Raves, Rants & Roses

WITHOUT BASIS

RANT: Smith County residents, are you watching your property taxes? The Smith County Appraisal District has just raised my taxes by raising my property valuation. There was absolutely no basis to do this.

They raised the valuation on my lot on which my house sits by 55 percent. Many others in my neighborhood were raised by the same 55 percent. I protested and went before the appraisal review board. I was able to show how my lot was already overvalued by using SCAD's own data base. This information was totally disregarded. The representative for SCAD simply said "It was time to raise these valuations." What? No basis whatsoever? There is no recourse, except in district court, which would be prohibitively expensive, and they know that.

For some time now, real estate values have been flat or even decreasing in some areas. Nationally, values are at 2004 levels or less.

This overly aggressive appraisal district is out of control. Until there is a public outcry or a "Boston Tea Party," we are going to continue to have these massive increases no matter what the market or the economy is doing.

Glenn Roberson
Tyler