Videos

Every week, attorney Sean Bukowski reviews what is going in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, and throughout Texas. Past topics have included: This is a really quick and easy way to stay on top of commercial real estate trends and topics. Subscribe to our YouTube channel today.

Social Issues - Are We Headed for a Crazy Austin Election?

- In 2012, Austin switched from a open seating city council format to a 10-1 district plan with representatives from each of the ten districts.
- In 2020, the City started ...a redistricting plan that attempted to equally distribute population throughout the ten districts.
If a lawsuit challenging that redistricting plan is successful, all ten district seats could be up for election this November.
- There has been a lot of talk recently about who is going to be running for office in Austin in November. Indeed, with Mayor Adler finishing his term, Kirk Watson and Celia Israel seem to be the front runners for the open Mayor seat. And a number of candidates have thrown their names in the ring for the open City Council seats.

But that is where things kind of get interesting.
There is an ongoing lawsuit that could throw the November Austin election into disarray. It has the potential to be a huge issue. If successful, it could challenge the whole election and city council system this year. And yet, until recently we had not heard much about this lawsuit.

So that’s what we are going to talk about this week. Not only the upcoming election but how they could be thrown off kilter by an outstanding lawsuit.

How the Austin City Council is Set Up
To understand the ramifications and reasoning of the lawsuit, you must first understand the history of the Austin City Council. Prior to 2012, the Austin City Council was open seating. That means that the City Council members could come from anywhere within the City.

That changed in November 2012 when Austin residents elected to move to a 10-1 system. This created 10 regional districts which would each send a member to sit on City Council from that district.*

Part of that change was that the City was to redraw the districts every ten years. As a result, the City undertook a proposal and hearing process to redraw the districts based on the shifting population. That process started in 2020 and has now been completed. The new districts are scheduled to go into effect for the 2022 elections.

Lawsuit Challenges Austin Redistricting
Well that is where things got kind of messy. Austin city council members are elected to four year terms. The city, therefore, staggers the elections. So some of the seats are up for election every two years.

But because of redistricting, there are some residents that voted for a council member in 2018 but are no longer in that district. As a result, they will not vote for a council member for six years – from 2018 to 2024.

Some of those residents, therefore, filed a lawsuit claiming that they were effectively disenfranchised from voting for city council. As a result, they wanted the court to force the City to call elections in all ten districts and have every council member seat up for election this year. As I am sure you can see, this would cause quite a stir on the Austin election scene as the council members who did not intend to run again this year would have to run for his or her seat this November.

As I was writing this article, the local district court granted the City’s request for summary judgment against the plaintiffs. As a result, the lawsuit could be dismissed. But that does not mean the fight is over.

The Plaintiffs had already asked the Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court to hear the matter. And the Supreme Court has said it will hear the appeal. As a result, it will have the final say on whether Austin will have to have ten district court elections this November. And, if that happens, it could be a wild few months leading up to that election.

*The extra “1” is for the mayor.[+] Show More

Social Issues - Are We Headed for a Crazy Austin Election?

- In 2012, Austin switched from a open seating city council format to a 10-1 district plan with representatives from each of the ten [...]

2022 Property Tax Protest Updates from Attorney Sean Bukowski of Bukowski Law Firm in Austin.

- The deadline for protesting your property taxes is coming up very quickly. - Its important to follow the deadlines and guidelines for [...]

- The deadline for protesting your property taxes is coming up very quickly.
- Its important to follow the deadlines and guidelines for protesting your taxes or you may lose your ...best chance to lower your assessed value.
When presenting your argument to the appraisal district, you have to support it with facts and analysis.
- You don’t need me to tell you what time of year it is. It seems to be pretty popular news these days. They even have faces for radio talking about it on television. But in case you have missed it – its property tax season again in Texas.

At our office, we have been bombarded by phone calls and emails since the Notices of Appraised Value came out. Its not hard to see why. The appraisal districts seem to have beaten all records in the amount of the increases this year. So if that is what you are seeing on your properties, we highly recommend you file a protest.

Indeed, we think all property owners should protest their appraised values every year. Obviously this is a little self-serving but its also in the owner’s best interest. This is especially true for commercial property owners. But if you are going to protest, you have to make sure that you follow the deadlines. Because if you miss a deadline, you can miss your chance to have your taxes lowered.

So that’s what we are going to talk about this week – the process of protesting your property taxes.

What are the Basics of Protesting Property Taxes in Texas?

