Market value vs unequal appraisal in Texas protests

Texas gives homeowners two distinct ways to argue that their property tax assessment is wrong, and the distinction is not academic. Pick market value and the board asks what your home would sell for. Pick unequal appraisal and the board asks whether you are being assessed fairly compared to your neighbors. Different question, different evidence, and since 2024, a choice you cannot undo later.

This guide explains both grounds, the evidence each one requires, and how to tell which argument fits your situation.

The two grounds, in the statute

Tax Code §41.41 lists what a homeowner may protest. The two grounds relevant to almost every residential protest:

• Market value, §41.41(a)(1). You argue the district's appraised value exceeds what your home would actually sell for on the open market as of January 1.
• Unequal appraisal, §41.41(a)(2). You argue the property is "appraised unequally," meaning it is assessed higher than comparable properties relative to their market values.

Dallas County's protest form makes the split concrete with two separate checkboxes: "Market value" and "Unequal Value." Whichever box you check frames the entire case.

What market value asks

The market-value ground is a straightforward valuation dispute. The question is what a willing buyer and seller would agree on, and Tax Code §23.01(a) requires the district to answer it using generally accepted appraisal methods. Mass-appraisal models approximate that answer across hundreds of thousands of properties, and they miss at the individual-house level: wrong condition assumptions, stale sales data, a model that treats your street like the one behind it.

Evidence for a market-value protest centers on what similar homes actually sold for, and on anything about your home's condition that a buyer would price in. A recent purchase price is powerful. An independent appraisal is powerful. Photographs with repair bids, for a roof, a foundation, an outdated interior, show the board the discounts a buyer would demand.

What unequal appraisal asks

The unequal-appraisal ground accepts that the market value might be roughly right, and attacks the fairness of the assessment instead. The claim is that your home is assessed at a higher percentage of its market value than comparable homes, so you carry an unfair share of the tax burden.

The proof here is a comparison, and the statute is specific about its shape. Under §42.26(a)(3), courts use a "comparable properties" method: side-by-side per-square-foot comparisons of your home against a set of genuinely similar properties, same class, similar age, similar quality, same area, selected and adjusted using recognized appraisal methods (§23.01(f) requires the same discipline). The argument wins by showing your assessment ratio sits above the cluster of comparable ratios.

That grid of numbers is the whole case. Saying "my neighbor pays less" is not. The comparison must be documented, property by property, and the comparables must survive scrutiny as true comparables.

The 2024 ruling that makes your choice stick

For years, homeowners hoped to argue one ground at the ARB and switch to the other in district court if they lost. The Texas Supreme Court closed that door in June 2024.

In Texas Disposal Systems Landfill, Inc. v. Travis Central Appraisal District (No. 22-0620, decided June 21, 2024), the taxpayer had expressly pursued an equal-and-uniform challenge, not a market-value challenge. When the case reached district court, the court could not convert it into a pure market-value review. The protest ground defined the ARB's order, and the ARB's order defined the scope of appeal under Tax Code chapters 41 and 42.

The court's point was structural: market-value and equal-and-uniform challenges are distinct statutory claims with different proofs. The ground on your protest letter is not a label. It is the boundary of every decision that follows.

How to tell which ground fits

Start with the numbers for your own home against genuinely similar homes nearby.

If your assessment is high in absolute terms, above what recent sales of similar homes support, that is a market-value case. Most homeowners who check real comparables discover this is their situation: the model simply valued their house too high.

If your assessed value looks defensible against sales, but your effective tax rate or your value per square foot clearly exceeds similar homes, that is an unequal-appraisal case. This pattern shows up often where assessments are inconsistent street by street.

Two honest complications. First, capped homestead values: if the 10% homestead cap has held your taxable value below market value for years, a market-value protest may not change your actual bill, and the unequal ground (or no protest at all) deserves a hard look. Our homestead exemption guide walks through that interaction. Second, nothing stops you from checking both boxes and pleading both grounds, but each claim needs its own evidence. A dual claim with evidence for only one ground wastes the other.

How we handle the choice

Our lookup pulls the nearest comparable sales for your address and computes where your assessment sits against them, which is the raw material for either argument. In Dallas County, our AI agent recommends the ground it believes is stronger, shows you the rationale for both, and you make the call. The recommendation is a recommendation. The ground locks when you confirm it, and everything downstream, the letter, the evidence, any appeal, follows from your choice.

The full protest process is here, and the evidence guide covers what to bring for either ground.

Not legal advice. Estimate only. Based on public county appraisal data.