxing entities adopt their rates, the tax office calculates the bills, sends them out, and collects the payments. If you want to know exactly what’s owed on a property, get a payoff amount, or ask about paying delinquent taxes, the tax assessor-collector is generally the office to call. They deal with the money; the appraisal district deals with the value.
There’s a wrinkle worth knowing: in some smaller Texas counties, the appraisal district also collects the taxes, so one office effectively does both jobs. That’s why the right contact can vary by county. For heirs trying to understand an inherited property’s tax situation, knowing this division tells you where to direct your questions, the appraisal district for value and exemptions, the tax office for balances and payments, which makes getting accurate information much faster.
A couple of quick questions:
Which office do I call to find out what’s owed? Generally the tax assessor-collector, which handles billing, payoffs, and collections. In some smaller counties the appraisal district collects taxes too, so it can vary by county.
Where do I handle exemptions or dispute a value? The county appraisal district, which sets property values and processes exemptions like the homestead exemption.
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