Pilot One State: Colorado, Out of Your National Portfolio
A single-state pilot carves the Colorado parcels out of a national or multi-state portfolio and gives them to one specialist for one appeal cycle; your incumbent keeps the rest of the book. Each parcel is priced on its own from the published contingency matrix (8% to 20% of realized savings by its annual tax bill, fixed in writing before signature), with no retainer, no minimum, and no invoice unless its taxes go down. You risk one letter of authorization scoped to the Colorado parcels; if the pilot does not earn the rest of the book, nothing else moved.
Why One State Is the Low-Risk Way to Test a Specialist
For the asset manager, head of real estate or corporate tax director who will not re-bid a national book to test one specialist in one state. Nothing changes outside Colorado: the incumbent keeps every other parcel, one letter of authorization covers the Colorado parcels, the pilot runs one cycle, and you judge it on results. The same four steps as every engagement, with a state line drawn around it.
Carve out Colorado
List the Colorado parcels, real and personal. The whole state is the default; one county or one metro is the narrower option, and the public 2025 county-board results show which counties settle at the assessor level and which go to hearing.
Send the notices
Real property: a written read within one week of receiving each notice of value, including when the answer is do not file. Business personal property: a written declaration memo within 30 days of receiving the county's property record card and your fixed-asset ledger, or a written date ahead of your county's personal-property protest deadline (in Colorado, June 30, or July 31 from 2027 in alternate-procedure counties), whichever is sooner.
File what is worth filing
Each parcel gets its own recommendation and its own fee, quoted in writing before you sign. Nothing is filed without your written instruction unless you choose the standing authorization below.
Judge me on the cycle
A 2027 reduction normally rides into 2028 untouched. At the cycle's close you hold the roll-up, every memo and every workpaper, and then decide about the rest of the book. After the pilot cycle the engagement continues year to year on the same terms, with annual recommendations for every property under engagement.
I am based in Colorado and work across the West and Midwest: I appear personally in Colorado and Utah, and I handle the other states I cover personally, case by case. The pilot draws its line at Colorado because that is the state under test, not because it is the only state I work. The same pilot can be drawn around any other state I cover; say which state and the letter of authorization is scoped to it.
How the Colorado Parcels Come Out Cleanly
One letter of authorization, Colorado only
It names the Colorado parcels only, effective on a date you set: the incumbent's authority on those parcels ends the day mine begins, so its filings and mine never overlap, and its authorizations everywhere else are untouched. Signed before May 1, the evidence is built ahead of June 1.
The engagement letter
It lists every pilot parcel, the fee for each, and the next deadline on each; what is not listed is not engaged, and the rest of your portfolio does not appear in it. I personally handle the full protest season (filings, extensions, hearings, BPP protests), and the backup practitioner is named in the engagement letter before you sign.
What the incumbent hands over
The prior cycle's workpapers on the Colorado parcels: protest, petition, evidence, any stipulation or decision. Anything already pending on a Colorado parcel, an open abatement or a matter at the Board of Assessment Appeals, stays with the incumbent unless you move it in writing.
Thirty days, no tail, file returned
Either side can end it on thirty days' written notice. No fee tail on unfiled work; the complete file comes back within ten days. Full terms on how an engagement works.
What I Do Across the Colorado Parcels in 2027
2027 is a revaluation year; every date below is mine to meet on every pilot parcel. The second date, where shown, applies in the nine counties over 300,000 population that § 39-5-122.7, C.R.S. puts on the alternate protest and appeal procedure in a reappraisal year; any county may elect it.
