FL doesn't have a state income tax. While New Hampshire doesn't have a state income tax either, and it doesn't have a sales tax, it does have a high property tax rate.

With Disney,Universal not planning on reopening until sometime 2021. Its about time the state diversifies from tourism to industrial.
Along with that downturn I4 corridor is over saturated with hotels and Commercial do not expect a turn around for 1 to 2 years. This downturn is expected all over US with high unemployment, most effected is service sector economy restaurants hotels and finally with airlines cutting capacity by 30%. Not my assumption Wall Street.

I think this refers to the Save Our Homes Act which was passed in 1995. It virtually guarantees that the property tax burden in Florida will fall disproportionately on part timers who are not Florida residents, and this situation will get worse and worse over time as property values rise.

From the Sumter County Property Appraiser web site:
"
Florida Law requires that the just value of all property be determined each year. The Supreme Court of Florida has declared "just value" to be legally synonymous to "full cash value" and "fair market value." The fair market value of your property is the amount for which it could sell on the open market. The property appraiser analyzes these market transactions annually to determine fair market value as of January 1.
"

Every parcel of real property has a just value, an assessed value, and a taxable value. The just value is the property’s market value. The assessed value is the just value minus assessment limitations as per the Save Our Homes Act (see below). The taxable value is the assessed value minus exemptions (Homestead exemption, etc.) and is the value the tax collector uses to calculate the taxes due. The millage rate is applied to the taxable value.

The Save Our Homes Act states that for Florida residents only, the assessed value of a property may not increase more than the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is less, in a given year.

Let's see what happened last year with the Sumter County large property tax rate increase that everyone is mad about. Florida residents in The Villages saw an increase of only a few hundred dollars while non-residents saw increases 2 or 3 times as large. Why is this?

Sumter County instead of doing its job and increasing the market values of properties in The Villages gradually over time every year to conform to reality, instead increased the market values of properties by 15+% in one fell swoop last year. For part time non-residents, the increased market value was reflected immediately in the same increase in assessed value. But Florida residents only saw an increase in their assessed value of about 2%, which was the Consumer Price Index increase last year.

Considering that the Consumer Price Index increases 2% or less per year, assessed value for Florida residents will never catch up with market value, and the property tax burden will continue to be disproportionately shouldered by non-residents.

In my home state, we have something similar to the Homestead exemption, which I consider to be a fair exemption. But in my home state, we don't discriminate against non-residents in perpetuity; similar houses next to each other don't have wildly different assessed values in perpetuity depending on whether the owner is a resident or non-resident.

When a Florida resident goes to sell his house in The Villages, a savvy buyer from out of state will realize that as soon as he takes ownership, the house's assessed value will immediately increase to the market value resulting in a large increase in property taxes even if he later becomes a Florida resident and receives the Homestead exemption, and lower his offer accordingly.

You can bet your amenity fees that you pay your CDD will go up because of all the "distancing" crap...moving benches and tables, putting grid marks in the squares and in the pools, all the yellow tape...easily I bet they go up $10 a month...the reason will be "government mandated policies thru 2021" - after which the fees will never go down....

Weren’t all those folks moving benches and yellow taping currently in the. Budget? Where is excess cost for all this distancing “crap”coming from?

Yes, your amenities fee will go up on the anniversary of when you bought the house by the CPI, as per your deed restrictions.

You obviously did not read the documents that were included in the closing documents of your home.

First, the Amenity Fee is not paid to "your CDD", it is paid to the SLCDD or VCCDD which operate the SLAD and RAD funds respectively.

There are only 3 ways to raise the Amenity Fee on a home, 1) when resold it is adjusted to the current prevailing rate, 2) an annual CPI adjustment, and 3) if the Owners (us the home owners) request, by a vote, additional facilities be provided the additional construction and operating costs can be included in the Amenity budget and result in an increase. That's it, no other way, the AAC's and PWAC's hands are tied; if costs go up they either have to be within the capacity of the CPI adjustment, or cost savings measures enacted, or additional revenue sources created to meet the state mandated balanced budget. The fee cannot be arbitrarily raised as you incorrectly suggest.


If you are actually interested in doing more than complaining about something you obviously know little about the budget review meeting for the Amenity Fund is being held at 2:00 PM on May 5th at the Savannah Rec Center. The meeting is, as it always is, open to the public.

:boom: