Behind on Property Taxes in Bell County

Bell County property taxes are billed and collected by the Tax Appraisal District of Bell County, which handles both appraisal and collection for the taxing units in the county. The Comptroller’s own county directory for Bell County lists the county tax assessor-collector’s office as one that does not collect property taxes, and directs taxpayers to the appraisal district instead. Its offices are in Belton (411 E. Central Ave, 254-939-5841), Killeen (301 Priest Dr, 254-634-9752) and Temple (205 E. Central Ave, 254-771-1108), with a single mailing address for all three at P.O. Box 390, Belton, TX 76513. Every form and every plan described below is filed with that district, not with a private company.

What follows is what Texas law actually says, section by section, with the local filing details where Bell County publishes them. It is general information about how the statute works, not legal or tax advice for your situation.

What actually happens on February 1

Texas property taxes are due when you receive the bill and become delinquent if they are not paid before February 1 of the following year. That is Tax Code section 31.02(a). There is no general grace period for an ordinary bill mailed on time, but section 31.04 does postpone the delinquency date in two situations. If your bill was mailed after January 10, section 31.04(a) pushes the delinquency date to the first day of the next month that gives you at least 21 days from the mailing date in which to pay. And if the bill covers one or more earlier years because the property had been left off the tax roll, section 31.04(a-1) pushes it out to February 1 of the first year that gives you at least 180 days from the mailing date. Under section 31.04(e), penalty and interest do not begin until that postponed date. So check the mailing date on your bill before accepting that you are already delinquent.

Two separate charges then begin, and it helps to keep them apart, because they behave differently and only one of them can be switched off by a payment plan.

The penalty under section 33.01(a) is 6 percent of the delinquent tax for the first calendar month, plus 1 percent for each additional month or part of a month before July 1. Then it changes shape: a tax still delinquent on July 1 carries a flat total penalty of 12 percent, no matter how many months have passed. The penalty does not keep growing after that, and it keeps applying even after a court has entered judgment.

The interest under section 33.01(c) is a flat 1 percent for each month or part of a month the tax stays unpaid, and unlike the penalty it never stops. It also keeps accruing after judgment.

Put together, those two produce the schedule almost every Texas delinquency notice refers to without printing:

On a $4,000 tax bill that means roughly $4,280 owed in February and about $4,720 on July 1, before any collection-cost penalty is added. The jump between June and July is the one that catches people out, because it is where the penalty stops being incremental and lands as a flat 12 percent.

The collection-cost penalty that arrives on top

Separately from penalty and interest, a taxing unit that has contracted with a collection attorney may add a collection-cost penalty. For taxes that became delinquent between February 1 and May 1 and are still unpaid on July 1, that is section 33.07. For taxes that become delinquent on or after June 1 under one of the alternative payment schedules, it is section 33.08.

Two things in those sections are worth knowing before you accept a figure on a letter.

First, the amount is capped. The statute says the penalty may not exceed the amount of the compensation specified in the contract with the attorney. You will see “20 percent” quoted all over the internet as though it were the statutory rate. It is not a rate in the statute at all — it is a ceiling tied to whatever that particular unit agreed to pay its attorney, so ask what the contract figure is rather than assuming.

Second, you are entitled to warning. Under section 33.07(d) the collector must deliver a notice of the delinquency and of the penalty at least 30 and not more than 60 days before July 1. Under section 33.08(c) the penalty is not incurred until the first day of the first month that begins at least 21 days after the notice was sent. And where a unit imposes either of these penalties, it may not also recover attorney’s fees in a suit over the same taxes — section 33.07(c) for the first and section 33.08(e) for the second.

Route one: the homestead installment agreement

This is the most useful and least advertised provision in the whole chapter, and the wording matters. Section 33.02(a) says the collector may enter into an installment agreement with anyone who is delinquent. Then it says the collector shall, on request, enter into an agreement with a person delinquent on a residence homestead for which a section 11.13 exemption has been granted — provided that person has not entered into an installment agreement with that unit in the preceding 24 months.

