Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your use of the Smart Protest^™ website at smartprotest.com and the property tax protest services offered by Smart Protest Inc. (“Smart Protest”, “we”, “us”, “our”). Please read them carefully. By creating an account, signing a Form 50-162 through us, or paying for a plan, you agree to these Terms.

1. Acceptance and eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and the legal owner of the property being protested, or a person with written authorization to act on the owner’s behalf. Our services are currently available only for real property located in the State of Texas.

2. Description of service

Smart Protest provides property tax protest services and proprietary evidence-packet reports for Texas homeowners. We act as your authorized agent under the Texas Comptroller Form 50-162 (Appointment of Agent for Property Tax Matters). Our services may include, depending on the plan you select:

• Filing your protest with the appropriate County Appraisal District (CAD).
• Assembling comparable sales, adjustments, and hearing evidence.
• Appearing on your behalf before the Appraisal Review Board (ARB) or in informal negotiations with the CAD.
• Producing a written analysis packet documenting the evidence.

3. Plans and fees

We currently offer two plans. Current pricing is displayed on our website at the point of sale; these Terms describe the fee structure at a general level and are not a substitute for the live pricing you agree to at checkout.

• Agency Protest: we file and prosecute your protest under Form 50-162. You pay no fee up front. If we successfully reduce your appraised value (and thereby your tax burden), we bill you a contingency fee — currently 20% — of the estimated tax savings from the reduction. If we do not reduce your overall tax burden, you owe nothing on the contingency portion. See our Disclaimer for the value-protection commitments that come with this plan.
• Analysis Packet: a one-time paid data product (currently $79) delivered as a downloadable PDF. This plan is non-refundable because the proprietary report is delivered regardless of protest outcome.

Contingency-fee invoices under the Agency Protest plan are due net-14 days from the date of invoice unless otherwise agreed in writing. Late invoices may accrue interest at the maximum rate permitted by Texas law.

4. Authorization and revocation

Under the Agency Protest plan, you authorize us to act as your agent for the specific property and tax year(s) identified in your signed Form 50-162. That authorization is limited to property tax matters before the county appraisal district and Appraisal Review Board; it does not authorize us to act on any other legal or financial matter.

You may revoke your authorization at any time in writing to the appropriate CAD; a revocation is effective when the CAD accepts it. Revocation does not by itself terminate any fees already earned for services already rendered.

5. Your obligations

• Provide accurate information about yourself and the property being protested.
• Sign the Form 50-162 in your own name, or under valid written authorization from the property owner.
• Not use our service to file a protest for a property you do not own or lack authorization to represent.
• Not attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or extract our proprietary evidence-packet content, comparable-sales analysis, or software beyond the personal use license we grant you for your own protest.
• Notify us promptly if you separately settle, withdraw, or otherwise resolve your protest so we can update our records and avoid duplicate filings.

6. Intellectual property

The evidence packets, comparable-sales analyses, hearing briefs, methodology, and software that power Smart Protest are the intellectual property of Smart Protest Inc. and/or our licensors. We grant you a personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the deliverables produced for you (packets, briefs, filings) solely in connection with your own property tax matters. All other rights are reserved.

7. Disclaimers and outcome claims

We do not guarantee any specific outcome, reduction, or refund. Individual results may vary. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Any savings figure, range, or percentage we share is an estimate, not a quote, offer, or binding commitment. Our full outcome-claim language is at smartprotest.com/disclaimer and is incorporated by reference into these Terms.

Nothing on our website or in any communication from Smart Protest constitutes legal, tax, accounting, or financial advice.

8. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event shall Smart Protest, its officers, employees, or contractors be liable to you for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of or related to your use of our services. Our aggregate liability arising out of these Terms or your use of our services will not exceed the greater of (a) the fees you have paid us in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100).

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages; to the extent those laws apply, some of the above limitations may not apply to you.

9. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold Smart Protest harmless from any third-party claim arising out of (a) your breach of these Terms, (b) your misrepresentation of ownership or authorization for a property, or (c) your use of our services in violation of applicable law.

10. Third-party services

Our platform integrates with third-party services (including Stripe, Intuit / QuickBooks Online, SendGrid, Dropbox Sign, AWS, Google Maps, Anthropic, PostHog, and county appraisal districts) to deliver our services. See our Privacy Policy for details. Your use of a third-party service may be subject to that provider’s own terms; you should review them separately.

11. Termination

You may stop using Smart Protest at any time by revoking your Form 50-162 authorization (as described above) and closing your account. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms — for example, by filing a protest for a property you do not own or by attempting to defraud our fee structure. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination (fees earned, IP, disclaimers, limitation of liability, governing law) will survive.

12. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or our services will be resolved first by good-faith informal negotiation between the parties. If the parties cannot resolve the dispute informally within thirty (30) days, either party may bring an action in the state or federal courts located in Denton County, Texas, and each party consents to the exclusive jurisdiction of those courts.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. Material changes affecting your existing engagement will be communicated by email to registered users. Your continued use of Smart Protest after we publish an update constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

14. Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and Disclaimer, are the entire agreement between you and Smart Protest Inc. regarding the services. If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

Contact us

If you have questions about these Terms, contact us at:

support@smartprotest.com
Smart Protest Inc., 1400 Dallas Drive, Denton, TX 76205
(940) 300-2870