Update: 4th Court of Appeals Upholds Dismissal of Bexar Appraisal District’s Counter Claim to Increase the Property’s Value… but May Have Forgot to Shut the Door.
By Lee Winston | September 25, 2024
In Re Bexar Appraisal District, No. 04-24-00158-CV (Tex. App.—San Antonio)
The 4th Court of Appeals recently denied Bexar Appraisal District’s attempt to seek mandamus relief to reinstate its compulsory counterclaims to raise the market value of a property in a Chapter 42 appeal. Mandamus relief is not available unless the party seeking the relief establishes it has no adequate remedy by appeal or that an extraordinary situation exists. Bexar argued that an extraordinary situation exists because if the trial proceeded without its counterclaims, it would be prevented from presenting evidence of market value. The 4th Court did not find Bexar’s argument persuasive enough to be viewed as an extraordinary situation. It reasoned that the property owner’s “ARB’s decisions initiated new trials in the district court to determine the proper valuation of the properties at issue, in which the District may present arguments and evidence for an increase in the valuation of the properties.”
Import to this decision is that the property owner only filed an equal and uniform lawsuit. Why? The 4th Court did not find that to limit the scope of the appeal to equal and uniform argument and claims only. It emphasized, though in a foot note (no. 2), that both equal and uniform and market value is before the court because “[t]he scope of the de novo trial is shaped by the taxpayer’s protest filed under Chapter 41 of the Texas Tax Code, i.e., the challenge of valuation presented to the ARB.” And here, the property owner filed administrative challenges to the property valuation on both equal and uniform and market value, so both issues are before the court.
Though determined through the prism of mandamus, the 4th Court appears to take the position that the appraisal districts are enabled, without a counterclaim assertion, to present arguments and evidence for an increase in the valuation of a property in an equal and uniform lawsuit if the property owner filed protests on both the equal and uniform and market value of the property.
To review the Opinion from In Re Bexar Appraisal District, click the following link (or copy and paste): https://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMedia.aspx?MediaVersionID=90c99629-b142-4253-9cfc-8c7fe67b20a2&coa=coa04&DT=Opinion&MediaID=47b4d397-e8ee-4582-8efc-709db3743093.