Property taxes in Douglas County are calculated by multiplying your assessed value by the consolidated mill levy for your tax district. The levy is set by elected bodies; the value is set by the County Assessor. Only one of those is open to challenge by an individual owner — the value. This guide walks through every step of that challenge for the 2026 cycle.
When you can file
The Douglas County Board of Equalization accepts written protests between June 1 and June 30 each year. There is no partial-month tolerance: a protest postmarked or e-filed on July 1 is not heard. The thirty-day window is the same regardless of whether your property received a notice of valuation change.
If the BOE’s final decision does not satisfy you, you have until September 10 to appeal to the Tax Equalization and Review Commission (TERC). Miss that, and the value stands for the year.
Deciding whether your case is worth filing
Filing is free. The hidden cost is the hour or two you spend gathering evidence, plus the small reputational tax of telling the assessor your comp set looks bad. Before that effort, you want a quick screen of whether the case even holds up. Here is the manual version — the “five-minute” screen that, done properly, takes most of an afternoon:
- Find your parcel on the assessor’s online lookup. Search by address, confirm it’s the right record, and note the assessed value, finished square footage, bedroom count, and year built.
- Hand-pull three to five comparable sales. Dig through county sale records for similar properties within roughly a half-mile that closed in the prior calendar year, matched on age (within ten years), size (within ten percent), and basic condition. Discard the family transfers and distressed sales as you go.
- Compute the median and compare.Take the median sale price of that comp set. If the assessor’s value sits meaningfully above it, you have a starting case. If it’s at or below, the protest is unlikely to win.
That is the work, done right — an hour of public-records spelunking before you even know whether you have a case. Or enter your address here and get the same screen — record, comps, and the comparison — in about thirty seconds. If the case is weak, it’ll tell you so.
Grounds Douglas County actually accepts
Nebraska statute recognizes a small number of valid grounds for protest. The two that succeed most often in residential filings are:
- Overvaluation by market evidence.Comparable sales from the prior twelve months support a lower value than the assessor’s opinion.
- Unequal appraisal.Other comparable properties in your area are assessed at a lower percentage of their market value than yours. It rests on Nebraska’s uniformity requirement (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 77-201) and is raised through the § 77-1502 protest, covered in its own post.
Grounds the BOE will not act on include: your tax bill being higher than last year (taxes are not value), your inability to pay, dislike of the mill levy, and general inflation arguments. Pick a ground tied to value, not to taxation.
Building the evidence packet
A complete packet has four parts: a one-page protest letter stating the ground and the requested value; the comparable-sales analysis with five to seven sales (more than the three to five you used to screen — a filing wants the extra corroboration); photographs of any condition issues; and supporting documents (recent appraisal, sale of the subject property, repair estimates).
The hearing officer reads dozens of protests per week. A short, ordered packet with one clear request beats a long, exhaustive one. Lead with your strongest comparable; everything after it is corroboration.
Strong comparables share four attributes with your property: location (same school district, ideally same neighborhood); size (within ten percent of finished square footage); age (within ten years); and basic condition. Adjust for differences in writing. The BOE will not adjust for you.
Filing the protest
File using Nebraska Form 422. Douglas County accepts electronic submission through the Board of Equalization’s online filing portal, run by the County Clerk, paper delivery to the County Clerk’s office, and postmarked mail. E-filing produces an immediate confirmation; paper does not. If you mail, send certified.
You can file one Form 422 per parcel. If you own multiple parcels under protest, file separately for each. Do not combine.
The referee review and the hearing
Every protest is first reviewed by a county refereeworking from the record you submitted. If the referee agrees with your evidence, you’ll receive a recommended adjustment without ever appearing. This is why you should treat the written packet as the main event, not the warm-up.
You can also request a brief in-person or telephone appointment with the referee to walk through your case. Be ready to make it in five minutes: one sentence on the ground, two on your best comparable, one on the value you’re requesting. The Board then votes on the referee’s recommendations.
After the decision
The Board issues final decisions in August, typically mailing notices by mid-month. If your protest succeeds, the new value flows automatically to the taxing bodies; you do not need to do anything to claim the reduction. If it fails or partially fails, your TERC deadline is September 10. TERC appeals are a different forum and a different evidentiary standard; most owners stop at the BOE.
If you want help
The analysis at Big Red Value is free and shows your case strength in about thirty seconds. If the evidence is weak, we’ll say so. If it’s strong, you can either prepare the packet yourself using this guide or have us generate it. Start with your address.