Anonymous ABC13 viewer pays Houston woman's $14K tax bill after 13 Investigates story

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Lynder Whittington said she had been helping take care of and living with her parents for years before her dad died in 2018.

The southwest Houston house was in her dad's name, and when he died, any exemptions on the home that would lower those property taxes went away.

Exemptions can lower the value of your property and limit the increase of your property value, but Whittington said she didn't know about them and wasn't familiar with the process of protesting her property value with the appraisal district, which ultimately determines how much she owes in taxes.

The property value for the home rose from $132,000 in 2021 to $205,000 this year, and her taxes increased significantly.

"A lot of us need to be educated, and we're not educated a lot with the property taxes because I had no idea about a lot of this stuff," Whittington said.

Newly elected Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar Annette Ramirez said that's not unusual.

"There's just a real disparity in Harris County on folks who know how to protest their property values and how their values have remained kind of steady versus folks who don't necessarily have the resources or the knowledge to know how to protest their values," Ramirez said.

The tax assessor-collector doesn't have the exact number of people who qualify for exemptions but aren't taking advantage of them, but says that it's most prevalent in lower middle-income communities.

Ramirez took office in January, and one of her team's priorities is to educate residents of Harris County on how property taxes work and how they can keep their burden as low as possible.

They're holding workshops to educate the community.

Ramirez said she intends to launch a program in January that allows people to pay their property taxes monthly, rather than having to come up with a one-time lump sum when annual taxes are due.

"As people struggle with their property taxes, they run the risk of losing their homes, and then you see gentrification happening and people coming, developers coming in, and they buy those properties at foreclosure, and they flip them, and they start gentrifying the neighborhood," Ramirez said.

RELATED: 13 Investigates how property tax disparities impact Houston homeowners

13 Investigates spoke with Whittington last month as part of a joint investigation with ABC News and our owned television stations.

Our investigation found that across the U.S., some Americans are being priced out of their own homes as property values rise in their changing neighborhoods and property taxes become unaffordable.

Whittington previously told us she works seven days a week and took on a second job after she got behind on the home's property taxes.

She said she got on a payment plan with the county to pay the home's back taxes, which were roughly $14,000.

After our story aired, Whittington said she received support from across the city, including an anonymous and generous viewer who spent more than $14,000 to fully pay off the property taxes Whittington owes.

Whittington was in tears when 13 Investigates shared the news with her.

"That probably would take me forever. I never expected that. Thank you," she said.

Whittington said she also received help from the Harris County Appraisal District and sent in paperwork for an heirship exemption that should help her lower her taxes.

"I will continue to keep working so I cannot fall behind like that," she said.

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