01/10/2024
Real estate tax tip: Take Pictures in January.
If your building is undergoing repairs or major renovations, take pictures, especially in Dec./Jan.
The real estate taxes, in Florida at least, are based around the value of the building on January 1st each year. They are comprised of two numbers, the land value and building value. Both are generally generated by the County’s Mass Appraisal system that looks at land and building sales in the area. The county then applies a value to the land and adds the building value based on their records of the construction and building costs and compares them to recent improved sales.
But is not all knowing and makes mistakes, for example when the building needed massive renovation work and was untenantable for all of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. Because it was like this on January 1st, it theoretically added no value to the property because of the cost to repair/remedy the issues.
Many times, the County has raised the land values so high that the building value, especially in a condition like this, is adding no value above-and-beyond the land’s redevelopment value. In both cases, it makes sense to file a Value Adjustment Board petition in August to request a lower or even token $1,000 value to the building portion of the assessment. These pictures go a long way to persuading the appraiser to lower the value.
A picture is worth a thousand words, or maybe even thousands in tax savings.