On a homesteaded house, in other words, this is not a favor the office grants. It is something you are entitled to ask for and receive.

The terms are set out in section 33.02(a-1). The agreement must be in writing, must provide for monthly payments, must run for at least 12 months where the property is a homestead with a section 11.13 exemption, and may not run longer than 36 months.

The part most people never hear is section 33.02(b-1). On a homestead with a section 11.13 exemption, the section 33.01(a) penalty does not accrue during the agreement. Interest still runs, but the penalty stops — and that is the charge that was about to jump to a flat 12 percent. Miss a payment and the penalty accrues on the unpaid balance as though you had never entered the agreement, so the protection is real but conditional.

Two more protections ride along. Section 33.02(d) says the property may not be seized and sold, and no suit may be filed, over a tax subject to an installment agreement unless you miss a payment, let other taxes the unit collects go unpaid, or breach another condition of the agreement. And section 33.02(f) requires the collector to deliver a notice of default to you — and to any other owner of an interest in the property whose name is on the delinquent tax roll — before it can seize and sell the property or sue.

The trade-off is in section 33.02(c): signing the agreement is an irrevocable admission of liability for all the taxes, penalties and interest covered by it. If you believe the underlying amount is wrong, sort that out first.

The Tax Appraisal District of Bell County publishes its own conditions for these agreements, and they are stricter than the statutory floor in places: a minimum of 12 monthly installments, only one agreement at a time, payments due by the 28th of each month, no future taxes may be allowed to go delinquent while the agreement is running, and if the agreement defaults you cannot enter another one for two years. It also notes that you can pay ahead to reduce the total interest.

Route two: the deferral for owners 65 or older, disabled, or disabled veterans

Section 33.06 lets an individual defer collection of a tax, abate a pending suit, or abate a sale to foreclose a tax lien if two things are true: the individual is 65 or older, is disabled as defined by section 11.13(m), or qualifies for an exemption under section 11.22, which reaches not only a disabled veteran but, under section 11.22(c), an unmarried surviving spouse and, where there is no surviving spouse, surviving children under 18; and the tax was imposed on property the individual owns and occupies as a residence homestead.

You obtain it by filing an affidavit with the chief appraiser for the appraisal district — not with a court, not with the city, and not with a tax lender. The Comptroller form is 50-126, the Tax Deferral Affidavit for Age 65 or Older or Disabled Homeowner. Once the affidavit is filed, no taxing unit may file suit and the property may not be sold at a tax-lien foreclosure sale until the 181st day after the collector delivers a notice of delinquency following the date you no longer own and occupy the property as your homestead. If a suit is already pending, section 33.06(c) lets you file the same affidavit in that court; absent a controverting affidavit, or after a hearing in your favor, the court shall abate the suit.

If a foreclosure sale is already on the calendar, section 33.06(c-1) is the one to move on, and it carries the shortest deadline on this page. The same affidavit must be delivered to three places — the chief appraiser of each appraisal district that appraises the property, the collector for the taxing unit that requested the order of sale or that unit’s delinquent-tax attorney, and the officer charged with selling the property — not later than the fifth day before the date of the sale. Once it is delivered, the property may not be sold at a tax sale until the 181st day after a notice of delinquency following the date you no longer own and occupy the home. And if the property is sold anyway in violation of the section, you may file a motion to set the sale aside under the same cause number and in the same court, filed within the redemption period under section 34.21(a) or, where the property was bid off to a taxing unit, by the 180th day after that unit’s deed is recorded, whichever is later.

During the deferral, interest runs at 5 percent a year instead of the section 33.01 rate, and no section 33.01 penalty accrues on the deferred taxes. Section 33.06(d) also holds off the collection-cost penalty: the additional penalty under section 33.07 may be imposed and collected only if the deferred taxes are still delinquent on or after the 181st day after the deferral period ends. What is preserved is the penalty and interest that had already accrued under section 33.01 or 33.07 before the affidavit was filed.

Now the limits, because a deferral is often oversold.

• It is a postponement, not forgiveness. The tax stays owed and the tax lien stays on the property.
• Penalty and interest that had already piled up before you signed up stay on the property. The district says this in plain terms on its own deferral sheet.
• It binds taxing units. It does not bind a mortgage servicer. If your lender escrows taxes and advances them, your loan agreement — not the Tax Code — governs what happens next.
• There is a major exception for a surviving spouse. Under section 33.06(f), if the person who filed the deferral dies, the deferral continues rather than ending, provided the property was the deceased spouse’s homestead when they died, the surviving spouse was 55 or older at that point, and the property was the surviving spouse’s homestead then too. The 181-day clock in that case runs only from a notice of delinquency delivered after the surviving spouse stops owning and occupying the home.
• Otherwise it ends when you stop owning and occupying the home. The Bell County district explains the practical consequence: a new owner or heir then has up to 180 days after being notified to pay all the delinquent taxes, and a suit can follow if they do not.

Used deliberately, a deferral is a way to stay in a house for the rest of your life and let the accumulated tax be settled out of the property afterwards. Used accidentally, it can be a surprise for an heir who does not qualify under the surviving-spouse exception. Both of those are legitimate choices; they are just different choices.

Route three: the four-payment plan for the same group

Section 31.031 applies to an individual who is disabled or at least 65 and qualified for a section 11.13(c) exemption, or who is a disabled veteran or the unmarried surviving spouse of one and qualified under section 11.132 or 11.22. Someone in that group may pay a unit’s taxes on their homestead in four equal installments with no penalty and no interest at all. Note what this one is for: it spreads the current year’s taxes, rather than clearing arrears from earlier years — for those, the installment agreement in route one or the deferral in route two is the tool. It requires that the first installment is paid before the delinquency date together with notice to the unit that the rest will come in three installments. Where the delinquency date is February 1, the remaining payments are due before April 1, before June 1 and before August 1.

There is also a grace provision that is easy to miss. Section 31.031(a-2) allows the plan to be used even after the first deadline has passed, so long as the first payment and the required notice arrive before the first day of the first month after the delinquency date.

And the catch, which should always be stated alongside the benefit: under section 31.031(b), if you miss any payment — including the first — that unpaid installment is delinquent and takes a 6 percent penalty plus interest under section 33.01(c). The ordinary 33.01(a) penalty schedule does not apply, so a missed installment is not as punishing as full delinquency, but it is not free either.

In Bell County the district states the four dates as January 31, March 31, May 31 and July 31; restates what section 31.031(c) already guarantees, which is that where the collector accepts a partial payment, penalty and interest are incurred only on the amount of each installment left unpaid rather than on the whole year’s taxes, and that you may pay more than an installment with the excess credited to the next one; and makes two practical points the statute leaves to administration — you sign up using the bottom slip on the back of your tax statement or an alternate form, and you must sign up again every year you want to use it, by January 31. People lose this plan by assuming it rolls over.

There is a parallel provision, section 31.032, for property in a declared disaster or emergency area that was damaged as a direct result, with the same four-installment structure.

Route four: the deferral for a reappraisal spike

Section 33.065 is a narrower tool and almost nobody mentions it. A homeowner may defer or abate a suit to collect the delinquent tax on the portion of the appraised value that exceeds the sum of 105 percent of last year’s appraised value plus the market value of all new improvements.

In other words, if your appraised value jumped and the bill jumped with it, you can defer the tax attributable to the part of the increase above 5 percent. You file an affidavit with the chief appraiser, as with section 33.06.

Three conditions decide whether it is any use to you. Under section 33.065(b) you cannot obtain it, and any deferral already granted expires, if the taxes on the portion of value below that threshold are delinquent — so you have to be current on the ordinary part of the bill. And interest during this deferral is 8 percent, not the 5 percent of section 33.06. They are different sections with different rates, and the two get mixed up constantly.

