Texas Protax

Texas Protax acquired Tax Remedy, a company we had used successfully and were very happy with. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about ProTax. I received notice in May that they would be filing a dispute on my behalf and it is now December and I haven’t heard a word from them. My tax bill arrived and it is the exact same as my appraised value from May. I have contacted ProTax twice and received no response. I will definitely be cancelling my agreement with ProTax and moving to a better provider.

I’ve used Protax for a couple years and their level of service has steadily declined while their fee percentage has increased.
They are very hard to get ahold of (if at all), and they take a very long time to respond via email to questions about your appraisal protest process.
This year they saved me zero $. So I will be looking for a new agent.

Stay away. Very unresponsive and of virtually no help. Big waste of time. I think they settled in advance just to clear it off their docket. Would not recommend or use in the future.

It’s hard to put into words just how disappointing Texas Protax has been but I’m willing to give it a shot. It’s Friday July 10^th and my wife has called three times since Tuesday June 30^th, leaving messages each time in the hopes that we could enlist the services of Texas Protax. No response. The lady who answers the phone is extremely pleasant and does her best to be helpful so she gets kudos. Since my wife is now out of the country I called this morning at 9am, explained the situation to the nice lady who answered the phone and then left a voicemail for the agent to call me back. Still nothing.
Four calls in a week and a half and no response. No quick, «We’re swamped right now and we’ll get back to you» or «We’re swamped right now and unable to take on new clients.»
Nothing.
If you’re looking for a company to handle your tax protest this is definitely not the one.

Very disappointed. Found Protax services on the internet and signed up on their website. I asked or waited to talk to someone but nobody every contacted me and there was no communication other then some auto generated emails from the website. I’m sure the forms or information they sent meant something to them but as a first time customer, nobody sent me a personalized email or made a phone call. I got the sense it was a «mill» they were operating and just sign up as many clients and make a few dollars per client which probably adds up for them but don’t amount to much savings for thier clients.
After a while I emailed them asking them for status. No response. I emailed again asking them to cancel my service. No response. Unfortunately after wasting my time trying to work with them I missed my window to submit my appeal. Live and learn.

They have merged with Tax Remedy, my prior post was a misunderstanding as I did not receive their email communication since it was going to an old email address.

Just got off the phone with the folks at Protax. They looked up my property tax info and explained how my homestead exemption was keeping my appraisal about as low as it can go in this hot market.
I really appreciated them taking time to explain things even though they were not going to make any money from me this year. They even gave me some advice on things to keep an eye on with appraisals in the future.
If you have any questions about your property tax I highly recommend giving them a call.

I have used Texas Protax for several years to help control the tax costs on my home.
I had successfully protested on my own for a few years, then unsuccessfully for a couple of years more. I looked at a similar service based out of Houston, but could never speak with someone who worked there. I dropped that company and went with Protax. They know what they are doing and are good at their jobs. I highly recommend them. The staff at TCAD are not impartial and have no incentive to work with individuals. The only way to slow the out of control appraisals and sky rocketing tax bill is to use a competent service like Protax.
They may not drop the value every year, but if they keep it steady, then they are worth their weight in gold.

I used Protax one year and they got me a pretty substantial reduction in value with literally no work on my end.
This year I had an independent appraisal that was done by a bank for a refinance that showed our home was worth less. I figured this was low hanging fruit and that 30% of my savings would be a chunk of money this time, so I shopped around for a place with a lower fee %. Big mistake, and one I will pay hundreds $$ for. I went with Discount Property Tax. Not only did they forget to bring my appraisal, they barely got any reduction at all. Their fees were equivalent to a McDonalds happy meal because they didn’t save me anything. But it gets worse, they cant and/​or wont even answer my question about is there time left to go to arbitration, so I will need to go down to Travis county (yes, the instructions actually say to bring it in person) with a cashiers check for $ 500 (their fee to reopen the property tax thing in arbitration) to try to continue talking with TCAD without knowing if they will even accept my application because it could be late. Funny since the whole reason I use a company is to save hassle and headache and to make sure it gets done right.
Had I used Protax this year I am confident they would have been able to get my value down to the totally independent banks appraised value (I mean what better evidence could one possibly have than a detailed report full of pictures and comparable sales details. Protax people, if you are reading this and can help me in any way, I am not under contract and beyond that Discount Property Tax isn’t even authorized to do business in this state, haha.

Had them handle TCAD assessed value negotiations for 2 properties. With virtually no effort from me, they got each assessment down almost $ 70K. I was very pleasantly surprised, especially since one of the properties had just been purchased for only $ 20K less than the assessed value.
I handled a contest myself the previous year with very successful results as well (apparantly TCAD just loves to over value my properties), but this year I’m juggling a baby and full time employment so it was well worth a couple hundred bucks to me to not have to mess with anything. Until TCAD stops issuing ridiculous assessments, I get more free time, or I find a reputable company that does this for a smaller cut of my tax savings, I’m going to keep using Protax every year. Couldn’t recommend them more.

If I could rate TCAD, I would give them zero stars. I went in for my informal protest hearing armed with with a 4-​month old HUD-​1 and certified state appraisal and the TCAD agent just blew a bunch of smoke in my direction.
Then I went next door to Pro-​tax and within a month and zero work from my end, they had my property reduced from 239k to 150k — just like that.
Its amazing that an industry can exist solely on the inability for our county appraisal district to do their job. But I’m glad Protax is here to fill the gap!
Thanks to John Grey — I look forward to working with you again soon.
–Omar

Randy T, the reviewer above mine says a large chunk of what I want to say about Texas Protax. They couldn’t care less about «you» because they are a mill that does the least possible work for you while your tax appraisal and tax bills continue to rise.
Their customer service stinks. Don’t expect any at all. I gave Texas Protax specific requests about what I wanted them to do with one of my special properties, which I won’t go into here. They never did it. And I ended up paying more taxes.
Because Texas Protax intercepts your tax bill, you are dependent upon them to get you the bill in time for payment. One year, I never even received it at all and if I hadn’t remembered, I would have had a fat penalty to pay.
Their contract is sneaky. If you don’t read it thoroughly, you might miss the fact, like I did, that once you sign a contract with them, they continue to intercept your tax bills and do their sub-​par protesting for your property and you don’t even know they’re doing it. The contract continues on into infinity until you end it in writing.
I had to go to the Appraisal Office in January 2012 in order to stop them from sending the tax bill to Texas Protax anymore, that’s how bad their customer service is.
I couldn’t help but notice that they have bought or they rent a sprawling building right next to the Tax Appraisal Office and their name is spread in giant letters at the top of the building. Convenient that they move right in next door to the tax office.
One time I called Texas ProTax to complain about their poor representation, service, etc., and I got some drone who said she’d tell the President of the company and get back to me. And, of course, she never did.
Stay far, far away from Texas Protax It’s better to protest in person yourself or find an honest attorney to do it for you. Texas Protax should be reported to the Texas Attorney General (which I’m going to be looking into shortly).