Texas Student Housing

A student housing developer engaged Pivotal to review their Texas portfolio for property tax appeal opportunities.  The multi-family structures were built on land owned by a Texas university under a possessory interest agreement with a long-term lease that would revert the improvements and land back to the university upon maturation.  When the Pivotal team concluded their research on these assets, it was found that since the university had an equitable interest in the properties, the court ruled the properties were exempt from property taxes. Furthermore, our team discovered a recent Attorney General’s opinion supporting the position. 

Instead of simply appealing the assessed property values as had been done by the owner’s previous providers, Pivotal filed an exemption application and the owners were awarded full property tax exemption status for these properties.

These exemptions resulted in tax savings of $196,033.00 for the appealable tax year.  Subsequently, the team also sought to obtain corrections to the tax roll for prior years, resulting in a total tax savings of $1,103,225 for our client.