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Santa Clara County homeowners have the power to challenge how much they pay in property taxes every year. But it could start costing hundreds of dollars to appeal.
County leaders are considering charging single-family home and condo owners $290 to appeal the county assessor’s determination of their property’s value, which in turn determines the taxes homeowners pay on their property. The $290 fee will also apply to owners of townhomes and multifamily properties with four homes or fewer, as well as agricultural land and vacant land appeals.
County leaders are also proposing a nonrefundable $675 charge for appeals on commercial, industrial and multifamily apartment properties with more than four homes. They argue the appeals process is taking up time and resources that the county budget doesn’t have as it absorbs massive federal funding losses. If approved, the new fees would bring in $3.4 million in revenue per year — largely covering the $3.5 million cost to run the assessment appeals program annually.
The recommendations moved forward Tuesday in a unanimous vote by the county Finance and Government Operations Committee. The proposal will go before the Board of Supervisors for final approval at a later date.
It’s part of a broader county effort to rethink the fees officials charge for certain public services — and squeeze every dime the county can to grapple with its structural budget deficit.
“In response to unprecedented federal budget cuts, county administration is actively reviewing fee structures across programs to ensure effective cost recovery,” County Executive James Williams told San José Spotlight. “Our recent study confirmed that a reasonable, fair fee structure based on appeal type will make the program financially self-sufficient and significantly reduce reliance on the general fund, freeing up dollars for critical, at-risk services.”
Acting Assessor Greg Monteverde — who is filling the role until Assessor-elect Neysa Fligor is sworn into office Jan. 26 — said his office wasn’t involved in this request. The county clerk handles assessment appeals.
“The Assessor’s Office did not propose this fee, nor are any of the assessor’s costs included in it,” Monteverde told San José Spotlight.
The county is looking at the fees to clamp down on another emerging problem.
Officials said the appeals process is being gamed and monetized by third parties who convince property owners it’s cheaper to file appeals on their behalf. County leaders said these third parties generally collect a fee regardless of whether the savings result from a formal appeal or informal review and proactive reduction. These appeals have risen from 315 in 2019 to 2,623 in 2025, according to the county.
“It’s a mechanism that has been taken advantage of due to the fact that this county is one of the counties that does not have assessment appeals fees,” Williams said at the meeting. “The huge volume increase creates on its own significant burden that impacts the system’s collective ability to timely dispense with actual assessment appeals being brought forward by people acting on their own behalf or who have chosen to retain an agent with some actual conscious effort.”
Cupertino Mayor Liang Chao has been a vocal opponent of making residents shoulder the burden of the county’s budget recovery efforts. She campaigned against Measure A, a five-eighths-cent sales tax increase approved by voters in November. The county has said it will use the revenue to protect its hospitals from federal spending cuts, though funds aren’t specifically earmarked for that purpose.
Chao isn’t entirely opposed to charging for property value appeals. Other counties collect fees for assessment appeal applications — Los Angeles County charges about $50 and San Francisco County charges $120.
“While introducing fees makes sense, jumping from $0 to full cost recovery … seems too aggressive,” Chao told San José Spotlight. “A more prudent approach might be to start with 50% cost recovery while also exploring opportunities for cost reductions.”
Chao also called for a comparison with other counties’ fees before adopting a full cost recovery model.
Michael Gordon, president of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors, is voicing a higher register of alarm. He said charging homeowners to challenge their property tax assessment is “fundamentally unfair.”
“The assessment appeals process is a core county function that is already funded by taxpayers, and imposing an additional fee amounts to double taxation on residents who are simply exercising their right to ensure their home is assessed accurately,” Gordon told San José Spotlight. “At a time when housing affordability is already under pressure, this proposal risks discouraging legitimate appeals and shifts the county’s budget problems onto homeowners who may already be overpaying.”
Property owners receive yearly notice of their assessed value in June. Most appeals are filed between July 2 and Sept. 15 and residents usually receive their final tax bill in October. Other appeals come year-round based on various activities and supplemental assessments.
County Clerk Curtis Boone said the county takes proactive measures to find relief for property owners every year. That includes a computer-assisted mass appraisal system to find homes that merit a value reduction. Residential property owners can also request an informal review by the Assessor’s Office before filing an appeal, allowing residents to bring new information that might affect the assessment and come to a quicker resolution.
“Most of this is free to the applicant and not even mandated by law,” Boone said at the meeting. “Our staff spend significantly more time on the commercial and business appeals, which make up 54% of the annual filings but 73% of county staff’s processing efforts each year.”
District 2 Supervisor Betty Duong, who sits on the committee, questioned whether the proposed commercial fees were sound, given not all businesses are the same size. She asked county officials to study the impacts of the fees to businesses of varying sizes, if the board of supervisors approves the proposed fees.
“I feel we could do a better job with commercial property with tiered levels based on any number of factors such as employees and gross revenue,” Duong said at the meeting.
This story was written by Brandon Pho for San José Spotlight. The original version of this article can be viewed here.
Contact Brandon Pho at brandon@sanjosespotlight.com or @brandonphooo on X.
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