Property Taxes in Texas

[cheatercheater]

Is there an attorney here who deals with property taxes and delinquencies in the state of Texas?
I have a specific question as to whether a mobile home is considered real or personal property.
A friend was recently hit with an alleged delinquency after 11 years! Looking for a way out or at least a reduction in interest and penalties as this is the first notice of delinquency.

[Chief62]

I'm not a lawyer but I found this here:

My home is personal property, and I want to change it to real property. What do I do?
First, you cannot elect real property status for your home unless it is attached to land that you own or land that you are leasing under a qualifying LONG-TERM lease.

Long-Term Lease: For the purpose of determining whether or not the owner of a manufactured home may elect to treat the home as real property, is a lease on land to which the manufactured home has been attached and which: (A) has been approved by each lienholder for the manufactured home by placing on file with the department written consent to have the home treated as real property; or (B) is for at least five years if the home is not financed.

Next, if there are any liens on your home (such as a consumer loan lien), the liens will need to be discharged or the lien holders will have to give written consent. The only exception to this requirement is where the transaction is being handled through a title company that is insuring against existing liens, such as the situation where you are converting from personal property to real property and paying off your consumer loan by refinancing with a mortgage loan. In that case, a copy of the title commitment or policy is required.

Third, you must complete an Application for Statement of Ownership and Location and submit it with all documentation and fees.

The Department will issue your SOL, and until a certified copy is recorded in the real property records of the county shown on the SOL, the conversion to real property status is not complete. If you are making the conversion to real property status on your own (not going through a lender, title company, or attorney), contact the county clerk to find out their procedures, requirements, and fees for recording this document.

[Mazomaniac]

Originally Posted by cheatercheater

A friend was recently hit with an alleged delinquency after 11 years!

I don't know Texas tax law, but this is a familiar problem with other states that raises statute of limitations issues. In most states the law limits the state's ability to collect back taxes to a certain number of years after a return was filed. If your friend has been returning and paying his property tax assessment over this time it's likely that s/he cannot be held liable for anything over 3 or 4 years of delinquencies.

BUT . . . . check with a lawyer in Texas. The rules vary from state to state. Gotta look for a local attorney to help with this one. There's a lot of technical details that have to be met before you can raise a statute of limitations defense.

FYI - this same sort of thing is currently happening to lots of people and companies in California. The state is in financial crisis so they just started sending out "tax due" notices - some dating back twenty years - to anyone and everyone hoping that some people would just cut a check and send it back without bothering to look up whether they actually owed the assessment. Many companies got a notice that they owed California sales tax even though they never made any sales inside California. A lot of homeowners got notices that their assessment were not fully paid even though they were. Unfortunately, some people did just what the state wanted and sent a check without ever bothering to think about it.

It's worth the money to hire an attorney on this one. If there's a chance to exclude some of the back assessment under a statute of limitations law then your friend could easily have 75% of the back assessment canceled outright. Don't know the amount of money involved here but I'd suspect that the potential savings would make it more than worthwhile to get professional help.

Cheers,
Mazo.