Got a Property Tax shocker!!! 18% & 40% Increase

[Eddie Ziv]

I got my escrow account analysis recently but did pay too much attention, until I received a payment increase notice from my lenders. Both are SFR in Austin, TX area (Pflugerville and Round Rock.) The shocker? One prperty taxes went up from $2,256 to $2,662 and the other one from $2,373 to $3,453 When I called the Tax assessor of Travis County about the latter, first they claimed that the new assessment shows increase of the property value (By $9,000) but that didn't seems to justify the increase, so when I pressed on, they told me that the city of Pflugerville "forgot" to bill me for the previous years (07 & 08) and that the reason for the "Outrageous" increase. This is almost 3% of the property assessed value ($125,000). The even bigger shocker was that the increase happened in April last year but the lender never bother to alert me, so an escrow shortage was created by almost $4,000 including the next year estimate

So here the question, did any of you experience similar issue?
Until now I was sort of breaking even (More or less) now, that maneuver tripped me over the red...

[Rod Marlow]

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/48/topics/35271-here-is-the-tax-letter-/


I know you've seen this Eddie but maybe it can help someone else in your shoes who wants to try and get their taxes reduced but isn't sure how to...