{"id":28062,"date":"2024-07-22T00:50:31","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T05:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/texas-realtors-helps-homeowners-win-homestead-exemption-lawsuits\/"},"modified":"2024-07-22T00:50:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T05:50:31","slug":"texas-realtors-helps-homeowners-win-homestead-exemption-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/texas-realtors-helps-homeowners-win-homestead-exemption-lawsuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas REALTORS\u00ae Helps Homeowners Win Homestead Exemption Lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"\nWin May Deter Similar Money Grabs Across Texas.\r\n\r\nIn 2015, Texas voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to increase the homestead exemption from $15,000 to $25,000 for public-school tax valuations. Texas REALTORS\u00ae was instrumental in passing this measure, which would provide a significant benefit to homeowners. When three school districts tried to take advantage of this amendment to the detriment of property owners, Texas REALTORS\u00ae stepped in.\r\n\r\nWith backing from the association\u2019s Issues Mobilization\/Political Advocacy Fund, Texas REALTORS\u00ae legal and governmental affairs staff worked with outside counsel to file lawsuits in 2016 against school districts in Kilgore, Dumas, and White Deer to protect the local option homestead exemption. These lawsuits sought refunds of taxes wrongfully collected as a result of the school districts\u2019 illegal reduction or repeal of previously adopted local option homestead exemptions.\r\n\r\nThe school districts challenged the Texas REALTORS\u00ae legal efforts, leading to multiple court hearings, discovery disputes, and proceedings at three courts of appeals, where Texas REALTORS\u00ae secured favorable rulings.\r\n\r\nAfter six years in the court system, the school districts compromised and agreed to settle the Texas REALTORS\u00ae claims. The lawsuits were settled in the context of a class-action claim.\r\n\r\nThe efforts by Texas REALTORS\u00ae resulted in over 2,100 refunds across these three school districts totaling nearly $1 million:\r\n\r\nKilgore ISD: 1,447 refunds totaling $753,256\r\nDumas ISD: 735 refunds totaling $233,295\r\nWhite Deer ISD: The number of affected homeowners was so low that it did not warrant moving forward with the class action process. Instead, the school district agreed to pay the named plaintiff a refund of $452.\r\n\r\n\r\nThis outcome is a huge win not only for the individual property owners who received refunds of improperly collected property taxes but also for property owners across the state. The litigation resulted in multiple appellate decisions in favor of property owners over taxing jurisdictions and disincentivizes similar egregious action in the future. \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Win May Deter Similar Money Grabs Across Texas. In 2015, Texas voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to increase the homestead exemption from $15,000 to $25,000 for public-school tax valuations. Texas REALTORS\u00ae was instrumental in passing this measure, which would provide a significant benefit to homeowners. When three school districts tried to take advantage of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pintailcos.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}