Sources & Methodology

1. Overview — Why a Tiered Hierarchy

Texas has 254 counties, and each one has a Central Appraisal District (CAD) that values all property for every taxing unit operating in the county — school districts, cities, the county itself, special districts, ESDs, hospital districts, MUDs. Above the CAD sits the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Property Tax Assistance Division (PTAD), which supervises Texas property assessment under Texas Tax Code §5 and §6. Above the entire system is the Texas Property Tax Code itself (Title 1, Subtitle E of the Texas Tax Code), enacted and amended biennially by the Texas Legislature. The systems differ in detail across the 254 counties. Information about a single property — its market value, assessed value, capped value, exemption status, appraisal history, sale references, ARB protest status — can come from the CAD’s portal, the CAD’s GIS, the County Clerk (for deeds), the County Tax Assessor-Collector (for billing and payment), the Texas Comptroller’s PVS, or any of several professional-standards bodies. We work from a tiered source hierarchy where higher-tier sources govern when sources conflict.

Examples of major Texas CADs we cover: Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD, Houston), Dallas Central Appraisal District (DCAD), Tarrant Appraisal District (TAD, Fort Worth), Bexar Appraisal District (BCAD, San Antonio), Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD, Austin), Collin Central Appraisal District (CCAD, Plano/McKinney/Frisco), Denton Central Appraisal District, El Paso Central Appraisal District (EPCAD), Williamson Central Appraisal District (WCAD, Round Rock/Georgetown), Fort Bend Central Appraisal District (FBCAD, Sugar Land/Katy), Galveston Central Appraisal District (GCAD), Montgomery Central Appraisal District (MCAD, Conroe/The Woodlands), Hidalgo County Appraisal District (McAllen/Edinburg), Cameron Appraisal District (Brownsville/Harlingen), Brazoria Central Appraisal District (Pearland), Nueces County Appraisal District (Corpus Christi), Lubbock Central Appraisal District, Bell Central Appraisal District (Temple/Killeen), Brazos Central Appraisal District (College Station/Bryan), McLennan County Appraisal District (Waco), Smith County Appraisal District (Tyler), Comal Appraisal District (New Braunfels), Hays Central Appraisal District (San Marcos/Kyle), Ellis Appraisal District (Waxahachie), Johnson County Central Appraisal District (Cleburne/Burleson), and the remaining 229 Texas CADs covering all 254 counties.

The Texas Comptroller PTAD publishes the following authoritative references we work to: the Texas Property Tax Code Reference, the ARB Manual (procedures, evidence rules, hearing standards), MAP review reports (the biennial reviews of each CAD’s appraisal practices), the Property Value Study (PVS) reports (the biennial assessment of whether each school district’s appraisal roll meets state standards for equalisation), Methods of Mass Appraisal training, and Property Tax Today (the PTAD newsletter). Where any of our content describes Texas-wide standards, we cite the PTAD publication.

Key sections we cite throughout the site:

• Chapter 5 & 6 — Texas Comptroller PTAD supervision authority
• Chapter 11 — Taxable property and exemptions, including §11.13 (residence homestead), §11.131 (100% disabled veteran), §11.22 (partial disabled veteran), §11.42 (over-65)
• Chapter 21 — Taxable situs
• Chapter 22 — Renditions and reports
• Chapter 23 — Appraisal methods and procedures, including §23.01 (general standards), §23.011 (cost approach), §23.012 (income approach), §23.013 (market data), §23.23 (10% homestead cap), §23.51–§23.57 (agricultural-use 1-d-1 open-space valuation), §23.71–§23.78 (timber-use valuation), §23.521 (wildlife management)
• Chapter 25 — Appraisal roll, including §25.18 (periodic reappraisal at least every three years)
• Chapter 26 — Assessment
• Chapter 31 — Collections
• Chapter 33 — Delinquency, including §33.06 (over-65 deferral)
• Chapter 41 — Local review (ARB protests), including §41.41 (right of protest), §41.44 (protest deadline — May 15 or 30 days after notice), §41.45 (ARB hearings), §41.71 (evening hearings)
• Chapter 41A — Binding arbitration of ARB decisions for qualifying properties
• Chapter 42 — Judicial review of ARB decisions, district court appeals

