Houston —The Harris Central Appraisal District is reminding property owners who have experienced physical damage to their property during Hurricane Beryl to apply for a temporary disaster exemption.

“This has been a very active year for natural disasters so far,” said Roland Altinger, chief appraiser. “We have had flooding and the derecho in May and Hurricane Beryl in July that may have caused physical damage to many properties in the area. I want to remind property owners that a disaster exemption is available to help owners reduce their 2024 property taxes.

“State law lets the individual owner apply for the temporary disaster exemption for physical damage to improvements (structures) on their property, and to business personal property used for the production of income,” he continued. “While damage to a house or other structure from a falling tree is eligible for exemption under this particular law, damage that occurred only to trees or shrubbery caused by the disaster is not eligible.”

The Texas Tax Code allows a qualified property that is at least 15 percent damaged by a disaster in a governor-declared disaster area to receive a temporary exemption of a portion of the appraised value of the property. Qualified property includes real property such as homes and buildings, certain manufactured homes and tangible personal property used for the production of income for a business.

The property owner must apply for the temporary exemption no later than 105 days after the governor declares a disaster area. Acting Governor Dan Patrick declared the county a disaster area on July 6 for Hurricane Beryl, so the temporary disaster exemption application must be filed no later than Monday, October 21.

The disaster application form can be found online at www.hcad.org under FORMS > ALL FORMS > General Information > Form 50-312, Temporary Exemption for Property Damaged by a Disaster. The form should be mailed to the address in the top left of the form, which is Harris Central Appraisal District, Information and Assistance Division, P.O. Box 922012, Houston, Texas 77292-2012. For further information, contact the HCAD’s information center at 713.957.7800 or by using the web form under ABOUT > CONTACT US > ACCOUNT QUESTIONS.

About HCAD

The Harris Central Appraisal District is a political subdivision of the State of Texas established in 1980 for the purpose of discovering and appraising property for ad valorem tax purposes for each taxing unit within the boundaries of the district. The district has approximately 1.9 million parcels of property to assess each year with a total market value of approximately $895 billion. The appraisal district in Harris County is the largest in Texas, serving more than 500 taxing units, and one of the largest appraisal districts in the United States. For further information, visit www.hcad.org.