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House Bill 1030 |
House Author: Callegari |
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Effective: See below |
Senate Sponsor: Ellis et al. |
House Bill 1030 amends the Tax Code to provide that if an individual who is exempt from registration as a property tax consultant files a protest with an appraisal review board (ARB) on behalf of a property owner, the individual is entitled to all notices from the appraisal district regarding the property subject to the protest until authority to represent the owner is revoked. The bill amends provisions relating to postponement of an ARB hearing. It bases postponement on a showing of good cause by the owner or owner's agent, rather than a showing of reasonable cause as under prior law, and defines the elements of good cause. The bill entitles an owner who has not designated an agent, and who fails to appear at an ARB hearing, to a new hearing if the owner by a specified deadline requests a hearing and shows good cause for the failure to appear. It allows an owner who prevails in the judicial appeal of an ARB determination on a motion to correct an appraisal roll to be awarded attorney's fees and sets the range of such fee amounts.
House Bill 1030 provides that in a county with a population of 3.3 million or more or in an adjacent county with a population of 350,000 or more, ARB members are appointed by the local administrative district judge in the county in which the appraisal district is established, rather than by the appraisal district's board of directors. For such purposes the administrative district judge may enlist the assistance of a designated set of ARB commissioners to prepare a list of proposed ARB members. The bill requires an appraisal district established for a county with a population of 500,000 or more to implement a system allowing an owner of property with a residence homestead exemption for the current tax year to electronically accomplish specified functions. Such functions consist of filing a notice of protest with the ARB, reviewing and receiving comparable sales data and other evidence that the chief appraiser intends to use at the ARB hearing, receiving either a settlement offer from the appraisal district or a notice that a settlement offer will not be made, and accepting or rejecting a settlement offer. The appraisal district, however, is not required to make the system available to an owner who has designated an agent for protest purposes nor to an owner of a residence homestead in an area in which the facts affecting the market value of real property are unusually complex. The bill takes effect June 19, 2009, except for the provisions dependent on county population, which take effect January 1, 2010.