Unequal Appraisal: The Strategy Most Owners Miss

Key Takeaways

• Unequal appraisal is a separate legal argument from market value — you can win a reduction even if BCAD's market value for your home is technically correct.
• Under Texas Tax Code §42.26, if your property is appraised at a level that exceeds the median appraised value of comparable properties, the ARB must reduce your value to the median level.
• The burden of proof shifts once you establish unequal appraisal — the appraisal district must prove your assessment is equitable relative to comparable properties.
• Equity comps are assessed values from BCAD's own rolls, not sale prices — making this evidence easier to gather and harder for BCAD to dispute.
• Filing both market value and unequal appraisal arguments on your protest gives you two independent grounds for reduction — if one fails, the other may succeed.
• The unequal appraisal argument is particularly powerful in San Antonio's current market, where BCAD's mass appraisal model creates systematic assessment inconsistencies across neighborhoods.

Section 42.26 provides that if the appraised value of property exceeds the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable properties appropriately adjusted, the appraised value shall be set at the median appraised value of those comparable properties.

Texas Tax Code §42.26 — Unequal Appraisal

Most homeowners who protest their property taxes focus entirely on market value — arguing that BCAD set their home's price higher than what it would sell for. That argument works, and you should make it. But there is a second, independent argument that many homeowners overlook entirely — and it is often stronger.

Decision guide

Two separate legal arguments exist for property tax protests. They address different questions, require different evidence, and can succeed independently.

What Texas Tax Code §42.26 actually says

The statute is more specific than most homeowners realize. Section 42.26(a) provides that if the appraised value of property exceeds the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable properties appropriately adjusted, the appraisal review board shall reduce the appraised value to the median level of appraisal of those comparable properties.

Three critical terms:

1. Median appraised value. Not average — median. This means extreme outliers in your comp set do not skew the result. The middle value of your comparable properties, measured in dollars per square foot of assessed value, establishes the target.

2. Reasonable number of comparable properties. There is no fixed minimum in the statute, but in practice, 5 to 10 well-selected equity comps provide a credible analysis. More is generally better, provided the comps are genuinely comparable.

3. Appropriately adjusted. Comps should be adjusted for differences in size, age, condition, and features. A 3,000 sq ft home is not directly comparable to a 1,500 sq ft home without adjustment. The most common adjustment method is price per square foot of assessed value, which normalizes for size differences.

How unequal appraisal differs from market value

Burden of proof

For a market value protest under §41.43(a)(1), the property owner bears the initial burden of proving that the assessed value exceeds market value. You must present evidence — comparable sales, appraisals, or market data — showing what your home would actually sell for.

For an unequal appraisal protest, the dynamic is different. Once you establish that comparable properties are assessed at lower levels — by presenting equity comps from BCAD's own rolls — the appraisal district must justify the disparity. The Texas Supreme Court in Harris County Appraisal District v. United Investors Realty Trust (2007) held that equal and uniform taxation is a constitutional mandate, not merely a statutory preference.

Evidence

Market value evidence comes from the market: recent sales, listing prices, days on market, sale-to-list ratios. This data can be contested — BCAD may argue your comps are not comparable, or that the market has shifted since the sales.

Unequal appraisal evidence comes from BCAD's own records. You are showing the district that its own assessed values for comparable properties are lower than yours. This is harder for BCAD to dispute because they set those values.

Outcome calculation

If you win a market value argument, your assessed value is reduced to whatever market value figure the ARB accepts.

If you win an unequal appraisal argument under §42.26, your assessed value is reduced to the median level of appraisal of the comparable properties. In practice, this means your assessed value per square foot is set to the median assessed value per square foot of your comp set, multiplied by your home's square footage.

Key court cases

Harris County Appraisal District v. United Investors Realty Trust (Tex. 2007)

The Texas Supreme Court confirmed that the constitutional requirement of equal and uniform taxation under Article VIII, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution creates an independent right to equitable treatment — separate from and in addition to the right to protest market value. The court held that a property owner may obtain relief under §42.26 even when the appraised value does not exceed market value.

The Texas Supreme Court held that equal and uniform taxation is a constitutional mandate. A property owner can obtain relief under §42.26 when their property is appraised at a higher level than comparable properties, regardless of whether the appraised value exceeds market value.

Harris County Appraisal District v. United Investors Realty Trust, 47 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 710 (2007)

This case is the foundation of the unequal appraisal argument. It established that the right to equitable taxation is constitutional, not merely statutory, and that appraisal districts cannot defend an unequal assessment simply by showing the value is at or below market.

Practical implications for your protest

The United Investors ruling means you do not need to prove your home is overvalued in absolute terms. If you can show that BCAD assessed your home at $150 per square foot while comparable homes in your area are assessed at $120–$135 per square foot, you have a valid unequal appraisal claim — even if your home would genuinely sell for $150 per square foot.

This is why checking both protest grounds on Form 50-132 is critical. The market value argument and the unequal appraisal argument operate independently. You might lose on market value (because your home really is worth what BCAD says) but win on equity (because comparable homes are assessed lower).

How to build an equity comp grid

Building an effective equity comp grid requires selecting the right properties and presenting them in a format that makes the inequity obvious. Here is the step-by-step process.

Step 1 — Select your comps

Pull assessed values from BCAD's website for 5–10 properties that share these characteristics with your home:

• Same neighborhood or market area — within 1 mile is ideal, 2 miles maximum
• Similar square footage — within 20% of your home's living area
• Similar year built — within 10 years is typical; adjust for major renovations
• Similar construction — same general type (frame, brick veneer, stone)
• Similar lot size — within 25% of your lot

Step 2 — Build the grid

Organize your comps in a table that makes the comparison clear:

In this example, the subject property is assessed at $166.67 per square foot while the median of comparable properties is $146.51 — a gap of $20.16 per square foot. Applying the median rate to the subject's 2,100 square feet yields a target value of $307,671 — a potential reduction of approximately $42,329.

Step 3 — Calculate the impact

At San Antonio's combined tax rate of approximately 2.3%, a $42,329 reduction saves roughly $974 per year. Over the two-year protection period with BCAD's rollover provision, that is nearly $1,950 in savings.

Step 4 — Present at your hearing

At the informal hearing or ARB, present your equity comp grid alongside:

• A map showing the location of each comp relative to your property
• BCAD property detail printouts for each comp verifying the assessed values
• A clear statement of the median assessed value per square foot and the resulting target value for your property

The strength of this evidence is that it comes from BCAD's own records. The appraiser cannot challenge the assessed values — they set them.

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Methodology

All data and legal citations in this guide are sourced from primary government, legal, and institutional sources.

Legal framework (§42.26, §41.43) is from the Texas Property Tax Code as published by the Texas Legislature Online. Case law citations are from official Texas Supreme Court opinions.

Equity comp methodology follows the IAAO Standard on Mass Appraisal and the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) guidance on equity analysis. The sample comp grid uses illustrative values representative of typical San Antonio residential properties.

Tax rate calculations use the approximate combined rate of 2.3% per $100 for a typical San Antonio property in a Northside ISD area, based on Tax Year 2025 published rates from Bexar County.

Sources:

• Texas Property Tax Code — Chapter 42
• Harris County Appraisal District v. United Investors Realty Trust
• BCAD Property Search
• IAAO Standards on Mass Appraisal
• Texas Comptroller — Property Tax Protests

Common questions