RE: Hide Sales Price

It didn’t pass, Candy. Working on a story about the pros and cons of sales price disclosure and for the foreseeable future, don’t think there’s going to be any turn around in our current non-disclosure status. Along these lines, down in Houston “The Harris County Appraisal District’s Web site no longer offers property sales prices and those looking for the information in person at the district’s office will also be disappointed.” Hit jump for more of the battle.

From the Houston Chronicle: During the last session, state Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, introduced the bill to get around an attorney general’s opinion that said property sales information is subject to open records requests. State Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, countered with another bill that would have required public disclosure of property sales.

Villarreal’s bill failed, but he vowed to continue the fight in the next session. ”What happened in the last legislative session,” Villarreal said, ”is the little guy got stepped on top of by owners of million dollar homes and high-end commercial property.”

All property owners have the right to withhold their sales prices from MLS listings. But buyers and sellers of high-end properties typically seek to keep their transactions private and those properties often wind up undervalued.

”Voluntary sales price disclosure would benefit the average Texans and the realtors who sell homes to the average Texan,” Villarreal said. ”It would not be in the interest of owners of high-end property and commercial property who have been able to discount their property tax bill by hiding the real value of their property.”

Property owners have 30 days after they receive their tax bills to protest the appraised values of their properties. After protest filings are made, taxpayers are notified by mail when they should show for hearings on their cases. Included in the notices are passwords needed to gain access to sales information on the Web.

Robinson predicted that forcing homeowners to file a protest in order to see the sales prices will result in an increase in the number of protests filed, which will mean more work for the district.