What Travis County Homeowners Can Do If They Can't Pay Their Property Tax Bill by January 31
A step-by-step guide to installment plans, deferrals, tax loans, and the July 1 deadline that changes everything
A step-by-step guide to installment plans, deferrals, tax loans, and the July 1 deadline that changes everything
The Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector mailed 2025 property tax bills in mid-October. If you’re opening yours right now and the number is impossible, you’re not alone. And you’re not out of options. But the options narrow fast, and some of them close permanently on dates that are closer than most homeowners realize.
This piece picks up where the appraisal-protest and bill-explainer coverage left off. You’ve seen the number. You’ve decided you can’t pay it by January 31. Now what?
The answer depends on when you act, what exemptions you hold, and whether you have a mortgage. Here’s what each path actually costs you, in dollars, on a real Austin home.
The January 31 Deadline Has No Grace Period
Texas law is unusually blunt on this point. January 31 is the delinquency date, not a soft target. There’s no 15-day grace window, no first-missed-payment courtesy notice, no 30-day cure period. The morning of February 1, under Texas Tax Code §33.01, your account is delinquent and the penalty clock starts running.
Travis County sends a reminder notice before that date — the October mailing is the primary bill. But the county doesn’t send a second statutory notice before penalties attach. The February 1 clock is automatic. It doesn’t care that you were traveling or that the bill got buried in the holiday mail pile.
The Penalty Math on a Real Austin Home, Month by Month
To make the penalty schedule concrete, apply it to a home assessed at approximately $480,000 — a value representative of older neighborhoods in 78704 (Zilker, Travis Heights), 78745 (South Congress corridor), Hyde Park, and Brentwood, after the standard homestead exemption is applied but before any other reductions.
The combined tax rate for a Travis County homeowner — blending county, City of Austin, Austin ISD, and other applicable levies — has shifted in recent years as Austin ISD rates fell under state compression formulas. Readers should verify their specific rate on their bill; the examples below use the penalty percentages from Texas Tax Code §33.01, which are fixed by statute regardless of rate.
Here’s what §33.01 adds, month by month, expressed as a percentage of your base delinquent tax bill:
On February 1, a 6% penalty plus 1% interest attaches immediately — a combined 7% charge on the full delinquent amount. On a $480,000 home with an annual bill near the Travis County range, that’s several hundred dollars added in a single day. Not at the end of the month. Day one.
By March 1, another 1% penalty plus 1% interest accrues, bringing your total added cost to 8% of the original bill. April 1 reaches 9%; May 1, 10%; June 1, 11%.
Then comes July 1. That’s where the structure of delinquency changes entirely — and not in a gradual, “one more percent” kind of way.
The 6% penalty on February 1 is not graduated — it hits all at once. The homeowner who misses the deadline by one week faces the same February penalty as the homeowner who misses it by three weeks. The penalty percentages apply to the outstanding tax balance, not to each other — so the math is straightforward, but it’s also relentless. Every month you wait, the gap between what you owe and what you can reasonably pay grows wider.
The County Installment Plan, and What It Actually Costs You to Use It
The first option most homeowners should evaluate is the installment agreement under Texas Tax Code §33.02. It’s a formal, legal payment arrangement with Travis County. Not a hardship program, not a forgiveness program — a structured way to pay what you owe over time without the debt being referred to a collection attorney. Think of it as the county meeting you halfway, before things get ugly.
Almost any homeowner with a residential homestead exemption on the property whose taxes are delinquent as of February 1 qualifies. The homestead exemption is the key prerequisite. If you haven’t filed for a homestead exemption, you don’t qualify for the §33.02 agreement. Verify whether your exemption is on file through the Travis Central Appraisal District’s online property search.
The hard deadline to initiate this agreement is before July 1. Once the account is referred to a collection attorney on or after July 1, the §33.02 installment option is no longer available from the county. This makes the window — February 1 through June 30 — the operative period for this option. Six months sounds like a lot of runway. It isn’t, once you account for how quickly people talk themselves into waiting.
The law requires a minimum of four equal installments. The first payment is due when you execute the agreement; subsequent payments follow at intervals laid out in the agreement. This is a within-the-year structure, not a multi-year repayment plan. The cost arrives in the form of penalties that have already attached. If you initiate the agreement in April, the February, March, and April penalties — cumulatively 9% of your base bill — are rolled into the balance you’re paying off. Entering the installment agreement stops further penalty escalation, but it doesn’t forgive what has already accrued.
Contact the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector’s office directly to initiate an installment agreement. Whether the agreement can be initiated online, by phone, or requires a written request should be confirmed with the Tax Office at the time of your contact, as procedures are subject to change. Homeowners with complex situations — multiple properties, disputed exemption status, pending protest — should call rather than submitting any online request so questions can be resolved in real time.
The agreement carries no origination fee. Your cost is the penalties that have already accrued by the time you execute the agreement, plus interest on the outstanding balance. Compared with the July 1 collection-attorney referral, this is by far the cheaper path if you can meet the installment payments. If you default on the agreement, the account reverts to standard delinquency and collection action resumes.
The July 1 Cliff, and What Happens When a Collection Attorney Takes Over
July 1 isn’t just another point on the penalty schedule. It’s a qualitative change in who you’re dealing with and how much you owe.
On or after July 1, Travis County is authorized to refer delinquent accounts to a contracted collection law firm. When that referral happens, the collection firm’s fee — typically between 15% and 20% of the delinquent balance — gets added to what you owe. On a home with a base annual tax bill in the range typical for a $480,000 Travis County property, plus several months of accumulated penalties, that attorney fee can amount to thousands of dollars. Potentially over $1,500 to $2,000 or more, depending on the contracted percentage. The exact percentage in Travis County’s current collection contract is verifiable through the county’s public contract records and is worth confirming directly with the Tax Office if you’ve received a referral notice.
After referral, the collection attorney — not the Travis County Tax Office — becomes your primary point of contact for resolving the debt. Travis County mails notices to delinquent accounts during the delinquency period. If you receive a letter in May or June referencing your delinquent account and the possibility of attorney referral, treat it as a warning. Act immediately. Do not wait for a second one.
The Over-65 and Disability Deferral, and What It Does Not Do
For homeowners 65 and older, or those who qualify as disabled under Social Security Administration criteria, Texas Tax Code §33.06 provides a deferral option. Worth understanding clearly: a deferral is not forgiveness. The tax doesn’t go away.
You must have a residential homestead exemption on the property and qualify as either age 65 or older, or disabled as defined by the Social Security Act. The property must be your primary homestead, not a rental or second home. Once granted, the deferral halts all collection action on the delinquent taxes. The county cannot file suit, cannot refer the account to the collection attorney, and cannot proceed toward a forced sale while the deferral is in effect. For a homeowner facing immediate financial crisis, this protection is tangible and real — it’s the one option that genuinely buys time without immediately trading you into a private lending relationship.
What the deferral doesn’t do is stop interest from accruing. Under §33.06, interest continues to accumulate at 5% per year on the deferred balance for as long as the deferral remains in place. This is lower than the penalty rate during standard delinquency, but it’s not zero. At 5% per year, a deferred tax balance grows. On a balance in the range of a typical Travis County tax bill, five years of deferral adds roughly 27% to the outstanding amount; ten years adds roughly 63%.
The deferred balance — original taxes plus all accrued interest — becomes immediately payable when the property is sold, when the qualifying owner dies (with some exceptions), or when the homestead status is lost for any reason. Heirs who inherit the property inherit the deferred tax debt. If the estate lacks liquidity, the family home may need to be sold to resolve a deferred balance that grew over many years. This is the part that surprises families most. If the property has appreciated significantly — as most Austin-area homes have — the homeowner or their estate can typically resolve the balance from sale proceeds. But heirs should not be surprised by it, and ideally shouldn’t be finding out for the first time at the closing table.
Under Texas law, a surviving spouse who meets a minimum age threshold at the time of the qualifying owner’s death may continue the deferral on the property, provided it remains their homestead and they maintain the required exemptions. Confirm the specific age requirement with the Travis County Tax Office or a licensed Texas attorney, as this detail is subject to statutory specification.
The deferral requires submitting the appropriate affidavit form to the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector. Contact the Tax Office directly to obtain the correct current form and confirm the submission process, including whether the form can be filed by mail or requires in-person submission.
What Happens to Your Mortgage If You Go Delinquent
Texas property tax liens hold first priority over all other liens on the property, including your mortgage lien. A mortgage lender’s financial interest in the collateral — your home — is legally subordinate to the taxing authorities’ claim. If a property goes to forced sale for tax delinquency, the taxing authorities are paid before the mortgage lender sees a dollar.
That legal reality gives your mortgage servicer both the right and a strong financial incentive to intervene before your tax delinquency ripens into a foreclosure. Many mortgage servicers monitor county delinquency records. When your account goes delinquent, the servicer — particularly if you have an escrow account — is likely to advance the tax payment to the county on your behalf. This protects their lien position. The payment is logged as an escrow advance, effectively a loan from your servicer to cover your tax obligation.
Federal mortgage servicing rules allow servicers to require repayment of an escrow shortfall over time, typically spread across monthly payments. The result: a sharp upward adjustment to your monthly payment, often arriving with little warning in the form of an escrow analysis statement. A homeowner who couldn’t pay an annual tax bill may now face a monthly mortgage payment that has jumped substantially to cover the escrow advance repayment, on top of regular principal, interest, and escrow contribution. That combination can trigger a mortgage delinquency in a household that was managing to stay current on its mortgage payment before the tax problem surfaced. One problem becomes two.
Texas is a non-judicial foreclosure state, meaning a lender doesn’t need a court order to foreclose. Once the conditions for foreclosure are met under the deed of trust, the process can move to a foreclosure sale considerably faster than most homeowners expect — and materially faster than in states that require judicial proceedings. If you suspect your servicer has already advanced a tax payment, call them now. Not to dispute it, but to understand the timeline and the repayment structure. Knowing what’s coming gives you negotiating room. Waiting until the escrow analysis arrives does not.
Property Tax Loans, and When the Math Actually Favors One
Texas has an unusual private property tax lending market that exists almost nowhere else in the country. A licensed property tax lender pays your Travis County tax bill in full, stopping penalty accrual and collection action immediately. You repay the lender over a multi-year term, typically two to ten years, at an agreed interest rate. The lender pays Travis County, takes a lien on your property, and you make monthly payments to the lender rather than the county. From Travis County’s perspective, your tax debt is paid. From your perspective, you’ve traded a government debt for a private one — which is sometimes exactly the right trade and sometimes really isn’t.
Licensed Texas property tax lenders have recently quoted APRs in the range of roughly 8% to 16%, depending on the borrower’s credit profile, loan-to-value ratio, and loan term. Verify current rates directly with any lender you contact, as market rates fluctuate. The tax loan immediately stops the county penalty clock. No further §33.01 penalties, no July 1 collection-attorney referral, no lender escrow cascade. The multi-year repayment term makes the monthly obligation substantially more manageable than the county’s four-installment structure. For a homeowner with a real income constraint who cannot meet four installment payments within a single calendar year, the tax loan’s longer horizon is a legitimate advantage.
You now have a private lienholder on your home, and if you default on the tax loan, the lender can pursue foreclosure. Some lenders charge origination fees on top of the interest rate. The total cost of a tax loan will exceed the county installment plan for most borrowers who can manage the county’s timeline. Tax loans tend to work best for homeowners who cannot realistically meet four installment payments before year-end, who have enough home equity that private lender risk is manageable, and who aren’t eligible for the over-65 or disability deferral. For everyone else, the county installment plan or deferral is usually the better starting point.