Many of you may know this already, but I want to start by making it clear that when I write “protest your property taxes” what I mean is protesting the assessed value of your property. The local county appraisal districts will assess your property every year. And you can protest that they have assessed it too high. Once the assessed value is assigned, in the fall the tax rates will be determined. And then the amount you owe is the assessed value multiplied by the tax rate.

It is probably obvious but I timed this article for this week because the protest deadline is coming up. Usually it is on May 15 of each year. This year, May 15 falls on a Sunday. The deadline, therefore, is moved to May 16. Just to be safe, though, I recommend you make sure your protest is filed by Friday, May 13. The deadline is too important – if you miss it you will likely not be able to protest your taxes.

When you protest, it is VERY important that you check two boxes. The first is that the market value of the property is incorrect. The second is that the property is not equal with other similar properties. These should be the first two boxes on the protest form.* And they are both valuable to give you your best shot to have your taxes lowered.

Once you protest, you will have an informal hearing first. In some districts – especially Travis – this has gone largely online. The process is you submit your evidence through the county’s portal and then a week or two later, the appraisal district will email you back an offer. If you do not accept its offer, you will go to a formal hearing. There are some districts that still have in person informal hearings. In those districts, you will meet one on one with a county appraiser and try to reach a settlement.

If you go to the formal hearing, you will be in front of a panel of three people. You will present your case for why the value should be lowered, the appraisal district will present its case, and then the panel will decide what it thinks should be the appraised value. If you are unsatisfied with the Panel’s determination, you can then file a lawsuit against the local appraisal district.

The Information You Need to Have the Best Chance to Lower Your Assessed Value

As you have probably noticed, in the last five to ten years the appraisal districts have gotten much more aggressive. They have access to information they did not have before from companies like CoStar. And they are searching county records for deeds of trust.

As a result, if you are going to have any success protesting, you need to be prepared. And you need to be prepared WITH DATA. A narrative of why your appraised value should be lowered is probably not going to be successful. You need to have analysis that supports exactly how much lower the appraised value should be. That is by far the most influential way to get your taxes lowered.

This is a stressful time for property owners. Runaway taxes can sink a commercial real estate investment. If we can help at Bukowski Law Firm, please give me a call.[+] Show More

Austin Community College - Student Housing faces affordability Issues

-Some ACC students have requested that the Board of Trustees help them find affordable housing. -The Board of Trustees has agreed to [...]

-Some ACC students have requested that the Board of Trustees help them find affordable housing.
-The Board of Trustees has agreed to help them with a few different initiatives.
-But real change ...and help will not occur until Austin’s City Council has better housing policies.
-There was an article this week in the Austin-American Statesman that caught my eye. In it, the local reporter interviewed some college students about their struggles with finding affordable housing.

We have all been talking a lot about affordable housing. I mean, its one of the biggest issues in the country. The article was especially interesting to me because it was a real world example of all the bad local housing policies in action.

It kind of fired me up again to talk about all the mistakes the Austin City Council is making and how there’s still time to fix it – but its fading fast. So that’s what we will talk about this week – Austin’s bad housing policies and how they directly affect Austinites.

Its Difficult for Students to Find Affordable Housing in Austin
The author of the article in the Statesman interviewed a few Austin Community College students who were having difficulty finding housing. According to the article, there are thousands of ACC students struggling with the rising cost of housing. And some of them have to resort to couch surfing, regularly visiting food pantries, or moving far away from Central Austin to make ends meet.

Obviously this is not what anyone wants. It does not serve anyone’s best interests for students to have to commute from far outside the city because they cannot afford to live in Austin. In response to these issues, the ACC student government asked the Board of Trustees to respond to the affordability crisis with a variety of measures, including working with community partners to find affordable housing options, identifying housing sites close to campus with reliable free transportation, and creating a committee to prioritize student housing.

ACC seems sympathetic to the cause and it plans to work with the students to identify housing solutions, increase awareness of housing resources, and alleviate the personal and financial challenges that students face.

Need to Face the Core Problem for the Affordability Crisis
The one thing that was noticeably absent from the article was a discussion of why the students are in this situation in the first place and how they can get out of it. The reality is, they are right. Austin has an affordable housing issue. And I know we have talked a lot about this but the main culprit for it are Austin City Council’s terrible housing policies.

To the Council’s credit, some of the members have tried to enact an overhaul of the zoning code that would be friendlier to building density. But as you know, this has been struck down by the courts. As a result, Austin is basically back at square one for an overhaul.

