North Texas realtor helps homeowners fight property tax appraisals - for free
TARRANT COUNTY (CBSDFW.COM) - He's a hero to thousands of North Texas homeowners by helping fight property tax appraisals for free.
But a North Texas realtor says it's also the reason why he's a bad guy in the eyes of the Tarrant Appraisal District which he believes is trying to discredit him.
Chandler Crouch estimates he's helped 28,000 homeowners get their property values lowered this year.
He's coming here tomorrow for a meeting with the appraisal review board because of 4 complaints filed against him for supposedly giving false information.
But those complaints were filed by an appraiser leading a lot of residents to believe that Crouch is being unfairly targeted simply because he's saving homeowers a lot of money.
When a soaring property appraisal value threatened to force Matthew Chambers out of his home in Keller 4 years ago, he fortunately found free help to lower it.
"Right after the first year I got cancer and then I had a liver transplant so we were struggling a little bit and she said, 'hey, there's this Chandler guy,'" Chambers said. "Unbeknownst to us, we didn't realize there was a senior citizen cap that would kick in first wouldn't have known about him for him."
Chambers is one of 90,000 homeowners Chandler Crouch says he has offered assistance to as a property tax consultant.
"I guess just life purpose I want to help people and truthfully it comes back to my faith," Crouch said.
The free help sometimes pays off for the North Texas realtor by already having good relationships with homeowners if they ever decide to sell.
It's worked out well until recently when an appraiser with Tarrant County filed four complaints with a licensing board against Crouch accusing him of providing misleading appraisal information.
"They don't like that I represent the people in the capacity to help them protest and then later sold their house for a higher price," Crouch said.
Crouch meets with the board on Thursday morning, and as you might guess, many of the thousands of homeowners he's gone to bat for are now crying foul in public online postings about what they consider to be nothing more than retaliation by the appraisal district over the money he's saved them.
"Hopefully we will see some justice," Crouch said.
CBS 11 did not get a response to messages for a statement or an interview from the appraisal review board.
The meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. and Crouch expects a lot of homeowners to be here to support him.
