Travis Bunn
Founder, AppealDesk · Published March 27, 2026 · Updated August 3, 2026
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Updated August 2026
On paper, Arkansas is one of the gentlest states in which to inherit a house. There is no state inheritance tax, no state estate tax, and no rule that reappraises a property just because a deed moved. Counties reappraise on their own 3-year or 5-year cycles under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1902, not when someone dies.
So why do heirs in Little Rock, Fayetteville, and everywhere in between open a tax bill a year or two after probate and find a number their parents never paid? Because Amendment 79 to the Arkansas Constitution, the law behind the state's famous homestead credit and senior freeze, hands its benefits to a qualifying person, not to the parcel forever. When that person dies, the benefits begin unwinding on a schedule most families never see coming. This guide walks the ledger: what the deceased owner had, what survives the year of death, what disappears the following January 1, and what you can do about the number that replaces it.
The state's Assessment Coordination Division describes Amendment 79 as four distinct taxpayer benefits, implemented at Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1120 through 26-26-1124:
Sorted by what happens at death: the credit survives the year of death and then must be re-earned. The freeze simply ends, because the person who qualified for it is gone. And the caps depend on what the parcel becomes in your hands, homestead or not. Take them one at a time.
Arkansas's homestead credit is unusually generous right now, and getting more so. Three numbers matter to an estate settling in 2026:
Under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1118(b), the credit is not personal to the owner within a given year. Once a parcel qualifies as of January 1, the credit sticks to the parcel for that entire year, no matter who inherits it, who pays the bill, or how the property is used after the death. The estate and the heirs can even prorate it between themselves. So the tax bill that arrives during probate, which pays the prior year's assessment, should still show the credit.
The cliff is the next assessment year. To keep the credit going forward, the new owner must register their own eligibility with the county assessor, on or before October 15 of the year after the assessment, and the property must actually be the new owner's principal place of residence. An heir who lives elsewhere, rents the house out, or leaves it empty does not qualify, and the credit comes off.
The mechanics are forgiving about method, strict about substance. Under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1118:
Do not plan on the county simply not noticing. Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1118(b)(7) requires the Division of Vital Statistics to email every county assessor a monthly list of residents who have died. Assessors in Arkansas learn about deaths as a matter of statutory routine, and claiming a credit you are not entitled to carries penalties under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1119.
Here is the benefit whose loss actually moves the needle. Under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1124, a homeowner who is 65 or older or disabled has the taxable assessed value of their homestead frozen, locked at the value when they qualified, or a later, lower value if a reappraisal ever went down. A parent who qualified fifteen or twenty years ago has been taxed all this time on a number from that era, while the county's appraised value marched upward through every 3-year or 5-year reappraisal since.
That gap between the frozen figure and today's full assessed value, 20% of market value under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-303, is the invisible subsidy in the family home. The ACD's guidance is plain about when it ends: a frozen value changes when the current owner no longer qualifies under Amendment 79 for the freeze. Death is the ultimate disqualification. Once the qualifying owner is gone and no protected arrangement continues (more on those below), the parcel returns to its full assessed value at the following January 1.
A purely hypothetical illustration: a Pulaski County homestead frozen years ago at an assessed value of $18,000 might carry a full assessed value of $34,000 today. At a millage rate around 50 mills, unwinding the freeze adds roughly $800 a year to the bill, before the separate loss of a $600 to $675 credit is counted. Nothing about the house changed except whose name is on the deed.
One wrinkle heirs often miss: the freeze is not inheritable, but it is re-earnable. An heir who is themselves 65 or older or disabled, and who makes the house their principal residence, can apply for their own freeze with the county assessor. It locks at the value after the reset, not at the parent's old number, per Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1123 and 26-26-1124. A new freeze at today's value is worth far less than the old one, but it stops the next reappraisal from raising the bill further, so claim it early.
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Amendment 79's caps limit how fast taxable assessed value can climb after a countywide reappraisal: 5% per year for a homestead, 10% per year for everything else, until the parcel catches up to full assessed value. Unlike the freeze, the caps are not senior benefits, and a version of them will protect you too. But two things change at a transfer.
First, the protected base resets. Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1123 provides that when property is sold, the assessor assesses it at 20% of appraised value at the next assessment date, and the new owner cannot claim any limitation until the second assessment date after the transfer. The statute speaks in terms of sales, and the ACD's guidance applies the same full-value reset when a person acquires a capped or frozen parcel without qualifying for the benefit themselves. The practical assumption for an heir: whatever below-market taxable value the deceased enjoyed, your starting point is the county's current full assessed value, and the caps only slow future increases from there.
Second, which cap you get depends on what you do with the house:
Because counties reappraise on staggered 3-year and 5-year cycles, the timing of your county's next reappraisal decides how quickly the difference between 5% and 10% compounds. Ask the assessor where the county sits in its cycle; the answer belongs in any keep-or-sell analysis.
One renovation caution before you swing a hammer: neither cap, and no freeze, shelters a substantial improvement. Under the state's ACD Rule 4.08.2, renovation that changes the property's use or adds 25% or more to an improvement's contributory value gets assessed at full value on top of the protected base. Updating a dated inherited house for your own family is often worth it anyway; just budget for the assessment consequence rather than discovering it on next year's notice.
Arkansas law does leave three doors open, and estates that planned ahead walk through them:
Notice what is not on the list: a will, or intestate succession. The ordinary ways property passes at death carry no Amendment 79 protection with them.
