Last month, Tarrant Appraisal District Chief Appraisal Jeff Law said, despite website issues, Tarrant County property owners would be able to protest their market values online — just like they’ve been able to in the past.

More than one week after notices were sent, property owners still do not have that option.

Typically, property owners are able to protest their values online in minutes and get an automatic result using TAD’s “Automated Market Review” tool.

There is no such option on TAD.org. The revamped website has been overwhelmed by traffic since last week, with pages locking up, failing to download or timing out. Users who click on the “Protest Value” button on their account are taken to a form to schedule a hearing.

A TAD spokesperson said Monday that the automated market review tool will be available within 10 days. The protest deadline is May 15.

Law said TAD will not extend the protest deadline at this time.

Since value notices were released last week, many Tarrant County property owners have been unable to access their accounts on TAD’s website.

The Star-Telegram invited readers last week to share their experience with the website in a survey. Of the 55 respondents, 49 reported being unable to access their TAD accounts. A notice that a page had timed out was the most common message users encountered.

In response to a Star-Telegram inquiry, Law issued the following statement on April 17: “TAD has been experiencing increased web traffic leading to slower load times. Our information services team has been working today on the website examining performance measures. The team hopes to have improvements in place tonight once web traffic slows down a bit for quicker load times tomorrow.”

The next day a banner on top of the homepage read: “We are currently experiencing high traffic volumes on our website, which may result in slower page load times and intermittent service disruptions. Our team is actively working on addressing this issue and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

Rumblings of potential trouble with online protests came to a head when the subject was put on the agenda of the TAD board’s March meeting.

During the meeting, both Law and Cal Wood, the director of information systems, assured the board that taxpayers will be able to protest their values online this year.

Before the March 17 meeting, the Star-Telegram reached out to Law about this topic when it appeared on the agenda.

“It is our plan to have the online protest available and I believe the plan will work.,” he said via email.