• International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) — sets professional standards for mass appraisal and assessment administration. Standards we reference include the IAAO Standard on Mass Appraisal of Real Property, Standard on Verification and Adjustment of Sales, Standard on Ratio Studies, Standard on Property Tax Policy, Standard on Public Relations, and Standard on Professional Designations.
• Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) — administered by the Appraisal Foundation. Sets ethics and performance standards for individual appraisers, including those working for or contracted by Texas CADs. The current USPAP edition is the authoritative reference.
• Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) — the federal body that supervises state appraiser regulatory programs (asc.gov) under Title XI of FIRREA. In Texas, the state regulator is TALCB (Texas Appraiser Licensing and Certification Board).
• National Association of Counties (NACo) — referenced for county-level governance context.

8. Verification Workflow — Eight Steps Before Anything Goes Live

1. Identify the right authoritative source. The CAD’s own .gov / official portal, plus the Texas Comptroller PTAD, plus the relevant section of the Texas Property Tax Code.
2. Verify URLs are live. A human editor clicks every link before publication.
3. Walk through the property search. An editor performs a real property search on the CAD’s portal — by address, by owner name, by property ID — to confirm the step-by-step description matches the current interface.
4. Cross-check exemption procedures and deadlines. Against the CAD’s published exemption forms and Texas Comptroller PTAD reference materials.
5. Cross-check ARB protest procedure. Against the CAD’s protest forms, the Texas Property Tax Code §41 framework, and the current PTAD ARB Manual.
6. Verify the GIS / parcel-map URL where one exists. Most major-county Texas CADs have integrated GIS.
7. Dial-test the CAD’s main phone number. Quarterly cycle.
8. Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews end-to-end, including a fresh check on the FCRA non-CRA notice and the “verify with CAD before relying” caveat.

9. Sources We Avoid

• “People search” aggregators that combine public records with personal-information profiles — using these in our research would be inconsistent with our editorial position and the FCRA framework
• FCRA-prohibited tenant-screening operations that market Texas property records as a substitute for CRA-issued reports
• Paid-access services for free CAD records — operations charging for what the CAD provides free
• Unlicensed property tax representation services operating in violation of Tex. Occ. Code Ch. 1152 (Texas requires TDLR licensure for property tax consultants)
• Title-broker operations not licensed in Texas — title work is licensed activity regulated by the Texas Department of Insurance
• Foreclosure-list aggregators that misrepresent the official Texas tax-sale process under Tex. Tax Code Ch. 33
• Operations claiming affiliation with Texas CADs or the Texas Comptroller when they have none
• Anonymous user-generated forums as standalone authority on current procedures — forums are useful for community context but not for current portal URLs or ARB deadlines
• Other property-records aggregator sites — we work to the original Texas CAD, not to other aggregators that may themselves be working from stale data
• Outdated ARB Manual editions — we work to the current PTAD-published edition

10. FCRA Framework Reminder

Information on the site is general educational content drawn from authoritative public Texas sources. It is not a "consumer report" under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.) and county-cad.org/ is not a Consumer Reporting Agency. Do not use any content on this site to make employment, credit, insurance, tenant-screening, or any other FCRA-permissible-purpose decisions. Public availability of Texas CAD property records does not exempt a user from FCRA liability when those records are used for FCRA-regulated decisions. We do not provide background checks, tenant-screening reports, or any other consumer report.

11. Texas Confidentiality Protections

Texas law protects certain categories of property owners from public disclosure of certain identifying information in CAD records. Tex. Gov’t Code §552.117 protects home address information of various categories of officials (judges, peace officers, prosecutors, jurors, and others). The Texas Office of the Attorney General Address Confidentiality Program (ACP) protects survivors of family violence, sexual assault, stalking, and trafficking. Many Texas CADs maintain confidentiality programs in coordination with these state programs. Our editorial content respects these protections. We do not assist circumvention of Texas confidentiality programs and we do not link to or promote operations that do.

12. AI & Automation Policy

We use software tools for spell-check, grammar review, and routine drafting assistance. However, no editorial fact, URL, exemption deadline, ARB procedure, address, phone number, or walkthrough step on county-cad.org/ is published from AI without human verification against the CAD's own published page. Every CAD guide passes through human editorial review, including the eight-step verification process. We do not auto-generate or auto-publish CAD guides.