Travis Bunn

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

Montana Only Sends You One Notice Every Two Years. Your Escrow Account Still Pays the County Every Twelve Months.

Updated August 2026

Montana appraises class 3, 4, and 10 residential property at 100% of market value under MCA 15-8-111, then applies a class-specific tax rate on top of that number. But the value itself only changes once every two years. Under MCA 15-7-111, the Department of Revenue revalues residential property on a two-year cycle, with new values effective January 1 of odd-numbered years and carried forward unchanged through the following even year. The classification and appraisal notice that starts your appeal clock has no fixed statutory mailing date, but in practice the department sends it in late June or July of the odd year. From the date printed on that notice, you have 30 days to object under MCA 15-7-102. That is the only door into Montana's entire appeal process.

Here is what makes Montana different from states that reassess every year: if you miss that 30-day window, there is no notice arriving in the following even year to give you a second chance. The same value that went unchallenged simply carries forward, unappealed, for the full two-year cycle. Meanwhile your mortgage servicer is not tracking any of this. Under federal Regulation X, your escrow account gets analyzed once every twelve months regardless of where Montana's biennial cycle stands, and it pays whatever bill the county sends based on whatever value is currently on the books, whether that value was ever contested or not.

What Over-Assessed Actually Means in Montana

Montana is more straightforward than many states in one respect: there is no fractional assessment ratio to work through. Under MCA 15-8-111, the department appraises your property at 100% of market value, then multiplies that figure by a class-specific tax rate to arrive at taxable value. Residential property in classes 3, 4, and 10 gets its own rate, set separately from commercial, agricultural, or industrial property. Whatever the appraised market value is, that is the number the rate gets applied to. There is no limited-value cap softening a bad appraisal the way some states build in.

That directness cuts both ways. An inflated appraisal flows dollar for dollar into your tax bill with nothing standing between the two, which means an appeal that succeeds moves your bill immediately once it is entered on the roll. It also means an appraisal error that goes unchallenged costs you the full amount, every year of the two-year cycle it covers, since Montana only revisits that number once every two years under MCA 15-7-111. There is no annual do-over to soften a bad appraisal you missed.

Four Levels, and Only One Way In: The 30-Day Window

Montana's appeal path has four possible stops. Getting past the first one is what makes the rest available at all:

1. Department of Revenue (Informal). File your objection within 30 days from the date on your classification and appraisal notice, under MCA 15-7-102. This is the only entry point into the entire process. Miss it, and there is no informal review, no county board appeal, and no fresh notice until the next odd-year cycle two years out.
2. County Tax Appeal Board. If the department's determination does not satisfy you, appeal within 30 days of the date on that determination notice. County boards are appointed by the board of county commissioners, hold at least three members, and operate from July 1 through December 31 hearing protests, under MCA 15-15-101.
3. Montana Tax Appeal Board. Appeal within the later of 45 days after your county board hearing or 30 days after the county board mails its decision, under MCA 15-2-301. The Montana Tax Appeal Board holds its own hearing, with at least 15 days' notice to both sides.
4. District Court. Petition for judicial review within 60 days after service of the Montana Tax Appeal Board's final decision, under MCA 15-2-303. File in the district court of the county where the property sits, or, at your option, the First Judicial District. This is civil litigation and can run well past a year for a contested case.

None of these deadlines are optional. And because the entire ladder starts with a request that has to be filed within 30 days of a notice with no fixed calendar date, the single most important thing you can do in Montana is open your mail the week your county typically sends notices, usually late June into July of the odd year, and not set it aside.

Meanwhile: The RESPA Clock That Doesn't Know You're Locked Into a Two-Year Value

Federal law, not Montana law, governs your escrow account. Under Regulation X, 12 CFR 1024.17(c)(3), your mortgage servicer must analyze your escrow account once per computation year, a twelve-month cycle tied to your loan, not to the state's two-year reappraisal calendar. That analysis looks at what the servicer actually paid the county and projects what it expects to pay next. It does not ask whether an appeal is open. It does not check whether you are in the odd year of your cycle or the even year. It simply pays whatever bill the county treasurer sends, built off whatever value is currently on the assessment roll.

