Travis Bunn

Founder, AppealDesk · Published March 27, 2026 · Updated August 25, 2026

Hawaii's Four Counties Each Run Their Own Property Tax Appeal Calendar. Your Escrow Account Runs a Fifth.

Updated August 2026

Hawaii is the only state in this series where the appeal deadline is not one date, or even one formula. Property is assessed at 100% of fair market value under HRS Section 246, and the tax itself is administered entirely at the county level under HRS Chapter 246A. Each of the four counties, Honolulu, Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii County, runs its own fiscal year from July 1 to June 30, mails its own Notice of Assessment on its own schedule, and sets its own appeal deadline. There is no statewide date to circle on a calendar. There are four.

The four counties split into two groups, and the split does not follow the map the way most people assume. Honolulu mails its Notice of Assessment by December 15 and gives you until January 15 to appeal, a winter deadline. Kauai, despite being a neighbor island, runs on nearly the same winter clock: notices go out in late November and the appeal window closes December 31. Maui and Hawaii County are the true outliers here, mailing notices by March 15 and holding the appeal deadline to April 9, three months later than Oahu and Kauai. Meanwhile, your mortgage servicer is paying your county on a completely separate schedule set by federal law, one that does not shift for any of these four county calendars.

What "Over-Assessed" Actually Means in Hawaii

Hawaii taxes property at 100% of fair market value, not a fraction or a capped substitute value the way some other states in this series do. Whatever number the assessor puts on your Notice of Assessment is supposed to be your home's actual value, full stop. That makes the overassessment argument here more direct: if the noticed value is higher than what your home would actually sell for, that gap flows straight into your tax bill and your escrow payment, dollar for dollar, with no ratio or growth cap standing between a correction and the bill it produces.

The grounds for appeal are set at the county level, and Kauai's ordinance spells them out with unusual specificity (Kauai County Code Section 5A-12.3): an assessment exceeding 15% of market value, lack of uniformity from an illegal assessment method, wrongly denied exemptions, an incorrect classification, or an unconstitutional application of the tax. The other three counties recognize substantially the same grounds under their own county codes, though the exact filing fee, the deposit amount, and the paperwork differ county to county.

Two Levels, Four Different Doors In

Every Hawaii appeal funnels through the same two-level structure. What differs, dramatically, is the deadline and the fee for the first level, because that level is run by the county, not the state:

1. County Board of Review. This is where every Hawaii appeal starts, but the calendar and the deposit differ by county:
   • Honolulu: Notice of Assessment by December 15, appeal due January 15, $50 deposit (ROH Chapter 8).
   • Kauai: Notice of Assessment in late November, appeal due December 31, $75 deposit (Kauai County Code Section 5A-12.3).
   • Maui: Notice of Assessment by March 15, appeal due April 9, $75 deposit.
   • Hawaii County: Notice of Assessment by March 15, appeal due April 9, $50 deposit (RP Form 19-91).
2. Tax Appeal Court. Under HRS Sections 232-16 and 232-17, if the Board of Review rules against you, you have 30 days from the filing of that decision to file a notice of appeal with the Tax Appeal Court. This step is identical across all four counties. The hearing is de novo, meaning the court reviews the facts fresh rather than simply checking the Board's work, and you must pay the costs of court at filing.

Notice the pairing that actually matters here: Honolulu and Kauai run a winter calendar that opens and closes months before Maui and Hawaii County even mail their notices. If you own property on more than one island, do not assume your Oahu deadline and your Big Island deadline land anywhere close together, and do not assume Kauai gives you until spring the way Maui does.

Meanwhile: The RESPA Clock

Federal law, not any county ordinance, governs your escrow account. Under Regulation X, 12 CFR 1024.17(c)(3), your mortgage servicer must analyze your escrow account once every twelve months, on a computation year set by your loan, typically anchored to whenever escrow started, not by your county's notice date, not by Hawaii's July 1 fiscal year start, and not by whichever appeal deadline your specific county happens to run. In Hawaii, that means at least three clocks are running at once: your county's fiscal year (July 1 to June 30 everywhere), your county's own notice-and-appeal calendar (winter for Honolulu and Kauai, spring for Maui and Hawaii County), and your servicer's escrow computation year. None of them are synchronized with each other.

