Your Notice of Proposed Property Taxes, and an event at MacDill on September 8

If you own a home in Florida, a notice showed up in your mail in August with a lot of numbers on it and no payment envelope. Most people glance at it and set it aside. That can be a mistake, because the notice provides a limited window to review the information, raise questions, and pursue available options if something does not appear correct.

I will be at the 6LRS HQ Auditorium on the morning of September 8. Bring your notice and I will walk through it with you, line by line, and help identify anything that may warrant a closer look. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing being sold.

What the notice actually is

It is called a Notice of Proposed Property Taxes, or a TRIM notice, short for Truth in Millage. The property appraiser mails it once a year. It is not a bill. It is a statement of three things: what the appraiser thinks your property is worth, which exemptions were applied to it, and what each taxing authority is proposing to charge you as a result.

The tax bill comes later, typically in November. The notice gives you an important opportunity to review the values, exemptions, and proposed taxes before that bill arrives and to raise questions or pursue available review or appeal options when appropriate.

The four things to check

1. Are your exemptions on there?

Homestead is not the only exemption that may apply. Florida provides several other property tax exemptions based on individual circumstances. For veterans and active-duty military members, additional exemptions or benefits may also be available based on disability, deployment, or other qualifying circumstances. There is also an additional exemption for servicemembers who were deployed during the prior calendar year. That one is commonly missed because it must be applied for each year, based on where and how long you were deployed. Review the exemptions shown on your notice and make sure the ones you expect to see are there.

2. Does the market value reflect your property as of January 1?

Market value represents the cash price a willing buyer would pay a willing seller in an open, arm's-length market transaction as of January 1 of the assessment year. January 1 is Florida's statutorily mandated assessment date, so the value shown on your notice reflects the property as it existed and the market as of that date.

If you believe the market value shown does not accurately reflect your property as of January 1, that is something to question. The appeal process provides property owners a forum to challenge an assessment they believe is too high or to address the denial of an exemption or property classification. It also provides a process for addressing a tax deferral improperly denied by the Tax Collector.

3. Did the proposed rates change?

Your bill can go up even when your value does not, because separate taxing authorities each set their own rate: county, school board, city, and various special districts. The notice shows last year's rate against this year's proposal for each one, and it lists the public hearings where those rates get adopted. Those hearings are open to you.

4. Is the property described correctly?

Square footage, bedroom and bath count, year built, lot size, and any recorded improvements. Errors here are more common than people assume, particularly on older homes and on properties where work was done without permits or where permits were pulled and never closed out. An error in the record produces an error in the value.

If something is wrong

Start informally. Call the property appraiser's office and ask them to review it. A good number of discrepancies are corrected at that stage without any formal process, especially when the issue is a factual error in the property record rather than a disagreement about value.

If that does not resolve it, you can petition the Value Adjustment Board. The filing deadline is printed on your notice and is 25 days from the statutory mailing date. Read the deadline on your own notice and act promptly if you have concerns.

Why I do this

Before real estate, I spent nearly 20 years with the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser's Office. My career included valuing property and representing the office in Value Adjustment Board hearings, and ultimately overseeing valuation for the office. That included the assessment process, the appraisers responsible for it, the creation of the Notice of Proposed Property Taxes, the review process after notices were mailed, and the office's role in Value Adjustment Board hearings. I also trained appraisers in both valuation and representing the office in those hearings.

I know how these numbers are produced, what an appraiser is looking at, and which arguments carry weight in a review and which ones do not. Most homeowners have never had anyone explain the notice to them, and the cost of that gap is real money every year.

For military families the stakes are a little different. You may have moved here mid-year, you may have deployed during the assessment period, or you may not know that Florida allows eligible homeowners moving from one homesteaded property to another within the state to carry all or a portion of their accumulated Save Our Homes benefit, depending on the circumstances of the move. Those are the situations where thirty minutes of conversation pays for itself.

Come by

September 8, 9:00 to 11:00 AM, 6LRS HQ Auditorium at MacDill. Bring the notice. If you cannot make it, the same offer stands afterward. Send us a note and we will set up a time.

Opal Hudson is Lead Agent at Halvoron Realty and came to real estate from the county property appraiser's office. Halvoron Realty works with families relocating through MacDill Air Force Base.

This post is general information, not advice on a specific property or financial situation. Program rules and market conditions change. Confirm current terms before acting.

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