Owning property always presents a vast number of challenges, many of them financial. This is especially true when it comes to owning commercial property in Florida. Thanks to a famously warm climate and a number of famous attractions and cities in the panhandle, Florida is an extremely popular area for people from throughout the United States and the world to buy property, especially commercial property.
Property owners in Florida and elsewhere are financially responsible for their property, and as any property owner can tell you this can become quite expensive. In addition to a significant cash outlay to procure any property, property owners are responsible for upkeep, mortgage interest, and a variety of other expenses. Of course on top of everything property owners have to pay taxes on what they own. For many property owners this can turn the usual financial burden of their properties into something of a hardship. Even if property taxes are not a hardship, there’s no reason to pay any more than necessary in commercial property taxes.
Even though Florida is a rather popular spot, real estate wise, the value of real estate in Florida has been going down the past few years. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that assessments have gone down everywhere, even if in some counties, such as Duval county for example, real estate appraisals did drop significantly last year.
Although real estate has been dropping in much of the state, very few property owners have been taking advantage of the opportunity to appeal their property tax. If you own property in Florida, it may very well be valued much too high, and it may be the case that you’re paying too much in property taxes.
Property taxes can be appealed, but the deadline for Florida Property Tax Appeals is in September of each year, after the TRIM notices (notice of proposed taxes) are mailed, usually in August. In other words, now is the time for Florida property tax appeals. True, taxes are on the very short list of things you can be sure of in life, and are a very important part of the way our system works. At the same time, you should be paying the taxes on what your property is actually worth, not an over inflated estimate of what it might be worth.
There are no good reasons not to really look in to what your property is worth, and take advantage of the Florida property tax appeals season to figure out if you’re paying more than your fair share. If you would like assistance in your Florida commercial property tax appeal please contact us.
