If you have a mortgage on your property, it is likely that the mortgage service provider will pay your property taxes for you before the end of the year. A portion of your mortgage payment is put into an escrow account that is used to pay your property taxes. The service provider uses last year's property tax payment as the basis to calculate how much of the mortgage payment is needed to cover the property tax expense each month (last year's tax bill divided by 12). If you successfully lower your appraised value below the previous year's value (and property tax rates stay the same), you will have an excess amount in the escrow account that is used to pay the property taxes. The service provider usually issues you a refund for the difference and lowers your mortgage payment for the next year.