That creates a specific mismatch in Montana. Because your assessed value is set once and then repeats for two full tax years, an unresolved dispute in year one of the cycle does not get any fresher in year two. Your servicer's annual analysis in the second year will simply confirm, again, that it paid the same disputed bill it paid the year before. Nothing about that analysis flags the fact that you are sitting on a value that was never actually reviewed, because from the servicer's side, it looks like the county just billed the same amount twice.

A worked example (hypothetical, not a real case)

Say a homeowner in Yellowstone County gets her classification and appraisal notice in early July 2025, an odd year, listing her home at Montana's median value, $330,000. She means to deal with it that weekend, sets it on the counter, and does not open it again until day 35. The 30-day window under MCA 15-7-102 has already closed. No objection was ever filed. Because Montana only revalues class 3 residential property once every two years under MCA 15-7-111, that same $330,000 figure carries forward unchanged through 2026 as well, and no new notice arrives that year to give her another opening. Her next chance is the classification and appraisal notice for the 2027 cycle.

At Montana's 0.74% effective rate, $330,000 works out to roughly $2,442 in annual property tax, or about $204 a month if spread evenly through escrow. (Rates and mill levies vary by taxing jurisdiction, so treat this as illustration, not a quote.) Her escrow account pays that full amount in 2025, and again, unchanged, in 2026: two years of payments on a value that was never reviewed.

In June 2027, the next classification and appraisal notice arrives. This time she opens it the same week it lands, files her objection with the Department of Revenue within the 30-day window, and when the department's determination does not move the number, escalates to the Yellowstone County Tax Appeal Board before the board's December 31 hearing cutoff. The board grants an 8% reduction.

• 2025 and 2026 tax bills: Escrow pays $2,442 both years. No objection was ever filed once the 30-day window closed, so there was no case to escalate.
• 2027 notice: The same $330,000 figure reappears, since nothing was ever corrected on the roll.
• County Tax Appeal Board decision, an 8% reduction: New assessed value roughly $303,600, new annual tax roughly $2,247, a savings of about $195 a year.
• Refund and go-forward adjustment: Reaches escrow only at the next analysis after Yellowstone County enters the correction and issues a corrected bill. Because the correction lands inside the 2027-2028 cycle, it should hold for both years of that cycle without a second appeal, once the county confirms it is on the roll.

Two years of full-price escrow payments, for a dispute that never had the chance to exist, because a 30-day window closed on a counter unopened. That gap is the entire reason this article exists.

When the Win Finally Reaches Your Escrow Account

Whichever level finally rules in your favor, County Tax Appeal Board, Montana Tax Appeal Board, or District Court, the mechanics from there are the same. Your county assessor enters the corrected value, the treasurer issues a corrected bill or refund, and none of that touches your monthly payment until your servicer sees 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 often why a post-appeal refund runs 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 bill and ask; the annual analysis will catch it either way, but there is no reason to wait for it.

Because Montana values are locked in for a full two-year cycle under MCA 15-7-111, a correction entered mid-cycle generally carries through the remainder of that cycle rather than reverting to the original noticed value the following year. Confirm directly with your county assessor that the corrected figure, not the number from your original notice, is what is actually on the roll for the second year of the cycle, since that update has to be entered manually rather than happening automatically.

Key Counties

The highest-volume appeal jurisdictions in Montana are Yellowstone, Missoula, and Gallatin counties. Filing forms, local practice, and hearing schedules can differ by county even though the statewide 30-day objection deadline and the four-level ladder apply everywhere, so confirm procedure with your specific county's Department of Revenue office and County Tax Appeal Board before you file.

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