Plenty of Arkansas land passes for generations without probate or deeds, leaving dozens of relatives as fractional co-owners and no one with clear record title. That status blocks the fixes this guide describes. An occupying heir who cannot document an ownership interest has trouble registering the homestead credit, claiming a new freeze, or even appealing effectively, while the tax bills keep coming and unpaid taxes remain a lien that can end in a tax sale after the October 15 delinquency date.
Since 2015, Arkansas's Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, Ark. Code Ann. 18-60-1001 through 18-60-1014, has protected families from the old abuse where a speculator bought one heir's sliver and forced a courthouse auction of the whole tract; it applies to partition actions filed on or after January 1, 2016 and gives co-owner families appraisal, buyout, and open-market safeguards. It does not, however, clear title for tax purposes. If you are occupying inherited Arkansas property without a deed in your name, resolving title through probate or a quiet title action is the gateway to every property tax benefit discussed here.
If the family's plan is to sell, Amendment 79 still shapes the transaction:
Either way, clear any delinquent taxes early. Unpaid Arkansas property taxes are a lien that follows the land into whoever's hands it passes, and title companies will insist the balance is resolved before closing.
And to close a common worry: there is no Arkansas death tax layered on top of this. Act 645 of 2003 eliminated the state estate tax for deaths on or after January 1, 2005, and Arkansas has never taxed inheritances themselves. The property tax unwind is the whole state-tax story.
Everything above assumes the county's appraised value is right. After a freeze unwinds, that assumption deserves scrutiny, because the parcel may not have been seriously examined in years. Long-frozen homes are exactly where stale record cards live: square footage from an old addition that was never finished, a garage listed as living space, condition ratings that predate the roof leak. If the market value behind the new assessment is too high, Arkansas gives you a short, hard window to fight it, laid out in our Arkansas property tax appeal guide:
Heirs hold a piece of evidence most appellants never have: a date-of-death appraisal or the estate's sale listing analysis. If the estate had the home professionally appraised and the county's figure is materially higher, that document, plus comparable sales and photos of the home's actual condition, is the core of a strong petition. The burden of proof is yours, so bring paper, not frustration. Overpaid in a prior year because of an actual error on the rolls? Refunds reach back at most three years, so do not sit on it.
Comparable sales, a valuation analysis, and the Equalization Board filing steps for your Arkansas county, in one packet.
The pattern to remember: Arkansas does not punish inheritance, it just stops subsidizing the previous owner. The credit, the freeze, and the caps were earned by a person who is gone, and the parcel drifts back to full freight unless a new person re-earns what can be re-earned, on the assessor's calendar, with the assessor's paperwork. Registration by October 15, occupancy decisions before the next January 1, and an Equalization Board petition by the third Monday in August: those three dates are the whole game.
Most likely the Amendment 79 freeze unwound. If a parent was 65 or older or disabled, their homestead's taxable assessed value was frozen, sometimes at a figure set decades ago. When the qualifying owner dies, the ACD's guidance provides that the frozen value ends and the parcel returns to its full assessed value, 20% of the county's current appraised value, at the following January 1. The $600 homestead credit ($675 on 2027 bills) also drops off unless a new owner-occupant registers for it. Arkansas did not reappraise the house because of the death; it stopped applying benefits that belonged to the person who died.
Not the parent's number, no. The freeze is not inheritable. But a qualifying heir who makes the home their principal residence can apply to the county assessor for their own freeze under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1124. The new freeze locks at the current full assessed value after the reset, per Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1123, so it is worth less than the old one, but it prevents every future reappraisal from raising the taxable value. Apply promptly; the assessor will not apply it for you, and the collector's annual Amendment 79 rights notice is the only reminder you will get.
Yes. Under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1118(b), once a parcel qualifies as of January 1, the credit remains for that whole year regardless of a change in ownership or use, and the estate and heirs may prorate it between themselves. The exposure begins the next assessment year: the new owner must register their own eligibility by October 15 and actually occupy the home as a principal residence. Assessors receive a monthly report of deaths from Vital Statistics, so the credit will be removed if no one requalifies.
No, the opposite. Arkansas's definition of a homestead in Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1122 includes a dwelling owned by a revocable or irrevocable trust and occupied by the person who formed it, and an irrevocable trust's dwelling occupied by a beneficiary. The parent kept the credit and freeze while living. After the death, a beneficiary who occupies the home should take the trust document to the county assessor, because the trust structure may support continued benefits that a plain probate inheritance would not. Retained life estates get similar protection under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1123(c).
Expect a correction, not an ambush. Assessors get monthly death reports from Vital Statistics under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1118(b)(7), so benefits that linger usually get caught. Claiming a homestead credit you are not entitled to carries penalties under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1119, and the county can pursue taxes lost to underassessment, though suits to recover taxes stemming from an assessor error are limited to three years under Ark. Code Ann. 26-34-105. The clean move is to notify the assessor of the ownership change, register only what you actually qualify for, and let the year-of-death credit, which lawfully stays on the parcel, be the last one claimed under the old owner.
The 10% non-homestead cap. Without an owner-occupant, the house is not anyone's homestead, so there is no credit, no freeze eligibility, and future reappraisal increases are limited to 10% per year instead of 5%. If one sibling moves in as their principal residence, that sibling can register the credit for the parcel, and under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1124 a jointly owned homestead receives freeze benefits for all owners if any one owner-occupant qualifies by age or disability. If the plan is to sell, remember the buyer cannot claim any cap until the second assessment date after the sale under Ark. Code Ann. 26-26-1123, which affects what tax bill they should be shown.