Travis Bunn
Founder, AppealDesk · Published March 27, 2026 · Updated August 2, 2026
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Updated August 2026
Every February 1, mortgage servicers across Mississippi wire property tax payments to county tax collectors. The homeowners behind those escrow accounts mostly never see the bill. What almost none of them realize is that the bill was locked months earlier, at a single public meeting: the Board of Supervisors session that convenes on the first Monday of August to hear objections to the land roll.
Under Miss. Code Ann. § 27-35-93, a property owner who is dissatisfied with an assessment must present a written objection at that August meeting. Miss it, and the statute says you are "concluded by the assessment" once the roll is finally approved. There is no fall filing season, no 30-day window after a notice arrives in the mail, no second chance when the bill shows up in winter. Paying through escrow changes none of this, but it does make the deadline far easier to miss, because the escrow arrangement removes the one moment (writing the check) when most people actually look at their taxes.
Mississippi's objection process is built around the county land roll, not around individual assessment notices. Miss. Code Ann. § 27-35-89 requires the Board of Supervisors of each county to meet at the courthouse (or the chancery clerk's office) on the first Monday of August to "hear objections to the assessment." The board examines the rolls, hears every exception filed, and sits day to day until the objections are disposed of.
The board can take an objection under advisement to gather more information, but even then the statute forces a decision: an order must be entered on or before the first Monday of September. From objection to ruling, the entire contested-assessment process in Mississippi runs about one month.
Two things follow from this design that matter specifically to escrow payers:
There is no statewide objection form. You bring or send a written statement to the clerk of the Board of Supervisors identifying the property (parcel number and address), the assessed value on the roll, the value you believe is correct, and the reasons, with your evidence attached. The clerk files and dockets the objection with the roll. Because § 27-35-89 lets the board sit day to day, you may be heard the first Monday or on a following day, and the board can hold your file open under advisement while the assessor responds to your comparables.
Nothing in the process asks about your mortgage. No lender consent, no escrow statement, no loan number. The county's counterparty is the owner on the roll, full stop.
Mississippi taxes real property one year in arrears, and the calendar puts the decision point half a year before the payment point. Here is the full cycle for an escrowed homeowner:
Notice what is missing from that timeline for an escrow payer: any moment when the county or the lender puts the assessed value in front of you and asks for a response. The roll sits at the courthouse in July. If you do not go look, the first document you might see is an escrow analysis statement the following spring showing your monthly payment went up. By then the roll that caused it has been final for months, and § 27-35-93 bars you from contesting it.
So the practical rule for Mississippi homeowners with a mortgage is simple: check the land roll every July, whether or not anything seems wrong. July is the inspection month; August is the objection meeting; everything after that is bookkeeping.
Mississippi assesses owner-occupied single-family homes (Class 1 property) at 10% of true value under Miss. Code Ann. § 27-35-50. The number on the roll is the assessed value, so multiply by ten to see what the county thinks your home is worth on the open market.
A hypothetical to make the arithmetic concrete: if the roll shows an assessed value of $18,000, the county is valuing your house at $180,000 true value. If comparable homes on your street have been selling around $160,000, you have a real objection. Persuade the board to cut true value to $160,000 and the assessed value drops to $16,000, which means every mill of county, school, and municipal levy now applies to $2,000 less of assessed value. The percentage cut in your tax bill matches the percentage cut in value, and because your servicer collects one-twelfth of the bill each month, the same percentage eventually comes out of your monthly payment.
Evidence that works at a Board of Supervisors hearing is the same evidence that works anywhere: recent sales of comparable homes, a recent appraisal, documentation of condition problems, or proof of a data error such as wrong square footage. Bring it in writing, because the objection itself must be filed in writing.
Enter your address and see in seconds whether the county's value looks high next to real sales. Every dollar of reduction flows through to the escrow payment your lender collects each month.
Winning at the August meeting changes the roll before it is approved, so the bill your servicer receives in winter is simply the lower bill. There is no refund step for the current year; the reduction is baked in at the source. What changes on your side of the ledger is the escrow account, and that runs on federal clockwork, not Mississippi's.
Under RESPA's Regulation X (12 CFR 1024.17), your servicer must analyze the escrow account at least once per escrow year. When the analysis runs after the county has collected the lower February payment, three protections kick in:
You do not have to wait for the servicer's scheduled analysis. Once the board enters its order (September at the latest), call the escrow department, send the corrected value or the revised bill, and ask for an off-cycle analysis. Most servicers will run one when handed documentation of a lower tax obligation, and it can move the payment drop up by several months.
