The Six-Tier Source Hierarchy, Manual-Verification Workflow & Screenshot-Capture Practice Behind Every County Page
This page sets out, in detail, where the information on county-cad.us/ comes from, the order in which sources govern when they conflict, the agencies, statutes, and publications we rely on, the manual screenshot-capture step that is part of every verification, and the workflow every page passes through before publication. Read it alongside our Editorial Policy.
What’s on this page
1. Overview — Why a Tiered Hierarchy
Property tax assessment information lives in many places. The same fact — say, a Texas county’s Notice of Protest deadline this year, the homestead exemption application deadline in California, or the rule for cure of a late-filed exemption — can be reported by the county appraisal district or assessor, the state coordinator (Texas Comptroller, California BOE, Florida DOR), professional bodies (IAAO), academic publications, journalists, and commercial third-party sites. These reports may not all agree, and stale information costs real money in this domain. We work from a tiered source hierarchy where higher-tier sources govern when sources conflict. This page sets out the tiers and lists the specific sources in each.
County Appraisal Districts, County Assessors, County Property Appraisers
The county-level office is the primary source for that county's procedures, deadlines, contact details, property search portal, exemption rules, protest filing, and ARB or appeals-board contact. Every county guide on county-cad.us/ is built from the county office's own page, screenshot-verified at the time of publication.
Examples of Tier 1 sources, by state:
| State | Major county offices verified | URL examples |
|---|---|---|
| Texas (CADs) | Harris CAD, Dallas CAD, Tarrant AD, Bexar AD, Travis CAD, Collin CAD, Denton CAD, Fort Bend CAD, Williamson CAD, El Paso CAD | hcad.org · dallascad.org · tad.org · bcad.org · traviscad.org · collincad.org · dentoncad.com · fbcad.org · wcad.org · epcad.org |
| California (Assessors) | Los Angeles County Assessor, San Diego County Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk, Orange County Assessor, Riverside County Assessor, San Bernardino County Assessor | assessor.lacounty.gov · arcc.sandiegocounty.gov · ocgov.com/gov/assessor · rivco.org · sbcounty.gov/atc |
| Florida (Property Appraisers) | Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser, Broward County Property Appraiser, Palm Beach County Property Appraiser, Hillsborough County Property Appraiser, Orange County Property Appraiser | miamidade.gov/pa · bcpa.net · pbcpao.gov · hcpafl.org · ocpaweb.ocpafl.org |
| Other states | Every U.S. county-level property assessment office sourced equivalently — county assessors, property appraisers, tax assessors | Per state framework |
State Coordinators — Texas Comptroller, California BOE, Florida DOR, and Others
State-level coordinators provide oversight, framework, and authoritative current-year deadline reference. Where state law sets a uniform deadline (Texas May 15 / 30-day rule; Florida 25-day TRIM), the state coordinator publishes the framework.
| Coordinator | Role | URL |
|---|---|---|
| Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Property Tax Assistance Division (PTAD) | Oversight of all 254 Texas CADs; biennial Methods and Assistance Program review; CAD directory; Texas Tax Code interpretation | comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax |
| California State Board of Equalization (BOE) | Oversight of 58 California county assessors under Cal. Const. Art. XIIIA (Prop 13) | boe.ca.gov |
| Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight | Oversight of 67 Florida county property appraisers under Fla. Stat. Ch. 192–200 | floridarevenue.com/property |
| New York State Department of Taxation and Finance | Real Property Tax Law oversight | tax.ny.gov/pit/property |
| Pennsylvania Department of Revenue | State framework | revenue.pa.gov |
| Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury, Division of Property Assessments | Oversight of Tennessee county property assessors | comptroller.tn.gov/office-functions/pa.html |
| Georgia Department of Revenue, Local Government Services | Framework for Georgia county tax assessors | dor.georgia.gov/local-government-services |
IAAO & NACo — National Professional & County Organisations
The International Association of Assessing Officers (assessment standards, education) and the National Association of Counties (county directory, county research and policy).
| Organisation | Role | URL |
|---|---|---|
| International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) | National professional organisation; standards (Standard on Property Tax Policy, Standard on Mass Appraisal); education and certification | iaao.org |
| National Association of Counties (NACo) | Represents U.S. counties; county directory; research on county property-tax revenue | naco.org |
Federal Cross-References — IRS, VA, FEMA, Census
Federal layer that intersects with county property tax — the deduction framework, veteran exemption coordination, disaster relief, and revenue data.
- IRS Pub. 530 (Tax Information for Homeowners) — irs.gov/publications/p530
- IRC § 164 — federal deduction for state and local property taxes; SALT cap of $10,000 under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — coordination context for state and county veteran property-tax exemptions; va.gov
- FEMA — disaster declaration framework that triggers state and county disaster-reappraisal programs (Tex. Tax Code § 11.35; California Misfortune & Calamity reassessment); fema.gov
- U.S. Census Bureau, Quarterly Summary of State and Local Government Tax Revenue — national property tax revenue data; census.gov
State Property Tax Codes & Regulations
The actual statutory and regulatory texts that govern county-level assessment.
