Recently, we received a text from a friend we’d helped to purchase a home in Windsor Estates last summer. He had just received his updated appraisal from Smith County and was shocked to see it had increased by $100,000. (The prior owners had an Over-65 Exemption, which had frozen their school taxes to the year they had claimed their homestead exemption. Additionally, Smith County has access to the sold price.) However, the appraisal district had increased the taxes more than $50,000 over what our buyer had paid. To help him protest this increase, we sent him the list of Windsor Estate homes sold in 2025.

We also sent a summary of the Comparative Market Analysis, which you see below.If you do decide to protest, SCAD has pretty specific instructions on their website.