The following numbers are illustrative, not a quote for any county's millage. Statewide, Mississippi's median home value is around $130,000 and the average annual property tax runs close to $1,053, which is roughly $88 per month flowing through an escrow account.
The percentages are the part to trust: cut the value 10% and the tax portion of your payment falls about 10%, every month, until the county raises the value again through a later roll.
Mississippi assesses property to the owner of record as of January 1, and because taxes are billed a year in arrears, the first bill your servicer pays after a purchase often reflects the previous owner's situation, including their homestead status. Two traps for new buyers with escrow accounts:
Servicers estimate a new loan's escrow from the prior owner's bill. If that bill included an exemption you have not yet secured, expect a shortage letter after the first analysis unless you file for homestead promptly; if it lacked an exemption you now qualify for, your payment is set too high until the county applies your application and the analysis catches up.
An objection at the August meeting attacks the value side of the bill. Mississippi's homestead exemption attacks the tax side, and for escrow payers the two together determine what the servicer actually disburses each February. The Department of Revenue's current tiers:
Two escrow-specific points about homestead. First, the application window is January 1 through April 1 at the county tax assessor's office, a completely separate deadline from the August objection meeting. A homeowner who turns 65 needs to reapply in that window to move up a tier; the upgrade never happens automatically, and your servicer has no idea you turned 65.
Second, homestead runs in reverse too. If your exemption is disallowed (commonly for filing state income taxes as a nonresident, unregistered vehicles, or claiming homestead on two properties), the county can bill back the exempted tax, and the DOR warns explicitly that disallowance can hit mortgage payments and escrow accounts. An escrow shortage letter from your servicer is sometimes the first symptom of a homestead problem at the courthouse, not a math error at the bank.
Because objections happen before the roll is approved, the clean path never involves an overpayment. But corrections do sometimes land after money has moved, for example when the board reduces a value late under advisement or a clerical error is fixed after billing. County practice in that case is to issue a refund of the overpaid amount; Madison County, for one, states that a refund will be issued when an assessment is reduced or changed after overpayment.
When your servicer made the payment, the refund goes back into the escrow account, since that is where the funds came from. From there the ordinary surplus rules apply: at the next analysis, a surplus of $50 or more must be returned to you within 30 days if the loan is current. Send your servicer the county's correction paperwork so the analysis reflects the lower bill going forward, not just the one-time refund.
The Board of Supervisors meeting is the formal step, but it is not the only conversation available:
County procedures differ in the details, and the large-roll counties (Hinds, DeSoto, Harrison, Rankin) handle the highest objection volumes. For the county-by-county mechanics, see the full Mississippi property tax appeal guide.
Comparable sales, the 10% assessment math, and a written objection ready to file with the clerk. Done in minutes, and the savings show up in your escrow payment.
Under Miss. Code Ann. § 27-35-93, an owner who fails to file a written objection at the August meeting is concluded by the assessment once the roll is finally approved, with narrow exceptions for minors and persons legally incompetent. In practice you wait for the next roll cycle: inspect the roll the following July and object the following August. Clerical errors are sometimes correctable outside the window, so it is still worth calling the assessor, but a valuation dispute must wait.
No. By February the roll behind that bill has been final since the fall. The dispute window was the previous August, at the Board of Supervisors meeting. February is, however, a good month to confirm the servicer paid the correct, post-objection amount and to check that your homestead exemption appeared on the bill. The homestead application window (January 1 to April 1) is also open then.
Inspect the land roll in July at the county tax assessor's or chancery clerk's office; most counties also publish roll data through online parcel search tools. The roll shows assessed value, which for an owner-occupied home is 10% of the county's true-value estimate. Multiply by ten and compare against recent sales of similar homes in your area.
No. You must reapply at the county tax assessor's office between January 1 and April 1 to move into the senior tier, which exempts the first $7,500 of assessed value from tax. Once the exemption reduces the bill the county sends, your servicer's next escrow analysis will lower the monthly collection to match. Neither the county nor the servicer tracks your birthday for you.
The reduced value goes onto the roll before billing, so the February disbursement from escrow is already the lower amount. Your monthly payment changes when the servicer runs its escrow analysis, which federal rules require at least annually. Depending on where your analysis falls in the year, that is anywhere from a few weeks to about a year after the February payment; sending the servicer your revised bill and requesting an off-cycle analysis shortens the wait, and any surplus of $50 or more must be refunded within 30 days of the analysis.
No. The written objection under § 27-35-93 is filed by the property owner with the clerk of the Board of Supervisors. The county does not ask who pays the bill, and your loan documents do not restrict your right to contest an assessment. The only escrow-related task is on the back end: send the servicer the board's corrected value so the next analysis reflects the lower disbursement.