Property Tax Disputes
We make it easy for homeowners to appeal for the removal and reimbursement of unfair Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) home improvement tax assessments.
Court Ruling
In a 2023 California Court of Appeals Ruling on Morgan v. Ygrene (2022), homeowners gained a significant victory in challenging unfair PACE assessments. The ruling stated that homeowners must first "exhaust administrative remedies" with their county tax board before they can seek relief through court actions.
Filing an Appeal satisfies the "administrative remedies" requirement and creates two opportunities for property tax relief: through county and court.
Why Appeal
Deceptive PACE home financing trapped thousands of homeowners in expensive, long-term property tax liabilities (up to 20 years), as a result of wrongful tax assessments.
Stop overpaying, start fighting.
Our Service
We remove the complexity of navigating extinct PACE financing companies and the filing requirements of local tax authorities. With over a decade of experience fighting PACE tax liens, we've developed a suite of proprietary tools that provide homeowners with a robust Appeal Package.
Data Sourcing
Data Analysis
Appeal Package
About Us
Our team is a combination of professionals with backgrounds in real estate, finance, tax law, data science, software development, and consumer advocacy. We've spent years navigating the complexities of PACE programs, lenders, contractors, and tax authorities.
Our founders recognized that homeowners needed help meeting the requirements of PACE tax appeals while building cases that address the unique challenges of PACE home financing tax assessments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely, continue paying until notified otherwise by your local tax authority. It will be reflected in your property tax invoices.
Our service for data gathering, analysis, review and document generation can take as few as 5 - 15 business days, sometimes longer depending on the homeowner's scenario and their responsiveness. After Filing the Appeal, that is in the hands of the local tax authorities and can move faster through an informal process over a period of 3-6 months, or as long as 24 months depending on the case. In the event the local tax authority is taking 24 months or longer, you may be eligible to receive a lower opinion of value until your case is heard. The sooner you file, the sooner you'll satisfy the administrative conditions that open the door for pursuing court actions.
We do not offer legal services nor legal advice. We recommend seeking a licensed attorney if you have specific scenarios or legal concerns you'd like to explore.
Denial is a possibility, but the good news is that win or lose, you have satisfied the key condition of a CA Court of Appeals ruling, stating that PACE property owners who first "exhaust all administrative remedies" (aka, File an Appeal) are then eligible to pursue court actions to seek relief. The courts offer a much wider range of judicial consideration, whereas local tax administrators are narrow in their scope and authority. Prior to the 2023 Court of Appeals ruling, most PACE court claims were being dismissed. That's different now (see Morgan vs Ygrene).
PACE stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy (more familiarly known by financing programs operating under the PACE legislation, infamously known as: HERO, Ygrene, CalFirst, and PACEFUND (among many others). In short, it was government sponsored subprime lending, deceptively pushed on homeowners by contractor sales reps. With a simple e-signature on an iPad, homeowners were locked into 20 year, 9%+ interest rate loans levied in the form of a tax assessment. This was also at a time when prime lending rates were at all-time lows, over 50% lower than PACE loans, but the facts weren't clear and many homeowners got pushed aside with no recourse for relief, even for the most egregious of PACE abuse cases. Senior citizens on fixed incomes have lost their homes, yet local government agencies remain resistant to helping. Fortunately, a recent (2023) Court of Appeals ruling provides homeowners a path forward - which starts with the Filing an Appeal, and no matter the outcome with their local tax authority (win or lose), homeowners are then eligible to seek relief through court actions; whereas before the 2023 ruling, cases were mostly dismissed.