File your Homestead Exemption 2021
Mike and Shana Acquisto here, real estate brokers and co-owners with Acquisto real estate, and it is time to remind you to file for your homestead exemption. Yes. So what is a homestead exemption first?
So your homestead exemption is you have the ability to file this on your primary residence and what that does. One property, one property, only one property, no matter where across the country, you can only have one primary residence and your homestead exemption gives you a little break on your taxes. So it gives you a lot of protections, but it also gives you they’re going to take twenty five thousand off your assessed value and assess you on that lower, lower amount. So you’re going to pay a little bit less tax.
And the reason she says a little bit is because the way that works is that twenty five thousand of the assessed value and then it’s going to be times the millage rate for your tax rate and that comes out. So depending what it is, if it’s like two point three percent, it would be twenty five thousand times two point three five percent. So it’s like move the decimal points and then there’s a dollar amount.
It’s not like it takes twenty five thousand dollars off, like in true US dollars, it’s two point five percent or whatever your tax rate is. And is the homestead exemption the same across the state for that number or.
It is but area, you know, like Frisco did an additional seventy five hundred dollars off theirs.
So it just varies. But Texas has the homestead exemption and you can look it up and find all kinds of information about it, or we can talk about it further. But just know that if you have a primary residence, you should file for the homestead exemption. Now, if you bought a home in twenty twenty, you cannot file for your homestead exemption until the following January of your purchase. So if you buy now, so if you bought January 3rd of last year, you can
now file for your homestead exemption. Some people ask if, hey, I closed on the second, I can’t do it. You can’t you can’t file it in that year. You have to wait till the following year. So any client that you have that closed in twenty twenty, you should reach out to them and remind them to file their homestead exemption.
A lot of them. And I think actually they’re doing this now as you can go to the county website that you’re in and file for it online. So it’s super simple to do. You can go to Denton County or, you know, Collin County, whatever county that they’re in and go in. And it’s probably on the on the home page and you can file for it there.
That’s kind of a big deal. That was actually a nice enhancement to my covid, you should know. Could have gone. You could do it before mentioning, not pay for it. You know, doing this doesn’t pay anybody to do this for you. They’ll be a lot of people that are like, hey, I’ll follow your homestead exemption if you pay me. And they send out official looking letters in different colors and they’re like, hey, let me do this for you.
It’s like fifty dollars, hundred dollars. It’s free. You know, it takes a very short amount of time. It’s not daunting at all.
And there is a savings associated with it for the tax that you mentioned in. In addition to that, there is also a protection. Yes. Right. So that’s a kind of a big deal. So there are the protections that are afforded to are mostly to do with like the bankruptcy courts and what you possess. So, for example, if I talk to, like a super worst case scenario, let’s say you were a extremely wealthy person and so an extreme case would be in the state of Texas.
You filed for bankruptcy protection because of something and you owned a ten million dollar home and put all your assets in and paid the house off in total and now owed zero on your home and had a ten million dollar property. You are allowed to keep your primary residence with no issues whatsoever, unencumbered going through bankruptcy. And in doing so, you could get rid of every other debt that you had outside of the home.
But you get to keep your primary residence, OK? And then the day after bankruptcy clears, then you could do whatever to dispose of it. So it’s a way to kind of shield some things. It’s one of the things that Texas allows you is to keep your home right and everything that’s associated with it. So that’s not to be understated if you happen to be going through something. So you get so just know about it.
And yeah, it’s a big deal. There’s only a couple of states that have that. I think Florida and Nevada are the others.
Yeah, I now I do think there’s another one, but I’m not going to say if there’s any other ones to she him a right show up and challenge my on the spot knowledge of a topic I didn’t know we were covering until just minutes ago then. Right then just please go ahead and do.
Yeah, but just you know, it’s Jan, it’s it’s from a real estate file.
From a realtor perspective, this is the time to follow up.
And that’s why I remind them this this year providing value by doing this now, you only have to file your homestead exemption one time. You don’t have to do it every year thereafter. It’s a one time filing.
So but how many times have you looked up your clients, you know, like, what the heck, they don’t have their home situation filed. Filed?
Yeah, we did this year. And it was like, what?
So it’s a great thing to reach out for. So if you can check it yourself. Yeah, right. As the agent on past clients. So you remind them the first year and ask them to do it right. And then follow up. Yeah. Then look back on past years if you have an animal and it’s a great thing to be able to like hey, hey, hey, hey, whoa, you didn’t do this. We talked about it. What’s going on here? Because we know a realtors job is never done.
It’s never closing and done. It continues perfect. Continued to provide value. All right. I think that topic’s thoroughly covered.
