The Seller's Tax Bill Is the Wrong Number to Budget From in Colleyville This Year

Most people buying a home in Colleyville this fall will look at the seller's property tax bill and treat it as a preview of their own. In 2026 that number is unreliable for three separate reasons. The city just raised its rate. The county appraisal district skipped residential reappraisal this year and returns to it in 2027. And the seller's homestead protections end when the seller does.

Each of these on its own is a footnote. Together they mean the first full tax year a late-2026 buyer owns the home will be calculated on a different value, a different rate structure and a different exemption status than the bill sitting in the disclosure packet.

The cap that leaves with the seller

Texas limits how fast a homestead's appraised value can rise. Under Tax Code Section 23.23, the appraised value of a qualifying homestead can't increase more than 10 percent a year, plus the value of new improvements, and it can never exceed market value.

The limit belongs to the owner, not the house. According to the Texas Comptroller, the limitation takes effect on Jan. 1 of the tax year after the owner first qualifies for the homestead exemption, and it expires on Jan. 1 of the tax year after that owner stops qualifying. A seller who has owned and lived in a Colleyville home for many years may be paying tax on a capped appraised value well below what the home would sell for today. That gap doesn't transfer to a buyer.

Exemption timing adds a second gap. A buyer who purchases after Jan. 1 can receive a prorated general homestead exemption in the year of purchase only if the prior owner did not receive that exemption for that year. Tarrant Appraisal District's own instructions set out the same Jan. 1 ownership and occupancy rule. When the seller has already claimed the 2026 exemption, a buyer closing this fall would generally start their own homestead in 2027, provided they own and occupy the home as a principal residence on Jan. 1, 2027. The general filing window runs Jan. 1 through April 30. Under the Comptroller's rule, the buyer's own 10 percent cap would then begin the following January.

2027 is also the year the county looks again

The seller's cap ending would matter in any year. In Tarrant County it lines up with a reappraisal.

On Sept. 8, 2026, the Tarrant Appraisal District board voted 5-4 to reappraise residential property in 2027. That keeps a schedule of reappraising homes in odd-numbered years instead of every year. TAD's 2027–2028 reappraisal plan says residential properties will be reappraised only in odd-numbered years starting in 2027, while all other property types are reappraised annually. Values are set as of Jan. 1, at market value, subject to statutory limits and exemptions.

No source promises that a recently sold home will be appraised at exactly its purchase price. The Comptroller describes appraisal districts using recent comparable sales, with adjustments, to value typical properties. Still, the sales evidence TAD would draw on is not small. In ZIP code 76034, one of the ZIP codes in Community Impact's Grapevine, Colleyville and Southlake market report, the median sale price in August 2026 was $1,050,000, according to MetroTex Association of Realtors data reported by Community Impact. The city's average taxable single-family value for this tax year is $678,440. The two numbers measure different things, but the distance between them shows how far a recently sold home's value can sit from the average figure behind the city's published tax examples.

Why the rate rose while values fell

That brings in the third variable, the rate itself. At its Sept. 15 meeting, Colleyville City Council adopted a FY 2026-27 rate of $0.352480 per $100 of valuation, up from $0.311931. Community Impact reported it as the third straight year the city has raised its rate.

The cause starts at the appraisal district. TAD appraised Colleyville's tax roll at $8.9 billion this summer, down 3.09 percent. Residential values fell 3.52 percent to $7.8 billion, while commercial values rose 0.17 percent to $1.1 billion. City Manager Jerry Ducay attributed the decline partly to TAD's every-other-year residential schedule and partly to rising protests, arbitration and litigation, all of which shrink the roll a city collects against. Protests were common countywide. TAD estimates more than 272,000 homeowners protested in 2026.

Finance Director Cassie Smith summarized the arithmetic for council: "If appraised values go down, then that means our tax rate needs to go up to equal the same amount of revenues."

The adopted rate goes further than replacing lost revenue. The city's no-new-revenue rate, which would have raised roughly the same revenue from the same properties, was $0.321034. Council adopted the voter-approval rate, $0.352480, exactly. Because the adopted rate did not exceed that threshold, no election was required. The rate splits into $0.31865 for maintenance and operations and $0.03383 for interest and sinking. Smith said the higher debt portion covers an additional $766,000 in payments for the recreation center project and the fire apparatus schedule.

