District's Role
The appraisal district’s primary duties include, placing all taxable property on the appraisal roll, appraising all property at market value, approval or denial of exemption applications, approval or denial of ag-use appraisal applications, change of use "rollback" determination for previously qualified agricultural land, and notifying the owner or owner’s agent of certain actions taken by the district.
Placing property on the appraisal roll
The district compiles a listing of all property as of the January 1st assessment date. A unique identifier, called a "property ID", is generated by the district’s computer assisted mass appraisal system. We then input such key data elements as name, address, legal description, taxing units, acreage, neighborhood, improvement type, improvement quality, improvement size and improvement condition.
Appraising property at market value
The district is on an annual re-appraisal program, with January 1st being the "as of" date for all appraisals except where the owner of certain inventories has decided to designate September 1st the "as of" date. The district utilizes the three generally accepted appraisal methods, cost, market data comparison and income. The appraiser will use the method considered most appropriate, based on the type of property and available data. The definition of market value is stated in the Texas Property Tax Code, section 1.04(7).