I went with my 92 year old father to the Appraisal Review Board (ARB) Saturday morning. My father was seeking a reduction in the value of his homestead which has jumped from 290,000 in land value in 2005 to $700,000 in 2008. My father diligently had researched appraised values in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, I had found comparable sales on the same street which clearly showed that the Appraisal District’s valuation was way over fair market value. In fact, it was roughly twice as high as it ought to be in terms of reasonable value for that residential land.

Isn’t the Dallas Central Appraisal District supposed to try to determine fair market value by looking at all of the comparable sales in the area -- the low sales as well as the high ones in the neighborhood? Not if you’re William Chapman, the officious representative of the Dallas Central Appraisal Board at our ARB hearing. He totally ignored recent sales which were on the street where my father lives and only picked the highest sales he could find. When I queried him on this, his response was to the effect that he could pick out whatever he wanted to for his market valuation purposes and ignore those other sales.

I cited on my father’s behalf a lot next door to him that sold in 2006 for $400,000, $300,000 below dad’s land valuation. We also cited another lot sale on the same street for $208,000 in 2006. In addition a new house a few doors down from him sold in the fall of 2007 for under $1 million. The house itself was easily worth $700,000 or more, thus making the land value in the $300,000 range in any fair market appraisal of that property.

My father, an engineer, had computed that his residential land is being carried on the rolls at $33.30 a square foot even though commercial property nearby at Preston and Royal (which fully utilizes all of their land for their businesses and is much more valuable property) was appraised at $17 a square foot.

Moreover, residential lots on a street comparable to my father’s street a few blocks away, (a street across from St. Mark’s school) was appraised at $12 a square foot.

But, none of that made any different to the Appraisal Review Board which heard testimony on these matters. Don’t the powers to be tell us that, if you have a complaint with the Dallas Appraisal District, you have appeal rights to an “independent” three person appraisal review board? That ARB is independent only if you are fortunate enough to get a board with a majority of members who are truly independent. (And, I have gone before such independent boards before, but that surely didn’t appear to be the case this time.)

I should have known from the outset that this particular panel was not open to the possibility that the Appraisal District might have placed an excessive valuation of my father’s homestead property. I asked that the Appraisal District representative go first since it had the burden of proof to show why its valuation was correct. One of the representatives of the panel, in a hostile tone of voice, made it very clear that wasn’t the way it was done here. When the brief testimony was completed, that same individual notably clearly was taking the Appraisal District side as he discussed the case with his fellow panel members. The ARB panel essentially rubberstamped the Appraisal District’s position.

Thus, the “drive-by” Dallas Appraisal District valuation of my father’s home (I call them “drive-by shootings” of homeowners) was re-affirmed by this supposedly independent appraisal review board.

The practical problem is that the taxing entities totally control the appointment of the Chief Appraiser and the members of the Appraisal Review Boards since they appoint all of the members of the Board. Moreover, the local taxing entities have a strong incentive to push for ever higher appraised values since the “stealth tax” of appraisal creep is a politically easier way to get additional property taxes than by having to raise tax rates.

There are, indeed, appraisal districts in Texas which treat the taxpayers fairly and respectfully while truly trying to determine fair market value. But, the Dallas Central Appraisal District is certainly not one of those districts. Instead, I saw a good example this Saturday of the arrogance of power at work in the attitude of Mr. William Chapman, the district’s representative at my father’s hearing. What came through is his presentation is fair market value is the highest number you can justify and whatever we decide it is. Anything that contradicts the higher appraisal numbers, Mr. Chapman simply ignores.

Mr. Chapman and the ARB at my father’s hearing make a good case for what most Texans already know. The appraisal system in Texas is broken and badly in need of reform. We need totally independent appraisal boards, not beholden to the local taxing entities.

Appraisal reform was killed in the last session of the Texas Legislature. We can’t let that happen again next year when the legislature will address this issue once again.

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