Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Texas

I am in the process of refinancing our home mortgage loan. We purchased our home in November of 2004. At that time we were told the sqaure footage of our home was about 2450. A price was set dependent on comps in the area and we were given a price per sqaure foot on the real estate specs. We have had another appraisal to refinance. We were told that our sq. footage is actually about 2200. That originally an uncovered porch area was figured in to the sq. footage, which is "highly unusual." We have been paying a mortgage and real estate taxes based on the origninal price of the home for the past 5 years. Our appraisal for the refinance also came in very low due to we have about 250 sq ft. less than we thought we had to work with. Are we due some money from the original price of the home and rebate of taxes? This is either fraud, bad business practice or someone is just stupid but we are the ones paying the price.


Asked on 7/16/10, 6:15 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Roger Merrill Merrill & Associates

It may be too late to protest your current tax rate; but you can do so next year. There are specific procedures you need to follow for challenging tax appraisals and the legal expense involved may not make it economical.

It will probably be hard to complain about the purchase in '04. You can say you didn't discover the misrepresentation or negligence until recently, but you'll have to rebut why you didn't figure it out sooner. Nonetheless, you should talk to a lawyer to discuss filing a lawsuit against the responsible parties.

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Answered on 7/17/10, 1:18 pm


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