Homestead anyone?? (mortgage, property taxes, appraise)

[julz]

I keep reading on this board about peoples taxes doubling and I'm wondering how that's possible when Homestead puts a cap on the amount taxes can actually rise.Are there qualifications for Homestead and if you have Homestead does that transfer with you in a move?

[alexander59]

If you have a homestead, that means the house is where you live and own, not a vacation home or a rental then the cap is 3 %, in other words if the assessed value goes up they can only charge you 3% of that value, but if you just have a house you own, or your business or land thier is no cap, so you get taxed on 100% on the value.With property values going thru the roof a lot of people who have small business have seen thier property taxes triple. If you rent the landlord has to raise the rent to reflect the amount. The other problem is older people who would like to move to something smaller, so they sell thier house and because they have been in thier house for 20 years, thier tax is very low, when they move the 3% cap is gone and now they pay the full amount.
Add the homeowners insurance to this mix and instead of a 1200.00 mortgage that includes taxes and insurance you are looking at 1600.00 on up, a lot of difference.
I know someone can come up and explain this better but I hope this helps.

[ready2move]

That is our situation..We wanted to downsize in Broward County from our 4/3 our current tax on the house that we purchased in 1992 for 140,000 is 3400.00 a year. We have it on the market for 450,000. The new homeowner's will pay close to 10,000 a year. If we moved somewhere in the state of Florida, that low tax of 3400.00 would not follow us. So if we did downsize, we would end up paying the same if not more for a smaller property. Hence, we are moving out of state!

[NatureCoastFL]

Originally Posted by julz

Are there qualifications for Homestead and if you have Homestead does that transfer with you in a move?

Yes, you must own the house and live in it.
No, the homestead does not transfer with you. You must re-apply when you buy your new house. The current Florida exemption is $25,000.

[BigJimSlade]

I have friends who purchased a home and the taxes weren't assessed for them for close to a year. In that time, the appraised value of the home increased by 35%. This, on top of the fact that they were intially being taxed at the previous owner's rate, meant they are now paying much more than they ever thought they would. They were very upset the house was not assessed for taxes immediately. I honestly don't know how that works entirely, but it definitely did not work well for them.