By Rick Mauch
daltxrealestate.com Contributor
From the wealthiest to the most financially challenged, property tax laws are confusing for everyone. And if you are in the latter category, they can be downright scary.
Many low-income families and individuals have seen their homes — the one valuable asset their entire family may have — go by the wayside as a result of an inability to pay property taxes. Even the first step of understanding a property tax statement with all its lingo and language can often end up costing residents more because of simple confusion.
That’s where Tobin Toler has often come to the rescue. As the founder of Toler Company Property Tax Consultants, Tobin and his team specialize in making the complicated simple, and in helping those financially challenged.
“To most homeowners, tax notices and forms seem to be written in a secret code and folks need someone to translate. Our mission is to help make sense of the process and give the owners confidence that every possible step has been taken on their behalf,” Toler said.
And now more than ever, low-income homeowners need the help.
“Property values in Dallas and across Texas have skyrocketed, but hard-working families are struggling to pay their tax bills. Without help, they’re at risk of losing their homes,” Toler said.
Toler and industry associates are trying to prevent that from happening. They’ve been conducting a series of workshops designed to explain and simplify the process of protesting high property taxes.
“The property values in South Dallas have begun to increase significantly. That increase causes the mortgage payment of our homeowners to go up, which can lead to foreclosure,” said Diane Ragsdale, Director of South Dallas/Fair Park Innercity Community Development Corporation and former city council member.
“He was able to help several of them reduce the new appraised value and thus reduce the burden of high taxes. He was very patient and thorough. We were very blessed.”
With the help of folks such as Ragsdale, Wesley Rankin Community Center Executive Director Shellie Ross, and Builders of Hope President/CEO James Armstrong, Toler has now presented a half-dozen workshops for low-income homeowners. Also helping him conduct the workshops was fellow property tax consultant Glenn Goodrich from McKinney, who last month teamed with daltxrealestate.com to present a free webinar on protesting your property taxes.
“We can’t navigate what we don’t know. Toby walks us through processes such as how to file a homestead exemption and appeal property taxes, and sometimes, homeowners receive hundreds or thousands in returns,” Ross said.
“Every owner left our area workshops with an appeal filed that was supported with evidence, on record with the county, and completed forms (such as a homestead exemption application) ready to file, if needed based on reviewing the owner’s tax profile,” Toler said.
“Navigating property taxes is no new knowledge for more affluent communities and Toby makes the information accessible for the rest of us so we, too, can participate in the process and pay fairly for what is owned,” Ross said. “He’s teaching us life skills and this information is transferrable to future generations, no matter where we live.”
With over 30 years of experience in property tax appeals for both real estate and business personal property, Toler has traveled far and wide helping many folks in his career. He has testified in court cases as an expert witness and appeared before countless local boards of review, with his practice has spanned the country from Alaska to Florida.
And guess which state he finds property tax laws most challenging? And least challenging?
“Texas is both, for two very good reasons. Texas has the best, most taxpayer-friendly set of laws for tax valuation in the country and Texas appraisal districts have loads of highly-trained and experienced staff appraisers. You’d better be on your game and do it right in order to be an effective advocate,” he said. “The challenging part happens whenever local policies and rules of thumb override value standards, like when I hear something along the lines of ‘We don’t do that here …’ I tend to not let that slow me down.”
Toler noted that finding property tax laws confusing is quite commonplace — even for himself sometimes.
“To everyday folks we work with, the system seems like a mysterious, intimidating black box of information and processes that are difficult to access. Most have no idea what the first step is that they should take,” he said. “I help them take those steps.”
Toler said the key to appealing property tax is really quite simple. Tell the government something they don’t already know. Provide new/unknown facts.
“Figure out where the government is taking a bit of poetic license (guessing) with some market information,” he said. “No one knows more about your property than you do.”
