August 25, 2015 8:31 PM

Austin lawsuit over property values casts a wide net with potential statewide impact

“We’ve never had this situation.” What Austin wants is government access to commercial property sales information. What Austin and the rest of the state got last session was House Bill 2083, which requires “generally accepted appraisal methods and techniques.”

The City of Austin has sued both the Travis Central Appraisal District and Comptroller Glenn Hegar over what it considers to be the use of methods that lead to significant undervaluation of commercial and vacant property.

This will certainly go on the books as one of the Austin’s more ambitious attempts to get what it wants out of state policy – whether it’s mandatory sales price disclosure or adjusted appraisals for $52 billion in property value. The legal challenge also casts a wider net, claiming that the current system of equal and uniform appraisals is unconstitutional. A decision in the city’s favor would most certainly have statewide impact.

“The chief appraiser has testified before the legislature if she had access to more sales data than the law allows her to get, that her conclusions as to market value may be very well more fair,” Mayor Steve Adler said at a press conference. “One of the purposes of this lawsuit is to determine if the chief appraiser is correct.”

Cities have had the ability to sue over the valuation of a class of property, but this is the first time any city has sought to aggressively pursue it, said Ken Nolan, chief appraiser of the Dallas County Appraisal District, who chairs the legislative committee for the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts.