Ownwell
Product name: Ownwell
Product Description: Ownwell is a service that challenges property tax assessments and attempts to reduce them. Also, look for other discounts and programs that can reduce your tax bill. They operate on a ‘save or get free’ model, meaning you only pay if you reduce your tax bill.
About Ownwell
Ownwell was founded in 2020 with the goal of providing sophisticated real estate tools to everyday homeowners. They claim to save an average of $1,430 a year and aim to conduct 400,000 to 500,000 protests in 2024.
Strong Points
easy to use
Free if unsuccessful
Average annual savings of $1,430
Ongoing monitoring of exemptions
Cons
Available only in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington
How much is property tax?
In our county in Maryland, we pay a total of $1.442 per $100 of assessed value.
1.442% may not seem like a lot, but the median home value in my county is about $580,000.
That’s $8,400 a year.
When I received my property tax assessment last year, the assessed value had increased significantly.We renovated part of the house so some of that was justified, but it seems like the jump wasn’t too much expensive.
I decided to fight my property taxes myself and won. This process, which you can read about in the linked article, took several hours over several weeks. And since I was “lucky” in that I got a good result at the first stage (just filling out the form), I decided to accept it.
If they denied my claim and I was required to plead my case in jury court, I don’t know if I would be comfortable doing that.
Fortunately, there are services that do that for you.
One of them is called Ownwell.
overview
- Ownwell will appeal your property taxes on your behalf
- Monitoring tax credits based on personal wealth
- No upfront fees – Payable only if property tax reduction is successful
- Pay 25% or 35% of your savings, depending on your state
- Available in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington. (However, please check the status as it is constantly expanding)
- Average savings is $1,148
Who should use Ownwell?
Homeowners and real estate investors looking to avoid paying too much in property taxes should consider Ownwell. They appeal their property taxes with no upfront costs and pay a portion of their savings if their appeal is successful. Therefore, no risk or effort is required.
table of contents
- overview
- Who should use Ownwell?
- Who is Ownwell?
- In which states does Ownwell operate?
- When can I appeal my property taxes?
- How does Ownwell work?
- Find exemptions and request refunds
- Own well fee
- What are the alternatives to Ownwell?
- Is Ownwell worth it?
- FAQ
- summary
Who is Ownwell?
Ownwell is a service that allows you to dispute property tax assessments with tax authorities and reduce your property tax payments. You can also find exemptions and other tax savings that you may not know about or have overlooked.
Ownwell was founded in 2020 by Colton Pace and Joseph Nua. Pace’s background in investing and asset management exposed him to a variety of tools used by real estate investors, and he wanted to make them available to the average homeowner. The result is Ownwell, a service that fights property taxes.
Ownwell is not (yet) operational in all states.
In which states does Ownwell operate?
Ownwells are not found in every state, and depending on the state in which you operate, they may not be found in every county.
As of April 2024, we are located in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington. You should double check that your county is included (but it’s not practical to list every county here; California has 58 counties and Texas has 254). there is!).
They’re always adding counties, so the best way to find out is to go to Ownwell and enter your address.
When can I appeal my property taxes?
The timeline for when you can appeal depends on your state and sometimes the county within that state. Everyone has a different schedule.
For example, in Maryland, this process only occurs once every three years. This happens every year in New York and many other states.
I asked Ownwell to provide a schedule (and they did), but it’s a little complicated and difficult to share on one screen… Also, many of the dates are county-specific and , covers so many counties that it’s difficult to list them all here.
Ultimately, the easiest way is to sign up with Ownwell and wait for your review to arrive. Next, enter your details and decide whether you want to use them to dispute the assessment.
There’s no cost to sign up, so you can use technology that helps you manage your schedule and decide whether to use it later.
How does Ownwell work?
First, visit Ownwell and enter your address.
Since we don’t operate in Maryland, we randomly selected a property in Humble, Texas (a suburb of Houston). They serve Harris County.
go to ownwell
For homeowners, learning the details of protesting a $473 property tax assessment may not be worth it, especially when there is no guarantee that it will be reduced. But if I owned this house and didn’t want to do it, I wouldn’t be at all comfortable hiring someone on a contingency (paying only if they win). This is how Ownwell works (more on pricing later).