The third is in section 33.065(e): the deferral applies only to taxes imposed beginning with the tax year after the first year the owner qualified the property for a section 11.13 exemption.

This is a remedy for a valuation spike on a house you already owned. On a brand-new home, where the house itself is the new improvement, it reaches almost nothing.

Route five: when the county should waive the penalty

Section 33.011 is the provision to reach for when the reason you are late is not really your doing.

The governing body of a taxing unit shall waive penalties, and may waive interest, if an act or omission of an officer, employee or agent of the taxing unit or of the appraisal district caused or resulted in your failure to pay before delinquency — provided the tax is paid no later than the 21st day after you knew or should have known about the delinquency.

It also shall waive penalties and interest where a tax bill came back to the unit undelivered by the Postal Service and the unit did not send another bill at least 21 days before the delinquency date to the current mailing address you had furnished to the appraisal district before September 1 of the assessment year. Section 33.011(c) is generous about what counts as furnishing an address: a recorded instrument transferring the property that includes the new owner’s address, or an accompanying letter of transmittal, counts. Section 33.011(f) is the limit — no relief if you or your agent gave an incorrect address in the first place.

There is a third ground for a taxpayer who tried to pay by mail and sent it to an address that had been the correct payment address in a prior year, within a year of it ceasing to be correct, and who then paid within 21 days of learning of the delinquency.

Two smaller provisions in the same chapter are worth a mention because they also avoid a sale. Section 31.035 lets a taxing unit, by order or resolution, permit an owner who is at least 65 to perform service for the unit in lieu of paying the taxes on their homestead, under a written contract executed before the delinquency date. A unit has to have adopted it, so ask rather than assume. And section 31.11 provides for refunds of overpayments and erroneous payments, which is the route if the problem turns out to be that the money went to the wrong account.

A separate protection for owners on active military duty

Section 31.02(b) lets an eligible person serving on active duty in any branch of the United States armed forces pay delinquent property taxes on property in which they hold an interest without penalty or interest, up to the 60th day after the earliest of three events: discharge from active service, a return to Texas for more than 10 days, or a return to non-active duty status in the reserves.

“Eligible person” is defined in section 31.02(c) as a person on active military duty in this state who was transferred out of the state, or a person in the reserve forces placed on active duty and transferred out of the state. Two limits ride with it, and they cut against the reader, so they belong here: under section 31.02(f) the section reaches only property in which the eligible person owned an interest on the date they were transferred out of Texas, or acquired the interest by gift, devise or inheritance after that date; and under section 31.02(g) active military duty means duty covered by the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act of 1940 or the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994.

Section 31.02(d) adds a step worth taking: the eligible person, or any co-owner of property owned by one, may notify the county tax assessor-collector or the central appraisal district of the eligibility, and the office must supply the forms. If that notice is given in time, no taxing unit in the county may bring suit for delinquent taxes for the year the notice is given. Section 31.02(e) goes further: on verification that the notice was properly filed, a suit already pending must be abated without cost to the defendant, and the exemptions under the section immediately stop all actions against eligible persons until eligibility expires. Failing to file the notice does not destroy the eligibility for the waiver itself — it just gives up the protection against suit.

Section 33.01(f) handles the other end of it: a tax deferred under section 31.02(b) and not paid by the time the deferral period ends accrues interest at 6 percent a year and incurs no penalty.

Before any of that: check whether the bill itself is right

Some frightening tax bills are frightening because an exemption was never applied, and that is fixable after the fact.

Section 11.431 requires the chief appraiser to accept and then approve or deny a late application for a residence homestead exemption filed up to two years after the delinquency date. If the exemption is granted, the collector deducts the tax on the exempted amount from the balance — or refunds it if it has already been paid. The statute is explicit that you do not have to file a separate application to get that refund.

