Equal and Uniform Property Tax Assessment
Equal and uniform appraisal is the constitutional principle that all property within a taxing jurisdiction must be assessed at the same level relative to market value, preventing selective overvaluation of individual properties.
The "equal and uniform" doctrine holds that similarly situated properties must be assessed at similar values. If your neighbors' assessed values are lower than yours for comparable homes, you may have an unequal appraisal claim.
Market-value protest vs. unequal-appraisal protest
Most jurisdictions give homeowners two distinct arguments. A market-value challenge says: my assessed value is higher than what my home would actually sell for — the evidence is recent sales of comparable homes. An unequal-appraisal (equal and uniform) challenge says: whatever my market value is, my home is assessed higher relative to market than comparable homes are — the evidence is other properties' assessed values, not their sale prices. You can win the second argument even in a year when sales prices would not support the first.
The Texas test: Tax Code §41.43(b)(3)
Texas law makes the unequal-appraisal argument unusually concrete. Under Tex. Tax Code §41.43(b)(3), a protest must be decided in the owner's favor when the appraised value of the property exceeds the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable properties appropriately adjusted. In practice that means: select comparable properties, adjust their appraised values for differences (size, age, condition, location), take the median of the adjusted values — and if your appraised value is above that median, the statute says your value should come down to it. This page's Texas framing is Texas law specifically; other states recognize uniformity claims under their own constitutions and statutes, with different tests.
When each argument helps
Lead with market value when recent arm's-length sales of similar homes sit below your assessed value — sales evidence is the most intuitive for any review board. Lead with equal and uniform when sales are scarce or ran hot, but comparable homes carry lower assessed values than yours after adjustment. In Texas you can — and generally should — check both boxes when filing, because grounds cannot be added after submission, only removed. The strongest cases often argue both: sales showing an inflated market value, and adjusted assessments showing the inequity.
Where HomeTaxAppeal fits
The evidence packet supports the equity pathway where the underlying assessment-roll data is available (currently Texas counties): it selects comparable properties from the appraisal district's own records, adjusts their appraised values, and reconciles to a supported value — the same structure the anonymized sample report shows, which is itself an equity-pathway example. You file it yourself; the analysis is a software-generated market analysis, not an appraisal. Related: what is unequal appraisal? and the equal-and-uniform builder.
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