Before signing anything, verify that your lender holds a current OCCC license through the Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner, which licenses and regulates property tax lenders. The OCCC also maintains a complaint process. Do not work with any lender who can’t produce their OCCC license number on request. This is not a situation where you want to find out later that you were dealing with someone operating outside the regulatory framework.
Local Resources in Austin That Can Help
Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas (VLS) provides free civil legal assistance to Travis County residents who meet income guidelines. The organization has handled property-related legal matters; confirm whether property tax delinquency issues fall within their current intake scope when you call.
Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) serves low-income residents across Texas, including Travis County, on property and housing matters. Confirm current Travis County availability and intake process directly with the organization.
The Travis Central Appraisal District maintains a Taxpayer Liaison Officer — a free, public-sector resource that a surprising number of homeowners don’t know exists. This person’s role is to help residents navigate the appraisal and tax system. If you don’t know where to start, if you’re not even sure whether you have a homestead exemption on file or what options apply to your situation, this office is a reasonable first call. Reach TCAD through its main line and ask for the Taxpayer Liaison.
If you’ve received an attorney-referral notice or suit has been filed, a Travis County tax attorney (not a protest attorney) is the right specialist. This distinction matters more than it sounds. Appraisal protest attorneys help you fight your assessed value before a bill is due. Tax collection defense attorneys help you after delinquency — when you’ve received an attorney-referral notice, when suit has been filed, or when you’re evaluating options like the deferral combined with a potential sale. As part of our legal and finance coverage, we’ve written about related Texas property law issues that affect Austin homeowners. The State Bar of Texas lawyer referral service can connect you with attorneys in this specialty.
A Decision Checklist for the Next 48 Hours
If you’ve just missed January 31 or know you’re about to, here’s the ranked sequence of decisions, grounded in the calendar, not in the abstract.
Start by confirming your homestead exemption is on file. Almost every option in this article — the installment plan, the over-65 deferral, some mortgage-servicer options — requires an active homestead exemption. Check now through the Travis Central Appraisal District’s online property search before doing anything else. Seriously, before anything else.
Next, determine whether you or a co-owner qualifies for the over-65 or disability deferral. If yes, this is likely your first call. The deferral stops collection action immediately and buys time without the cost structure of a private loan. Contact the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector’s office to obtain the correct current form and filing instructions.
Contact the Travis County Tax Office before July 1 to initiate an installment agreement. If it’s February, March, April, May, or June, this window is open. Don’t assume you have time to decide later. Penalties are accruing now, and July 1 closes this option permanently.
Call your mortgage servicer to determine whether a lender advance has occurred. If your mortgage includes an escrow account for taxes and insurance, your servicer may have already paid Travis County. Find out now so the escrow adjustment doesn’t arrive as a surprise.
Evaluate a tax loan only if the installment timeline is genuinely unworkable. Run the comparison honestly — the county’s four-installment structure may cost less in total than multiple years of private interest. Verify any lender’s OCCC license before signing.
If an attorney-referral notice has already arrived, contact a local tax defense attorney — not a protest attorney — before responding to the collection firm. Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid are starting points if cost is a barrier. Homeowners who have also gone through the Travis County appraisal protest process should know that how to protest your Travis County property tax appraisal is a separate procedure from resolving a delinquent bill — the two tracks don’t overlap.
The July 1 cliff is the key operational date. But the installment plan, the county’s least costly option, requires you to initiate before that date arrives. Penalties are accruing from February 1 onward. Every month of delay increases what you owe when you finally do act. The homeowners who navigate delinquency without lasting financial damage are almost always the ones who called the Tax Office first — in February or March — rather than the ones who waited to see what would happen next.
Penalty percentages in this article reflect the Texas Tax Code §33.01 statutory schedule. Dollar figures for illustrative purposes only; your actual bill and penalty amounts will differ based on your assessed value, applicable exemptions, and your jurisdiction’s current combined tax rate. Verify your rate on your current tax bill. This article is informational and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Consult a licensed Texas attorney for guidance specific to your situation. Readers should verify current procedures, form numbers, phone numbers, and resource availability directly with the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector’s office and named organizations before acting.
