Important Date
October 26th
BRA board of directors should meet in
Please remember that October 26, 2009 is the deadline to notify Patterson of
your desire for simultaneous closing (contemporaneous closing). This is
a
required by HB 3031. You are required to send a “Notice” if you intend
on
closing your lease purchase at the same time Patterson purchases from
the BRA. (Projected date August, 2010) Address that can be used for mailing a signed
copy of the notification is shown below.
Clarification on the 2006 Tax Lawsuit
While the PK Lake Association is not a party to the pending appeal of a lawsuit filed in 2006 regarding the taxable value of property around the lake, our board members have received several questions about the lawsuit from PKLA members and other leaseholders around the lake. Therefore, the board thought it would be helpful to clarify some of the issues that have been raised in our PKLA newsletter.
In 2006, four individual cases were brought
against the Palo Pinto County Appraisal
District challenging the
methodology adopted by the Appraisal District to set taxable values of
certain
leased properties. The cases were brought and were of public record long before any bulk bids were
made on
the lease portfolio at
Judge Ray in state district court heard the tax case and ruled in favor of the Appraisal District in May 2008. In September 2008, the cases were appealed to the 11th Court of Appeals, where they are currently pending.
Please understand that, even if one plaintiff dropped their appeal, there are 3 other individuals that could continue this appeal request. Additionally, even within the last four or five months, at least five other cases were filed by PK leaseholders in district court questioning leased property values. Basically, all these cases are requesting that the Appraisal District comply with tax law.
Throughout the legislative process, in which all affected parties(PKLA board and members, including Patterson, and staff of the Brazos River Authority) were actively involved, the price set in House Bill 3031 was tied to the 2008 land only assessed value of the property. Recently Representative Keffer has written a letter of intent (Go To > http://www.pklakeassn.org/pdfs/HB3031IntentLetter-Final.pdf) in an effort to clarify the legislative intent. However, there was then and still is no substantive tie between the prices set in House Bill 3031 and the issues raised in the individual leaseholders' lawsuit regarding 2006 assessed values.
Hopefully, this answers any outstanding questions you may have had regarding the pending appeal of the 2006 lawsuits against the Appraisal District and their relationship to the divestiture of property around the lake. Again, there is no intent that the two issues be anything other than independent matters, one bearing no impact on the other.