The timing is especially unkind if you are in Maui or Hawaii County. Your April 9 appeal deadline lands roughly three months before your county's new fiscal year opens on July 1, so a case still working through the Board of Review, or freshly escalated to Tax Appeal Court, is very likely still open when the new fiscal year's tax obligations begin accruing. Your escrow account funds that new fiscal year at the disputed value regardless of where your case stands.

A worked example (hypothetical, not a real case)

Say a homeowner in Maui County gets a Notice of Assessment by March 15 listing her home at Hawaii's median value, $739,000. At Hawaii's 100% assessment ratio, that noticed figure is the assessed value outright, no ratio to apply on top of it. At the state's 0.28% effective tax rate, the lowest of any state in this series, that works out to roughly $2,069 in annual property tax, or about $172 a month if spread evenly through escrow. (Rates and individual parcel assessments vary, so treat this as illustration, not a quote.) She believes the true market value is closer to $628,000, more than 15% below the noticed figure, and files a Board of Review appeal by the April 9 deadline. The Board denies her petition in June. She appeals to the Tax Appeal Court under HRS Section 232-16 within 30 days, and a hearing date does not land until the following year.

• Year one, tax bill: Escrow pays the full $2,069 at the noticed value. The new fiscal year opens July 1 with the appeal still open at the Tax Appeal Court.
• Year one, escrow analysis: No change. The analysis simply confirms the servicer paid what the county billed.
• Year two, tax bill: If the case is still unresolved, escrow pays again at the same disputed value for the new fiscal year.
• Tax Appeal Court decision, say a 15% reduction: New assessed value roughly $628,150, new annual tax roughly $1,759, a savings of about $310 a year.
• Refund and go-forward adjustment: Only happens once the county updates the roll and issues a corrected bill, and her servicer catches it at the next escrow analysis.

Two full fiscal years of escrow disbursements at the disputed value, for a case that started with a deadline she hit back in April. That gap is the entire reason this article exists.

When the Win Finally Reaches Your Escrow Account

Whichever level finally rules in your favor, the mechanics from there are the same across all four counties. The assessor updates the roll with the corrected value, the county finance department issues a corrected tax bill or a refund if the disputed amount was already collected, and none of that touches your monthly mortgage payment on its own. Your servicer has to see it. Three federal rules in 12 CFR 1024.17 control what happens next:

• The surplus rule. If your next analysis shows a surplus of $50 or more, the servicer must refund it within 30 days, provided you are current on the loan (Section 1024.17(f)(2)(i) and (f)(2)(ii)).
• The cushion cap. Servicers can hold a cushion of no more than one-sixth of estimated annual disbursements, roughly two months' worth (Section 1024.17(c)(5)). A lower tax bill shrinks the allowed cushion too, which is why a post-appeal refund is often bigger than the tax savings alone.
• The off-cycle option. A servicer is permitted, not required, to run an analysis outside the normal annual cycle (Section 1024.17(f)(1)(ii)). Send them the county's corrected notice and the new tax bill and ask; you have nothing to lose by asking, and the annual analysis will catch it either way.

If your case went all the way to Tax Appeal Court and stretched across a fiscal year or two, do not assume your servicer is tracking it. Nobody in the escrow department is watching the Tax Appeal Court docket for you, and nobody there knows whether your county runs a December deadline or an April one. The corrected bill from the county is the document that actually moves your payment, so keep a copy of the ruling and the revised assessment, and send both the moment they arrive.

Key Counties

All four of Hawaii's counties, Honolulu, Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii County, administer their own real property tax under HRS Chapter 246A, and all four route appeals through a county Board of Review and then the statewide Tax Appeal Court. Where they differ is the calendar. Honolulu and Kauai share a winter notice-and-appeal cycle (December notices, deadlines in late December or mid-January), while Maui and Hawaii County share a spring cycle (March notices, an April 9 deadline). Filing forms, deposit amounts, and local practice differ by county even though the two-level appeal structure and the federal RESPA rules apply everywhere, so confirm the current deadline with your specific county before you file.

FAQ