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Old owner business property tax arrives at our house!

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saturday

Junior Member
Houston, TX
Bought a house in Houston, TX 2 years ago. Start receiving property tax statements for a "Church's Chicken" business 1 year after purchased the house. Found out from the previous owner's agent that the old owner owns a "Church's Chicken" business located in another city (Katy, TX). They still use our house as their corresponding address though the business is actually located in Katy city. Tried to contact them about the tax bill for their business but they ignored, or maybe their agent did not forward our message. Got bunch of property tax bills for "Church Chicken" at our house, and a lot of letters from attorney's office offering help for their business, don't know what they are since we don't open the letters/bills. But all of the bills/letters never have their names, only their business's name shows as "Church's Chicken, Homera Inc." Are we responsible for their business's tax bill, the outside of their tax statement looks very similar to the tax we got to pay for our property tax, and how do we stop them from using our address? We do have their new house's address on our closing papers when we bought the house, can we bring their new address to the tax office and have the property tax bill send to their current address?
Thank you for your help!
 


justalayman

Senior Member
is there some reason you have not simply called the tax office and informed them of the issue?

either mark the letters:

no such addressee at this address

or put them all in one envelope and send them or deliver them to the tax office and tell them: no such addressee at this address
 
You definitely are not responsible for the tax bills, especially since they are for a business that was never run from your current home. This is simply a case of getting someone else's mail. Mark the letters as "Return to Sender - Recipient is not at this address" and give them back to the post office. If you start getting any calls trying to get you to pay, tell them the same thing.
 

saturday

Junior Member
Issue resolved!

I contacted the tax office and was directed to the Harris County Appraisal District office. The HCAD told us that they will remove our address from the business account :D

justalayman: part of the hesitation was we didn't do our homework right when purchasing the house... thanks for your helpful yet humorous response :)

LordofBooks: thank you!
 

FlyingRon

Senior Member
What homework. This stuff happens. The old owner puts a forwarding order in when he moves out and it lasts a year and then anybody he didn't get around to telling his new address goes to you.
 

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