If you continue, you will be asked for information. (I’m using a demo account. If you want to do it yourself, please fill in the information)
The next few screens ask for information such as whether you purchased this property within the past 18 months and the name of the property owner.
The final page after reviewing all details authorizes Ownwell to act as your tax agent. This allows them to contact the tax authorities on your behalf and dispute your property taxes.
You can log in here to check the progress of your protest.
As of this writing, Texas has yet to release its 2024 rating, so Ownwell can’t do anything. I think Texas will announce it in April, and then you can protest for 30 days.
This varies by state, but in Texas you can do this every year.
go to ownwell
Find exemptions and request refunds
In addition to contesting your assessment this year, we also offer services to determine if you qualify for a tax credit. If found, you can also claim and receive a tax refund for the previous year.
There are various tax exemption systems in the world, and it can be difficult to understand them. For example, here in Maryland, we have an agricultural use assessment system that significantly reduces property taxes in areas that agree to maintain agricultural uses. I first heard about it because the previous owner had it.
We don’t grow anything (commercially) on this land. It’s all wooded, but that’s important. The only requirement is to have the agricultural use plan certified by an arborist every few years; Huge Discount the appraised value of undeveloped land. It saves us thousands of dollars a year.
Ownwell is looking for such an exemption.
They will then monitor your taxes annually to make sure everything is correct. If your exemption is revoked for any reason, we will make sure to fix it.
Own well fee
Ownwell operates on a contingency fee model and only pays if they win their appeal and get their property taxes reduced. Your final property tax bill will be reduced and you will only be charged if there is documentation signed by the tax authority to prove it.
If you can’t lower the price, you pay there is nothing.
In California, New York, and Florida, the contingency fee is 35%. In other regions, it’s only 25%.
In the example above, if Ownwell reduced my property taxes by $473, I would pay them $118.25. I will keep $354.75.
How do these fees compare to other companies? This varies depending on your state, so you’ll have to look it up in your state, but I found a Texas tax company listing that price. A single property was charged 40% with a minimum charge of $149. For properties 2-5 it was 35% with no floor. 6+ alone was 30%.
What are the alternatives to Ownwell?
Your best option is to call a local law firm that specializes in this type of work. There are many law firms that offer this. At this time, we are not aware of any company operating in multiple states.
The trade-off when using a local law firm has to do with cost. We usually cannot work with individual homeowners, but we can charge a small success fee. They often have a minimum fee and will only take on a case if they feel it is “worth their time.” I did a quick search myself and found that companies are very proactive about this, as disputing a rating is time consuming and they don’t want to waste their time or yours.
As mentioned in the section above about fees, I found a tax firm that charges a 40% fee with a minimum of $149. In Texas, Ownwell charges just $25 with no minimum.
Alternatively, you can contact your real estate agent to see if they can help. This depends on how friendly and available the agent is for this type of support. Some do it for free as part of their service, while others don’t.
Is Ownwell worth it?
It depends on how much you value your time and how much profit you can expect from it. If I owned a house that was going to make $500 in profits from a protest and it was something I had to do every year, I would give Ownwell $25 to handle it all myself. Likely to pay a ~35% success fee. With 4 kids and so many other responsibilities, there is absolutely no ROI for him on my time.
Also, the process for property tax assessment varies by state. In Maryland, this work he only has to do once in three years and I was personally interested in learning the process (and was glad after the first round was reduced) .After the first round, the work gets quite complicated). I realize I’m such a weirdo, most people don’t care and just want to save money.
The only thing I know is that I have to contest the property tax assessment. You may not be able to win a reduction, but you must get it reduced. These increases add further complexity and should be minimized.
If you don’t plan on doing it yourself, it’s better to have someone else do it for you than to get an increase.
go to ownwell
FAQ
Yes, Ownwell is a legitimate company that will appeal your property taxes with no upfront fees.
You can dispute your property taxes yourself. When I have time, I tend to research and submit the appropriate documents. After several hours of research, we won the first appeal.
summary
Ownwell is a company that disputes property tax bills on your behalf with no upfront fees. You end up paying 25% or 35% (depending on your state) of the savings they get. If we are not successful in lowering your property taxes, our services are free.