- Texas Tax Code — Ch. 6 (CAD structure, ARB), Ch. 11 (Exemptions), Ch. 22 (Renditions, including BPP § 22.23), Ch. 23 (Appraisal Methods, including 1-d / 1-d-1 at § 23.41 et seq.), Ch. 34 (Tax Sales, redemption at § 34.21), Ch. 41 (Protests, § 41.44 deadline), Ch. 42 (Judicial Appeals), Ch. 41A (Binding Arbitration)
- California Constitution Article XIIIA (Proposition 13) — value cap, transfer reassessment
- California Revenue and Taxation Code — including § 1603 (assessment appeals filing periods)
- Florida Statutes Chapter 192–200 — including § 194.011 (VAB petition, 25-day TRIM rule); § 193.461 (Greenbelt)
- New York Real Property Tax Law (RPTL) — including § 512 (Grievance Day)
- Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes — county boards of assessment appeals
- Tennessee Code Annotated — Title 67, Ch. 5 (property tax)
- Texas Occupations Code Ch. 1152 — property tax consultant licensure
- California Government Code § 51200 et seq. — Williamson Act
- State public-records / sunshine laws — request workflow, fee schedule, exemptions, response timeline (varies by state)
Court Decisions, Peer-Reviewed Research & Established Publications
Background context and dispositive authority where directly applicable. Court decisions are cited where they directly govern current procedure.
- State supreme court property tax decisions — Texas, California, Florida, and other state supreme courts on property-tax procedure, Texas equal-and-uniform protest cases, California Prop 13 cases, Florida VAB cases
- U.S. Courts of Appeals decisions — federal circuit court rulings affecting property-tax procedure
- IAAO peer-reviewed publications — Journal of Property Tax Assessment & Administration; Fair & Equitable
- GAO reports on federal property-tax-adjacent programs
- Census Bureau property tax data — historical revenue and trend data
8. Verification Workflow — Eight Steps Before Anything Goes Live
- Identify the right authoritative source. County-level office on the county’s .gov domain, cross-checked against the state coordinator and against IAAO/NACo references.
- Verify the URL is live. A human editor clicks every link before publication and confirms the destination is the actual page.
- Capture screenshots manually. The verifying editor takes a screenshot of the agency portal interface — homepage, property search, exemption page, online protest filing tool — dated and stored for editorial reference.
- Dial-test phone numbers. Main line, exemption line, protest hotline, ARB scheduling.
- Verify addresses against agency contact pages and USPS ZIP+4 lookup.
- Document procedures from the agency’s own published rules. Notice of Protest deadline, exemption application workflow, ARB hearing rules.
- Cross-reference state and federal layer. State statute citations, IRS Pub. 530, VA exemption coordination.
- Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews end-to-end before publication.
9. Screenshot Capture — The Discipline That Distinguishes Us
When an editor verifies a county portal, the verification includes manually capturing a screenshot of the live agency interface. The screenshot is dated and stored. When we describe how a portal works in our walkthrough, the description matches the screenshot we captured. When the agency redesigns the portal, we re-verify, re-capture, and update the walkthrough. Screenshots are stored internally for editorial reference and are not republished on the site.
This discipline matters most for portals that update frequently — TRIM-notice cycles in Florida, mid-year reappraisal cycles in many Texas CADs, reassessment-on-transfer in California. A walkthrough describing a button that no longer exists is worse than no walkthrough; the screenshot capture step prevents that.
10. Pre-Deadline Heightened Review
Every county guide is re-reviewed every quarter under the default cycle. In the 60 days before each state’s primary protest deadline, county pages in that state are re-reviewed on a heightened cadence — typically weekly for high-traffic pages. Texas heightened window: roughly mid-March through mid-May. California: roughly May through mid-September. Florida: TRIM mailing through 25-day petition deadline. We update same-day for any county whose deadline materially shifts (late notice mailing, court order, county-calendar change).
11. FCRA Framework Reminder
Information on the site is general informational content drawn from public records and authoritative public sources. It is not a "consumer report" under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.) and county-cad.us/ is not a Consumer Reporting Agency. Property records are public records under state public-records law; the county is the source. Do not use any content on this site to make employment, credit, insurance, tenant-screening, or any other FCRA-permissible-purpose decisions. For those purposes, use a CRA licensed for that purpose.
12. Sources We Avoid
- Commercial property-tax-protest mills as authority on county procedures — they may be useful for context but every claim is cross-checked to the agency’s own page
- FCRA-prohibited background-check products dressed as property-research tools
- Tax-sale “education” programs with unrealistic return promises
- Anonymous user-generated content as standalone authority on agency procedure
- Commercial property-data brokers as authority on assessment rules — these are commercial intermediaries, not the agency
- Other directory aggregator sites — we work to the original agency source, not to other directories that may themselves be working from stale data
- Property-tax-consultant marketing as authority on neutral procedural rules — consultant publications may be useful for context but never as sole source on a county rule, and we verify Texas Occ. Code Ch. 1152 licensure status before linking
Have a Sourcing Question?
Email us with subject line “Editorial question” or “Sourcing question.” We’re happy to walk you through the source for any specific factual claim on any county page, including the screenshot capture date.
📧 info@county-cad.us