Real property
| Date | What Happens |
|---|---|
| By May 1, 2027 | Notices of valuation mail, valued as of June 30, 2026. Written read within one week per parcel. |
| June 1, 2027 | Assessor protest deadline, moved up from June 8 by SB26-046. Every protest filed by me. |
| By end of June (August 15 in alternate-procedure counties) | Assessor notices of determination mail; accept-or-escalate recommendation in writing, per parcel. |
| July 15 (September 15 in alternate-procedure counties) | County Board of Equalization petition deadline; I argue the hearing. In alternate-procedure counties, income-and-expense disclosure is due July 15 and enters the record. |
| Later of September 1, December 1 in alternate-procedure counties, or 30 days after an off-schedule decision | Board of Assessment Appeals, district court, or binding arbitration (SB26-046). Nothing escalated without instruction. |
Business personal property
| Date | What Happens |
|---|---|
| April 15, 2027 | DS 056 declaration due in each county; extensions by written request. At or below the $58,000 exemption, nothing is filed. |
| June 15, 2027 (July 15 in alternate-procedure counties) | Personal property notices of valuation mail. |
| June 30, 2027 (July 31 in alternate-procedure counties) | Protest deadline; determinations mail by July 10 (August 15 in alternate-procedure counties). |
Full calendar and authorities in the Colorado guide; printable table on appeal deadlines.
What I Need From You, Per Colorado Parcel
Send what you have; nothing you send enters my published database.
Every parcel
The notice of value, the current tax bill, and the prior cycle's filings: protest, petition, any stipulation or decision.
Income property
The rent roll as of the assessment date and two years of profit-and-loss statements, with concessions and vacancy shown rather than netted.
Hotels
Two years of departmental P&L, the STR report, and any PIP schedule with spend to date; Colorado hotel cases are won inside the Rushmore method.
Business personal property
The signed agent authorization (the one letter of authorization above, naming the personal-property accounts too), so I can pull the full property record card from the county, and your fixed-asset ledger with in-service dates and idle or retired assets. The last declaration and the current notice are context, not the review: the annual declaration only shows that year's adds and deletes. Declarations are confidential by statute.
Two Ways to Authorize a Filing
The default is the same on every engagement; the option spares you a late-May signature round across a dozen parcels.
Default: parcel by parcel
Nothing is filed without your written go-ahead, property by property; I wait for your instruction on each protest, petition, escalation and settlement.
Option: a standing authorization for the cycle
The engagement letter can carry a standing written authorization to file assessor-level protests on named parcels for the 2027 cycle. The checkpoint memo still goes out before each filing; I simply do not wait for a reply. Petitions, escalations and settlements still require written instruction, parcel by parcel.
Reporting That Drops Into a Portfolio Review
The commitment is a written status memo every month a file is active, and a written checkpoint at each of three points: before anything is filed, before any settlement is accepted, and after every decision. On a pilot the monthly memo carries a roll-up: one line per Colorado parcel, as an Excel workbook and a PDF, nothing to log into.
| Column | What It Holds |
|---|---|
| Parcel | Schedule number, address, type. |
| County | County, roll, and standard or alternate procedure. |
| Stage | Reviewed, filed, determined, petitioned, heard, decided, escalated. |
| Next deadline | Date and event. |
| Value protested | Notice value beside the value I filed for. |
| Value achieved | Value after each determination, decision or stipulation. |
| Tax at stake | Annual tax difference at the current levy. |
| Accrual figure | The number for your books, method noted. |
At year end the accrual column becomes the reserve and accrual memo on your close calendar.
Priced Per Property, Like Everything Else
Each Colorado parcel is priced from the published matrix by its own annual tax bill (20% of realized savings under $200,000 of tax, down to 8% above $2 million), with the rate in the engagement letter before signature. Five or more properties get a written schedule, still priced per property, at or below the published matrix. That schedule is named, per property, in the Free Assessment Review memo for the set, before anything is signed. No retainers, no minimums.
Start with a Free Assessment Review on the Colorado parcels
Send the Colorado notices, or just the addresses, under a mutual confidentiality agreement on your paper if you want one first. Acknowledged within one business day; each parcel gets its own written read, with the per-property fee schedule named in the memo. Nothing is signed, and nothing moves at the incumbent, until you have read it.
Not sure any are worth filing? Read should you appeal your Colorado commercial assessment first.