The same thinking applies to the exemptions that are most often missed: the total homestead exemption under section 11.131 for a veteran with a 100 percent service-connected disability rating or individual unemployability, and the graduated exemption under section 11.22 that runs from $5,000 to $12,000 by disability rating. Those veterans’ exemptions also get a longer late-filing window than the ordinary homestead exemption. Under section 11.439, a late application for the total exemption under section 11.131, for the donated-homestead exemption under section 11.132 (for the veteran, though not for a surviving spouse), or for the section 11.22 exemption may be filed up to five years after the delinquency date. And under section 11.439(b), where the tax has already been paid, the refund covers the tax on the exempted portion and the corresponding portion of any penalties and interest paid.

If you are 65 or older or became disabled, the additional exemption under section 11.13(c) and the school tax ceiling under section 11.26 may both apply and may both have been missed. None of this is a payment plan — it reduces what is owed in the first place, which is a better outcome than financing it.

What a late exemption application cannot do is challenge the appraised value for a year that has closed. Value protests run on their own calendar under section 41.44, and the grounds under section 41.41 are value, unequal appraisal and denied exemptions — never the tax rate.

Property tax loans, and the rules that exist to protect you

Texas allows a private company to pay your delinquent taxes and take over the taxing unit’s lien. That is section 32.06, and the companies offering it are generally licensed under chapter 351 of the Finance Code or exempt under section 351.051(c).

It is a legitimate product and it is sometimes the right answer. It is also the most expensive route on this page, and because the lender steps into a lien that outranks nearly everything else, a default puts the house at risk. So it is worth knowing what the statute requires before you sign.

To authorize a transfer you execute and file a sworn document with the collector. Under section 32.06(a-1) that document must state the authorization, the transferee’s name and street address, a description of the property, and — this is the clause worth reading twice — that notice has been given to the property owner that if the owner is disabled, the owner may be eligible for a tax deferral under section 33.06. The statute builds the cheaper alternative into the paperwork for the expensive one.

Section 32.06(a-3) goes further: a person who is 65 or older may not authorize a transfer of a tax lien on real property on which that person is eligible to claim the section 11.13(c) exemption. If you are in that group, this product is not available to you, because the deferral is.

Section 32.06(a-4) requires the Finance Commission of Texas to prescribe a disclosure statement that must be given to the owner before a tax lien transfer is executed, and to adopt rules on the reasonableness of closing costs, fees and other charges. Ask for that disclosure statement in writing and read it before anything is signed.

Four further limits are worth knowing, because they bound the product more tightly than most readers expect. Section 32.06(e) caps the interest a transferee may charge at 18 percent a year, and limits what may be financed to the taxes, penalties, interest and collection costs shown on the tax receipt, the expense of recording the lien, and reasonable closing costs — nothing else. Section 32.06(e-1) bars fees for expenses arising after closing apart from a short statutory list. Section 32.06(d-1) applies the Truth in Lending Act right of rescission to a tax lien transfer on residential property you own and use for personal, family or household purposes, so there is a window in which the transaction can be cancelled. And section 32.06(a-7) makes the contract void outright if it purports to authorize payment of taxes that were neither delinquent nor due when you signed it, or if the sworn authorization is missing. Section 32.06(a-8) bars a transfer altogether where the property was financed wholly or partly by a governmental or nonprofit grant or below-market loan and is subject to its covenants.

How long before anyone can actually take the house

This is the question underneath most of the panic, and the honest answer has two halves.

The legal half: a taxing unit may file suit to foreclose the tax lien at any time after its tax becomes delinquent. That is section 33.41(a), and there is no waiting period in it. A tax lien attached to the property on January 1 of the tax year under section 32.01, before the bill was even printed, and under section 32.05 it takes priority over a homestead interest and over the claims of other creditors and lienholders — including a property owners’ association assessment lien — regardless of which came first. Homestead protection, which defeats many judgment liens in Texas, does not defeat a property tax lien. Section 32.05(c) names the short list it does not outrank: a decedent’s survivor’s allowance, funeral expenses and expenses of the last illness, a restrictive covenant that runs with the land and was recorded before January 1 of the year the lien arose, and a valid easement of record recorded before that date.

