You CAN Take It With You: 7 Things Katy Homeowners Over 65 Need to Know About Their Tax Freeze Before They Rightsize

Every fall, right about the time the pumpkins hit the porch, something far scarier than any skeleton lands in Katy mailboxes. The property tax statement. And every fall I end up in some version of the same conversation with a homeowner who has been rattling around a two-story for about a decade longer than they wanted to.

“Mickie, I would love a one-story. But I can’t move. I’d lose my tax freeze.”

Sweet friend, pull up a chair. Somebody told you that at a potluck in 2011, and you have been cooling three empty bedrooms and climbing those stairs ever since on the word of a woman holding a deviled egg. Here is the truth. In Texas, your over-65 school tax freeze is not nailed to the house. It can come with you. There are rules, there is paperwork, and there are a few lines on that tax bill that were never frozen in the first place. So before you decide you are stuck, here are the seven things to know.

1. Know what is actually frozen, because it is not the whole bill

When you turn 65 and file for the over-65 homestead exemption, Texas puts a ceiling on the school district taxes on your homestead. Those taxes can drop below the ceiling, but they cannot climb above it for as long as that home stays your homestead. That is the “freeze” everyone whispers about at the mailbox, and since school taxes are one of the biggest lines on a Katy tax bill, it is worth whispering about.

Two more things while we are here. First, the freeze is one line on the bill, not the whole bill. Hold that thought for number 5. Second, Texas now takes $200,000 off your home’s value for school taxes once you are 65 or older: the $140,000 general homestead exemption plus another $60,000 for the over-65 club. Best club you never wanted to join.

2. The freeze has legs

Here is the part the deviled egg lady left out. Texas lets a homeowner who is 65 or older transfer that school tax ceiling to a different homestead, anywhere in the state. Katy to Fulshear. Cinco Ranch to Cypress. A different school district altogether. If the new place is your homestead, the freeze is allowed to follow you there. It does not stay behind with the drapes.

3. It travels as a percentage, not a dollar amount

This is where people’s eyes glaze over, so stay with me, because this is the good part. I am going to use nice round numbers to show you how it works. They are for illustration only, not anybody’s real bill, and certainly not yours. Say your frozen school tax bill is $1,500 a year, and without the freeze it would be $3,000. You are paying 50 percent of the going rate. That 50 percent is what moves with you. If the school taxes on your new one-story would normally run $2,000, your new ceiling is half of that: $1,000.

Read that again. You did not lose the freeze. You took your discount to a smaller house and got a smaller bill. And the longer you have been frozen, the better that percentage tends to be, which means the folks most afraid to move are often the ones holding the best deal in the neighborhood. Fair warning, it works in the other direction too. The same percentage of a bigger, pricier house is a bigger number. But we are here to talk about rightsizing, not buying a castle.

4. It is not automatic. Somebody has to ask.

The freeze does not pack itself. You request a tax ceiling transfer certificate from the appraisal district where you had the freeze, and it goes to the appraisal district for the new home when you apply for your homestead and over-65 exemptions there. No certificate, no transfer, and nobody is going to chase you down the street to hand you a discount.

And because Katy has never done anything the simple way, we sit in three counties: Harris, Fort Bend, and Waller. That is three appraisal districts with three sets of forms. Move from Nottingham Country to a one-story in Fulshear and you have changed counties, appraisal districts, and paperwork in a 20 minute drive. This is exactly the kind of thing I put on the checklist early, so it gets handled around closing instead of discovered next October with a bill in your hand and a few choice words.

5. Your MUD does not care how old you are

The freeze every Texas homeowner gets at 65 is on school taxes. Your MUD is not a school. MUD taxes are not part of the freeze, and in a lot of Katy’s newer master-planned communities the MUD rate is one of the heftier lines on the bill. HOA dues are not taxes at all, and your HOA has never once asked for your birthday.

Counties, cities, and community colleges are allowed to adopt their own over-65 ceilings and exemptions. Some have, some have not, and here is the catch: a county or city ceiling only travels with you if you stay inside that same county or city. Cross from Harris into Fort Bend and that one starts fresh. So when you compare two houses, compare the whole tax bill, not just the price tag. Two homes a mile apart out here can have very different tax rates.

6. In Texas, the freeze belongs to the marriage, not just the birthday

This one is tender, and it matters. Texas is a community property state, and a married couple does not both have to hit 65 for the freeze to kick in. Once either spouse qualifies, it covers the home you own together. And when one of you is gone, the freeze does not go too. It stays with the surviving spouse as long as they were 55 or older at the time and the home remains their homestead, and a qualifying surviving spouse can carry that percentage to a new homestead just the same. So if you are on your own now in a house that has become too much, the freeze is not what is keeping you there. If you are in that season right now, The House Can Wait is a gentler place to start.

7. Run the real numbers before the sign goes in the yard

Potluck math has kept a lot of good people in the wrong house. Real math takes three numbers. One: what you pay in school taxes now and what you would pay without the ceiling. Your appraisal district has both, and together they give you your percentage. Two: the full tax picture on the kind of home you are considering, meaning school, county, MUD, all of it. Three: what your current house would honestly sell for today.

I bring number three and guide you through lining up the other two. Your appraisal district and your CPA are the fact-checkers, and I want them in the conversation. Then you get to decide with real numbers in front of you instead of a rumor and a deviled egg.

So there it is. You can take it with you. Not the three sets of china, we settled that in The Katy Rightsizing Diet and again in It Was Never About the House. It’s the Stuff. But the freeze? Pack it. It travels light.

If that tax statement in your mailbox has you wondering what a move would really cost you, start with a conversation. That part is free, and I will bring the calculator. You know where to find me.

The fine print, because I love you: I am a real estate broker, not a CPA, tax advisor, or attorney. Exemption amounts and local rules change, and every homeowner’s numbers are different. Confirm your own situation with your county appraisal district and your tax professional before you make a move.