All Forum Posts by: Richard D.

Robert, I work for a County Tax office, Jerry Puckett is right. Most of the CAD info is outdated, it could be set on appraisals that may occur once every three years in Texas. Plus, there are over zealous property owners who will protest their values every single year. All so they can pay little to no property tax.

Also, CADs usually rely on the property owners to update their information as required by Texas laws. This is why you will see people get stuck with large tax bills from changes that should have been made 2, 3, 4 or even 5 years ago.

As an example....

Grand mother died while you were living in the home in 2010. You remained in the home, but never notified the CAD. Now you want to get a loan on the home, file an heir-ship affidavit to transfer the deed into your name. The county clerk forwards all that documentation to the CAD. The exemptions you enjoyed from your recently departed Grand mother go away. You then get a new tax bill for $7500 for principle and penalties and interest. Retro active from the date grand mother passed away.

Moral of the story.....

CAD had a dead person not only owning the home, but living there. You send out your yellow letters, grand child gets them and discard them since grand mother is deceased. You wasted your time, money, and energy on a dead end.

Your best source of open records is the county clerks office. It will have the deed information. Which you can then expand your search to the internet and beyond from that point forward.

If you know the date of death of the former owner, pull up the obituary records in the local newspaper. It will usually give you names of known next of kin if they obtained them. Sometimes it even includes city and states of those listed. At the very least they give you the mortuary that performed services, they would have a record.