Ducay and Mayor Bobby Lindamood described the operations increase as banking revenue now. State law limits how much operations revenue a city can collect without an election, and Lindamood warned that passing up the room available today could force "a much more draconian change" years later. That reasoning suggests the city views the current rate as a floor to protect rather than a temporary peak.

What the published average bill does and doesn't show

The city's own example uses the average home. For a home with the average taxable value of $678,440 in FY 2026-27, the city tax bill is $2,391.37, up $190.72, or 8.66 percent, from $2,200.65 on the prior year's average value of $705,492. The Fort Worth Report's adoption coverage cited city staff putting the increase at $283 a year for an average $678,000 home, so the published figures don't fully agree. Either way, the average value went down and the average bill went up.

A buyer's 2027 math has different inputs. The 2027 rate hasn't been set. The current rate is the only known figure, and here is what it implies on paper:

1. At $0.352480 per $100, each $100,000 of taxable value carries $352.48 in city tax.
2. On the city's average taxable value of $678,440, that comes to $2,391.37.
3. On a taxable value equal to the August 2026 76034 median sale price of $1,050,000, it would come to $3,701.04 before any exemptions.

The third line is an illustration, not a forecast. It shows how much the city line alone could change when a home's value moves from a long-held capped figure toward recent sale prices. Colleyville's financial transparency page lists a 14 percent local homestead exemption for FY 2026, and Community Impact reported the city raised its exemption to 14 percent in June 2025. Reporting on the September 2026 adoption doesn't confirm whether that exemption carries into the new tax year, so it belongs on a buyer's list of questions to confirm with the city.

Two cities, same appraisal district, opposite decisions

The appraisal schedule is countywide, but each taxing entity decides how to respond to it. Southlake and Grapevine-Colleyville ISD made different choices.

Southlake adopted its lower rate at a Sept. 15 meeting, the same night as Colleyville. The city said the decision means nearly $7 million less property tax revenue than in FY 2025-26, and it kept its 20 percent homestead exemption. GCISD trustees adopted their unchanged total rate on Aug. 24. The mix shifted slightly, with maintenance and operations falling to $0.7054 and interest and sinking rising to $0.1632.

The school line depends on the address. Colleyville properties fall within Birdville, Grapevine-Colleyville, Hurst-Euless-Bedford or Keller ISD, so the GCISD rate applies only to homes inside that district. The city's tax-rate information page still showed the prior $0.311931 city rate when this was published, so the adopted budget documents are the more current reference.

How this shows up in a negotiation

Recent sales give context for a buyer weighing timing. In August 2026, ZIP 76034 recorded 25 closed sales, down from 38 in August 2025. The median rose from $1,035,000 to $1,050,000, and average days on market fell from 43 to 26. In 76092, another ZIP code in the same report, the same month also had 25 sales, down from 44, with a $1,375,000 median and average days on market rising from 44 to 54. Fewer homes traded in 76034, and in August they sold faster than a year earlier, so a buyer may have limited time to model carrying costs after finding the right house.

That makes the tax projection something to build before writing an offer. Start from the expected 2027 value. Use the current $0.352480 city rate as a placeholder, the correct school district's rate and Tarrant County's rate. Count only the exemptions the buyer will actually hold on Jan. 1, 2027. The seller's bill belongs in the file as history, not as a forecast.

FAQ

Will my 2027 appraisal match my purchase price? Not necessarily. TAD values property at market value as of Jan. 1 using appraisal methods and comparable sales evidence, and no TAD statement promises a one-for-one match with any sale.

Did Colleyville residents vote on the 13 percent increase? No election was required. The adopted rate equaled the voter-approval rate of $0.352480 and did not exceed it.

What school homestead exemption applies once I qualify? The Comptroller lists the mandatory school district residence homestead exemption at $140,000. Local-option exemptions, such as a city's percentage exemption, are separate.

Could TAD change its schedule again? The board's Sept. 8 decision was a 5-4 vote, and board seats are on the November 2026 ballot. The current plan calls for residential reappraisal in 2027.

If you're weighing a Colleyville home against one in Southlake or Westlake, Rosie Smelcer Group can build a side-by-side carrying-cost model for each address. It uses the 2026 adopted rates, the right school district and your realistic exemption timeline, so the tax figure in your budget reflects your first year of ownership. Schedule your private consultation.