For nearly a decade, Yvonne Blackstock didn’t realize she was paying thousands of dollars in property taxes she didn’t owe.
Then, she fell behind on her property tax payments. Dallas Code Enforcement cited her for peeling paint and broken siding. Her father, battling dementia, stopped paying the tax bill. The foreclosure warnings would later arrive for the 100-year-old home.
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“I was scared I was going to lose the only home I’ve ever known,” Blackstock said.
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As her property taxes mounted, Blackstock was on the verge of being forced out of her home.
She was one of hundreds of Dallas homeowners who have fallen into financial trouble after losing property tax exemptions tied to deceased relatives, a bureaucratic gap that can lead to overpayment, code violations and even foreclosure. Community courts and pro bono help are working together to keep longtime residents from losing their homes.
When her mother, Wilma Johnson, died in 2006, Blackstock’s father, Floyd Johnson, kept ownership of the house, but he suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and his daughter didn’t know about the house’s finances.
Floyd Johnson transferred ownership of the house, located in the southern neighborhood of Kleberg in Dallas, to Blackstock in 2023. The homestead exemption was removed in 2018. Neither Blackstock nor her dad knew, she said.
“Nobody ever told me I had to reapply,” Blackstock, 58, said, standing on the porch of the wood-frame house her family rebuilt after a fire when she was five. “We thought it just carried over.”
As a result, she was paying several thousand more in property taxes than she needed to.
Yvonne Blackstock is seen with her cats, Lovely (left) and Sandwich (right), in her house on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, in Dallas.
Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer
The Dallas Central Appraisal District did what it was supposed to: It removed the exemption after the owner’s death, but the appraisal district didn’t learn about Wilma’s death until 2016. In 2018, they sent a revocation of homestead exemption letter, and with no follow-up or outreach from the family, the system moved on, appraisal district spokesperson Cheryl Jordan said.
Every January, by law, the appraisal district mails letters to any property that does not have a homestead exemption, the owner is an individual and the mailing address matches the property address. In 2025, the appraisal district mailed 98,000 letters. About 580,000 properties are exempt, according to the Dallas appraisal district.
The entity does not track how many people reapply after these letters are mailed out.
“A lot of people just either don’t act or they don’t respond,” Jordan said. “I don’t know why, but until they get a big tax bill, all of a sudden, it gets their attention.”
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Jordan said the appraisal district mailed multiple letters to the Blackstock residence from 2018 to 2025 and never received a response until this summer, when Blackstock submitted a homestead application along with her mother’s death certificate, proof of her Social Security disability and the house deed.
Community court’s role
Blackstock didn’t know what to do until the case reached the city’s community court at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. There, she was assigned to social worker Ebony Eugene.
The court allows residents cited for property violations to work through community service while addressing the underlying problems that led to the citations. To participate, Blackstock pleaded no contest to the code citations for failure to protect exterior surfaces. In return, she agreed to work off her fines and bring her home up to code. Her community service included cleaning gardens and helping at a food pantry.
Eugene connected Blackstock with Toby Toler, a Dallas property tax specialist who takes on pro bono cases for homeowners caught in bureaucratic limbo.
“People like Miss Yvonne [Blackstock] don’t even know where to start,” Toler said. “They don’t know who to talk to, what forms to bring or what building to go to. The system just assumes everyone can navigate it, and that’s not fair.”
Toler drove Blackstock to the Social Security office himself, helping her gather proof of disability — one of the key documents needed to restore her exemption. After hours of waiting to get this document, he filed the paperwork with the appraisal district in June.
Three months later, Blackstock’s homestead exemption was approved. The effective date is 2023, meaning she will receive refunds for taxes paid in both 2023 and 2024, approximately $7,400.
State law allows residents to receive a refund for the difference, dating back to the two previous years.
“The financial impact of straightening out her title and exemptions is massive,” Toler said.
Blackstock’s 2025 tax bill was supposed to be $3,735; now she owes $182.
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“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It’s like a weight off my shoulders. I can breathe again and continue paying for the repairs in my house.”
Blackstock wants to fix her floor and paint her kitchen red.
Systemic problems, local solutions
Toler says Blackstock’s case is far from unique. When a homeowner dies, property title issues — known as “heirship problems” — often create confusion about ownership and taxation.
Yvonne Blackstock stands by a front entrance in her house, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, in Dallas.
Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer
The appraisal district, bound by law to act on death records, removes exemptions, but it doesn’t track whether surviving relatives reapply. Without outreach, thousands of Dallas homeowners — mostly in older, historically Black or Latino neighborhoods — fall through the cracks, Toler said.
In 2023, a new state law required every one of the state’s appraisal districts to audit its homestead discounts at least every five years. The appraisal district’s Jordan said if the agency sends homeowners a letter, they should not ignore it. Instead, they should send back their application with an ID that matches the property address.
If they don’t, their exemptions will be removed.
In 2024, the appraisal district sent around 17,000 audit letters to properties. The year before, 13,100.
The entity does not track how many people reapply after these letters are mailed out.
The appraisal district provides 30 days for residents to reapply, but it typically takes around 60 days for the homestead exemptions to be removed.
“The city’s doing it the most expensive way possible,” Toler said. “When they ignore people like Blackstock, they end up refunding thousands later or watching generational homes slip away.”
He and his son have worked to help hundreds of families like Blackstock’s restore exemptions and prevent displacement. The company’s work is driven by a sense of responsibility and passion for helping others, often providing pro bono assistance to those who need it most.
Toler says it’s work is rooted in a lesson from his late father: “If you can help someone who has no chance of solving it on their own, do it.”
For Blackstock, that help arrived just in time. The code citations are nearly cleared, the foreclosure threat is gone, and she is slowly repainting her porch.
Her five grandchildren still come over every weekend, filling the house with noise and life.
“I just want to keep this place for them,” she said. “Mom would be proud.”
Residents can find more information about the homestead exemption application process and requirements on the appraisal district’s website.