Charlie: We’re going to start our questions here for this segment with Mike from Pasadena. He wants to know if you have any recommendations on who would be the best property tax service to help with his property taxes in Harris County. He says he’s been using the same company for years, but the last few, they’ve not helped all that much, and he’s thinking it might be time for a change. Do you have any recommendations on that?
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Tom: I don’t. I’ve only gone down once in my life here, and they actually did better with me going to them directly, when I got to the tax office and just pleaded my case to the poor guy that said, “I’ll fix it.” He came back and even was lower than what I wanted.
Charlie: Wow.
Tom: So, I don’t … if you have the time, sometimes it’s best to do things yourself. And in my case, it was. But there are a lot of people out there, you get a lot of those cards in the mail all the time, when taxes come through. And you’re just going to have to find someone. And like you say, sometimes companies go bad after a while. It happens.
Charlie: Yeah, we’ve used Bettencourt for years, and he’s done a good … they’re folks have done a good job-
Tom: There you go.
Charlie: But, the … really what those companies bring to the table is, they save you the time of going down there.
Tom: Exactly.
Charlie: And they go … it’s kind of like traffic court. You know, they’ve been there, they know it and I’ve had experience with this, as well. And going in there with a representative sometimes helps you.
Tom: It’s kind of like getting someone else to pull the permits.
Charlie: Yeah. There’s that, too.
Tom: I can relate to that.
Charlie: Because that’s the only thing I’m going to say is that, you go in there with this idea, it’s kind of like detectives and criminals, you know. It’s like somebody, usually a murderer only sees one murder, but a policeman sees lots of them. And that’s how they get caught. That’s how the criminals get caught. And it’s the same thing when you go to the property tax thing, I think, Tom, is they see lots of people every day, and you only see your house.
Tom: Absolutely.
Charlie: And that’s what the advantage of these people have. So it’s a matter of time and expertise, but if you Google it, and you want to spend time doing it, I think you’re right. You could just do this yourself.
Tom: I just did it one year and it came out great.
Charlie: Yeah, I did it one year and it didn’t.
Tom: I’m sorry, okay.
Charlie: And we’ve used somebody else ever since.
Tom: It’s easier for everybody.