The practical half: suits take time, and the statute adds cost rather than speed. Under section 33.48(a) a unit that sues recovers court costs, the expenses of identifying parties and legal descriptions, the expenses of the foreclosure sale, and attorney’s fees of 15 percent of the total taxes, penalties and interest due. Those are charged against the property and come out of the sale proceeds.

There is also an outer limit most people have never heard of. Section 33.05(a) bars a suit to collect tax on real property that has been delinquent more than 20 years, and section 33.05(b) presumes such a tax paid unless a suit is already pending. Section 33.05(c) goes a step further: absent pending litigation the collector shall cancel and remove such a tax from the delinquent tax roll — more than 20 years for real property, more than 10 years for personal property — so this is a correction you can ask for rather than merely a defense you can raise.

Even after judgment there is a clean exit: under section 33.53(e), if the owner pays the amount of the judgment before the property is sold, the taxing unit must release its tax lien and file a release of that lien with the clerk of the court that rendered the judgment. If a judgment is entered and an order of sale issues, the sale itself runs under section 34.01, conducted in a manner similar to a sale under execution. A county’s commissioners court may authorize online bidding for these auctions. The Tax Appraisal District of Bell County publishes its own page describing the delinquent tax sale process, and that is the right place to check dates and local procedure rather than any third-party list.

If it does go to sale: redemption and excess proceeds

Two further protections exist after a tax sale, and both are time-limited.

The right of redemption. Under section 34.21(a), where the property was sold to a purchaser other than a taxing unit and was used as the owner’s residence homestead, or was land designated for agricultural use, at the time the suit or warrant application was filed, the owner may redeem it on or before the second anniversary of the date the purchaser’s deed is filed for record. You pay the purchaser the bid amount, the deed recording fee, and the taxes, penalties, interest and costs the purchaser paid, plus a redemption premium of 25 percent of that total in the first year or 50 percent in the second year.

That premium applies where a third party bought the property. If instead it was bid off to a taxing unit and the unit has not resold it, section 34.21(b) is cheaper and carries no redemption premium at all: you pay the unit the lesser of the judgment amount or the property’s market value as stated in that judgment, plus the unit’s deed filing fee and what it spent on the property in costs. If the taxing unit has already resold it, section 34.21(c) gives you two years from the date the unit files the sheriff’s or constable’s deed for record, paying the new purchaser what they paid plus the 25 or 50 percent premium. Properties are routinely struck off to a taxing unit when nobody else bids, so the cheaper route is not the unusual one.

For property that was not a homestead or ag-designated land, section 34.21(e) shortens the window sharply: 180 days from the recording of the deed, with the premium capped at 25 percent. The homestead designation is doing a great deal of work in that comparison.

Three details inside section 34.21 are worth knowing. Under subsection (h), the right of redemption does not give you the right to use or occupy the property, or to collect rent from it, while the right exists — so redemption is not a way to stay put. Under subsection (i), you may demand a written itemization of every amount the purchaser or taxing unit spent in costs, and it has teeth: the request must be in writing, the itemization must be delivered not later than the 10th day after the request is received, and only the amounts included in that itemization may be allowed as costs for redemption. Under subsection (l), the right of redemption cannot be sold or assigned at all — any instrument purporting to transfer it is void, which is worth knowing if somebody offers to buy it from you. And under subsection (f), if you cannot find the purchaser, they are not a county resident, you cannot agree on the amount, or they refuse a quitclaim deed, you may redeem by paying the county assessor-collector with a supporting affidavit.

Excess proceeds. If the property sells for more than the judgment and costs, the surplus does not belong to the taxing units. Under section 34.02(d) the officer pays it into court, and under section 34.03(a) the clerk must — where the excess is more than $25 — send written notice to the former owner at the last known address before the 31st day after the clerk receives the money, stating the amount, explaining the right to claim it, and including the text of the relevant sections. The clerk holds the money for two years.