But that does not mean there is nothing the City Council can do. A few months ago, we hosted a roundtable with the Austin Business Journal where we talked to a number of leaders in the real estate industry. They had a lot of ideas about how the City Council can help improve housing affordability. Without making a complete overhaul to the code, the City Council can –

Allow all homeowners to be able to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs);
Reduce the minimum parking requirements;
Reduce the minimum lot size for single family homes;
Participate in private/public partnerships to encourage more affordable building; and Adapt zoning changes in smaller areas to encourage denser building.

All of these changes will help to increase the supply of housing in Austin and, therefore, control the cost. Of course, there are still a number of folks on the Council and throughout the City that oppose even these changes. As a result, I fear that things are going to get much worse for these ACC students before they get better.[+] Show More

2022 Travis County Property Tax Protest reminder from Attorney Sean Bukowski

See more great content and information blogs at https://bukowskilawfirm.com/resources/

Deed scams are on the rise. Don't get scammed, learn why title insurance is important in Texas.

-It is possible for thieves to file fraudulent deeds and attempt to sel property they do not own through a fake property sale. -That’s [...]

-It is possible for thieves to file fraudulent deeds and attempt to sel property they do not own through a fake property sale.
-That’s why it is so important for buyers ...to purchase title insurance when buying commercial or residential property.
-In our title attorney business, we work with a local title company to provide title services to buyers and sellers of commercial property and hopefully protect their investment from frauds like this.

I had a conference this past weekend to attend in Dallas. There were good speakers but – like with any conference – I found myself drifting to my phone every once in a while to read some internet articles. And while doing, I read a few about folks scamming property owners with fraudulent deeds. Obviously as a real estate attorney this interests me but we also had a client recently who thought something similar happened to them.

I don’t want to be the local evening news and scare monger in this article (“SCAMMERS ARE COMING FOR YOUR PROPERTY! TUNE IN TO SEE HOW YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF!). But these scams do sometimes happen. And when they do, they can be a significant nuisance. As property owners, therefore, we have to take precautions to protect our investment.

And that’s where title insurance comes in. I know some folks hate it and hate the cost. But it really is important. So what are these scams? And how can title insurance protect your property? That’s what we talk about this week.

Beware the Fraudulent Deed Scam
The people who commit the fraudulent deed scam are trying to steal your money. The basic premise is that they forge a deed (often a quitclaim) allegedly transferring the property from the current owner to them. They then file that fraudulent deed with the county clerk. At that point, the thief may try to sell the property to a third party while showing they have a deed to the party in the county property records.

This is, obviously, a big problem for the potential buyer. If not caught, the buyer could pay a lot of money for what he thinks is a property investment. Then, after closing, he does not have any rights in the property because the thief had nothing to sell except lies.

Title Insurance can Protect Your Investment from Scams
This is where title insurance comes in to help protect you. A basic title insurance policy:

Should alert you if you are buying a property from a fraudulent seller; but
If the title company misses the fraudulent deed, reimburse you for your lost investment.

It is, of course, important to read your title commitment thoroughly prior to closing because there could be exclusions to the coverage. But assuming you have normal, full coverage, a title insurance policy can protect you against buying from a fraudulent seller.

Key to Finding a Good Title Company
There is little doubt, therefore, that title insurance is a must purchase when buying a new property. Its equally important to work with a title company and escrow agent that will provide the coverage that you need.

First, you want to make sure you and/or your lawyer have read and understand the title commitment (pre-cursor to the actual policy) prior to close. As I wrote above, there can be exclusions to the policy and its very important to understand what those may be.

Second, you want a title company that understands how important it is to get the deal closed. To be a good closer, its vital to fully understand the Texas Department of Insurance Rules. But if the buyer or seller needs something the TDI rules do not allow, a good closer will also help find a solution that satisfies all of the parties. Because at the end of the day, making sure the deal closes is very important to both the buyer and the seller.

As title fee attorneys at Bukowski Law Firm, we understand how important it is both for the parties to be protected and to get the deal closed. We pride ourselves on providing the best title and escrow services around. We would love, therefore, to help you close your next deal.[+] Show More

Podcast Episode 2 - Barriers to Affordable Austin Housing with Jim Young

I’m joined this week by Jim Young, a West Point graduate and the current Managing Partner of Sabot Development, to talk about his [...]

We will Guard Your Commercial real Estate Invenstment

You can schedule a personal consultation with one of our attorneys to discuss your specific circumstances or issues you are facing as a real estate company.

To learn more, please contact us

Videos

Social Issues - Are We Headed for a Crazy Austin Election?

Categories

We will Guard Your Commercial real Estate Invenstment

Sign up to our newsletter

Subscribe to our montly newsletter