The Checklist
Look Up Your Property
5 minGo to the HCAD website (hcad.org) and search for your address. Pull up your property's assessed value, square footage, and year built. Write down your total assessed value and your price per square foot — you'll need both.
Pro tip: Your assessed value is not the same as your market value. HCAD lists both. You're protesting the assessed value — that's the number your taxes are calculated on.
Check If You're Over-Assessed
2 minCompare your $/sqft to the median for similar homes in your neighborhood. If your assessed value is 10% or more above comparable properties, you have a strong case. Even 5% above is worth filing — there's no cost to protest and the success rate in Harris County is 88%.
Pro tip: Focus on $/sqft, not total value. A 3,000 sqft home at $150/sqft is over-assessed compared to neighbors at $130/sqft — even if the total values look similar.
Skip the manual comparison
Our free scorer tool instantly compares your $/sqft to the neighborhood median — no spreadsheet needed.
Check Your Property FreeGather Your Evidence
5 minFind 3-5 comparable properties in your area that are assessed lower than yours. Good comps are homes with similar square footage, year built, lot size, and condition — ideally on nearby streets. Save or screenshot the details for each one.
Pro tip: "Comparable" means similar to your home, not identical. Same subdivision, similar size, similar age. HCAD's own data is your best source — you're using their numbers to make your case.
File Your Protest on iFile
10 minGo to HCAD's iFile portal at owners.hcad.org. You'll need your property account number and your iFile number — both are printed on the upper right corner of your Notice of Appraised Value (NOAV). Lost your iFile number? Go to features.hcad.org and scan your Texas driver's license to retrieve it. Search for your property, select it, and file a protest. Check BOTH "value is over market value" AND "value is unequal compared with other properties" — checking both gives you the strongest position.
Pro tip: You don't need evidence to file. You need evidence to win. File first, then gather your comps. The filing deadline is May 15 (or 30 days after you receive your Notice of Appraised Value, whichever is later). Don't wait. After filing, you have 5 calendar days to upload evidence (photos, documents, comp data). Accepted formats: PDF, JPG, DOC, XLS. Max 25MB per file.
Wait for Your iSettle Offer
0 min active2–4 weeks waiting
After you file, HCAD sends you an automated settlement offer through iSettle — you'll get an email notification and can view the offer by logging into owners.hcad.org. This is a reduced assessed value they're willing to accept without a hearing. There is no counter-offer mechanism — it's strictly accept or reject. Compare the offer to your target number. If it's close to what your comps support, accept it and you're done. If it's not low enough, reject it — you'll be scheduled for a hearing. You can accept the offer up to the day before your formal ARB hearing (typically ~3 weeks), so there's no rush to decide. If you ignore the offer entirely, your case automatically proceeds to a formal hearing.
Pro tip: Experienced homeowners on forums report that iSettle offers tend to favor HCAD. If the offer isn't close to what your comps support, reject it — you often get a better result at the hearing.
Prepare for Your Hearing
5 minOrganize your comp grid — the 3-5 comparable properties you gathered in Step 3. Have them ready to share on screen. Practice your one-sentence opening:
"My property is assessed at $X per square foot while comparable homes in my area average $Y per square foot."
That's the core of your case. Everything else is supporting detail.
Pro tip: Keep it simple. The appraisal panel reviews hundreds of cases. A clear, data-driven argument works better than a long presentation. Lead with the numbers.
Attend Your Hearing
~15 minYou MUST check in at owners.hcad.org at least 15 minutes before your scheduled hearing time. If you don't check in, your protest will be dismissed automatically. Plan to be available for up to 2 hours after checking in — wait times vary. Your hearing is a short videoconference (HCAD uses Cisco WebEx) with an appraisal panel. Share your screen, show your comps, and state your case. The panel may ask a few questions — answer directly. They'll make a decision, and you'll receive a letter with the result. In Harris County, 82% of homeowners who go to a hearing get a reduction.
Pro tip: Be polite, be brief, and stick to the data. You're not arguing — you're showing that your assessment is higher than similar homes. The numbers do the work. The HCAD appraiser arguing against you typically just picked up your file that morning and is handling many cases that day. If you know your property and neighborhood well, you likely know more about it than they do.
The Bottom Line
Total active time: ~30–40 minutes, spread across 2–3 months.
The rest is waiting for HCAD to process your filing, send your iSettle offer, and schedule your hearing. You're not spending hours on this — you're spending a few focused minutes at each stage.
Key Dates for Harris County
| Milestone | Timing |
|---|---|
| Notices of Appraised Value (NOAVs) mailed | Mid-April |
| Filing deadline | May 15 (or 30 days after your NOAV) |
| Evidence upload window | Within 5 days of filing |
| iSettle offers | May – July |
| Informal hearings | June – September |
| ARB formal hearings | July – October |
Mark your calendar for mid-April. When your NOAV arrives, start at Step 1. You have until May 15 to file.
What If You'd Rather Not Do This Yourself?
Professional property tax protest services exist and handle the process on your behalf, typically for a percentage of the tax savings. If you'd prefer a hands-off approach, that's a reasonable option.