Claiming it is section 34.04. A petition must be filed before the second anniversary of the date of the sale, and it can be filed under the cause number of the original suit rather than as a separate action. The court pays established claims in a statutory order; the former owner who was a defendant in the judgment sits in the last priority group, after taxing units and other lienholders, which means there is sometimes nothing left — and sometimes a great deal. Under section 34.03(b), if nobody establishes entitlement within the two years, the money is distributed to the taxing units instead. A deadline nobody tells you about is how that money is lost.

Two more things about excess proceeds. The former owner is not the only person who can claim: section 34.04(c)(5) also reaches someone related within the third degree by consanguinity or affinity to a former owner who was a defendant in the judgment. And section 34.04(f) regulates the outfits that offer to buy such a claim from you. An assignment of an owner’s claim to excess proceeds is not permitted unless it is taken on or after the 36th day after the money is deposited with the court, is in writing and signed, is not the result of an in-person or telephone solicitation, pays you at least 80 percent of the claim on the day it is signed, and carries your sworn statement that it was given voluntarily. Section 34.04(g) makes an assignee who obtains or even attempts to obtain the proceeds without complying liable to you for the proceeds plus attorney’s fees and expenses. If someone cold-calls you about money from a tax sale, that call is itself outside the statute.

Where selling fits, and where it does not

Delinquent property taxes almost never stop a sale. They are a lien, title will find them, and they are normally paid out of the seller’s proceeds at closing like any other payoff. If you have equity, the taxes come off the top and you keep the rest. If you want the longer version of how liens behave in a Bell County closing, we have written up which liens actually stop a sale and which simply get paid at closing.

So the real question is not whether you can sell. It is whether you should.

Work through it in this order, because the order saves money:

1. Is the bill correct? Check for a missed homestead, over-65, disabled or veteran exemption first. Section 11.431 reaches back two years. Reducing the debt beats financing it.
2. Can you stop the clock? On a homesteaded house, the section 33.02 installment agreement is an entitlement and switches off the penalty. If you are 65 or older, disabled, or a disabled veteran, the section 33.06 deferral and the section 31.031 four-payment plan are both open to you. If the lateness was the county’s error, the section 33.011 waiver has a 181-day written-request deadline.
3. Can you carry the house afterwards? A plan only works if the next year’s taxes do not go delinquent on top of it — and in Bell County that is an express condition of keeping an installment agreement alive.
4. Only then, does selling make sense? If the answer to the question above is no, or the arrears are large relative to the equity, or the house needs work you cannot fund, selling is a reasonable answer rather than a defeat.

And if you reach step four, there are two different ways to sell, which suit different houses. A house in reasonable condition, with time available and real equity at stake, usually does better on the open market, where more buyers compete for it — even allowing for repairs, showings and a longer timeline. A house that needs significant work, or a deadline that will not wait, is where a cash sale earns its discount. We have set out that comparison side by side, including the cases where we are the wrong answer.

Where we fit, and when we are not the right answer

Bell County Cash Offers buys houses in Temple, Belton, Killeen, Harker Heights, Salado, Nolanville and the surrounding area. We can close without a lender and without repairs, and delinquent taxes are paid through the closing out of the proceeds in the ordinary way.

We are not the right answer if any of the following is true, and we would rather say so here than after a visit. If the bill is wrong because an exemption was missed, fix that first. If you are 65 or older, disabled, or a disabled veteran and you want to stay in the house, the deferral and the four-payment plan exist precisely so that you do not have to sell. If the house is in good shape and you have equity and time, listing it will almost certainly net you more than we will offer. And if your arrears are modest relative to the value of the house, a free installment agreement at the appraisal district is a better deal than any sale.

What we will do, if you ask, is show you both numbers for your specific house — what a cash purchase would look like and what the house would likely bring on the open market — so the decision is made on arithmetic rather than on a deadline.

Bell County Cash Offers is a home-buying business. It is not a real estate brokerage. Jessie Walters separately holds Texas real estate broker license #509401 and owns JD Walters Real Estate LLC. When this business buys a house, the buyer is acting as a principal for its own benefit and is not representing you.