Understanding Your Florida Property Assessment: What to Do When You Get Your TRIM Notice

In today's episode, we're going to talk about property assessments. We all get our tax bills in November, but that process begins earlier with the assessment of your property by the local county property appraisers. And the episode today is really to focus on your ability to the first time you receive notice of what that might be and what your options are in order to address unusually high values or a loss of an exemption.

So the state of Florida, and particularly local jurisdictions, derive a considerable amount of their revenue used for government through the imposition of property taxes. So in Florida, under our Constitution, all property in the state is assessed at just value each year. Um, and from there, uh, you will get a tax bill on beginning November 1st for that.

And that recurs each and every year. Um, each county has its own property appraiser. It's an elected official. We call them a constitutional officer. And their job is to reassess property in the state each year. The assessment date we go off of here in this state is January 1st of each and every year. So in November, you get a tax bill and you'll have a period of time from then until the spring of the following year in which to pay that tax bill.

But the taxes are actually based upon the value of your property. So in August, you'd receive what we call a trim notice, which is a truth and millage. It's an informational document that will tell you a great deal of information, everything from the anticipated taxes you might pay this year, depending on the budgets for your local jurisdictions that you reside in, or that your property is located in, um, as well as your non ad valorem assessments and additional information contained on that form.

So for places like Sarasota County, their trim notices will probably be mailed on or about August 15th. If you want to look to see sooner than Uncle Sam is going to deliver that envelope to you. You can actually go on the property appraisers website. You can go actually look at your parcel. And at the top in the middle there's a box you can click that'll say 2026 trim notice.

And you can actually look at it, download it, print it out before you actually receive it in the mail. That document is important for all taxpayers, large or small property owners, to to open that when it comes and look at it because it contains some very valuable information. It's going to show you your just value.

So that is what your property is worth. Uh, Florida defines just value is what a willing buyer and a willing seller, uh, in a in a arms length transaction. Uh, what what value would come out of that? Um, we also have in Florida the concept of assessed value, which is sort of the next step beyond just value assessed value is when you take your just value and you're going to apply any reductions that would occur.

Uh, examples of that might be, um, or save our homes. Uh, limitation on homestead property from assessed value. You're going to then reduce that again with exemptions. So Florida is a state like many that have exemptions. There are exemptions from everything from homestead to disabilities to veterans.

Uh across the board. So those exemptions are then deducted from the assessed value. And you arrive at what we know in Florida as taxable value. So at the top of your, uh, trim notice you're going to see all of that information. Uh, in addition you're going to see what your anticipated taxes are for the year.

They are either based upon last year's budget in the jurisdiction you live or a proposed budget. So you're going to see some different numbers there. That would change depending on what happens in your jurisdiction with regard to the budget. The most important thing you're going to see on that form, however, is the date in which you have to challenge your value, and that is usually 25 days from the issuance of the Trim notice.

That will always fall sometime in the early part of September. So when you're looking at your trim notice we've talked about various things you're going to see on there relative to the value of your property that are then utilized to apply the millage rate for your jurisdiction. That then results in the amount of tax burden that you're going to pay for owning that property each and every year.

Also, on your trim notice, you're going to see something called non ad valorem assessments. So these are assessments for services that your jurisdiction or jurisdictions. For people that live in a county and a city, um, will charge you to provide those services. They can be everything from fire to police to solid waste to stormwater, and even roads can be done through non-adherence assessments.

Just be aware they're on there. They are not part of the value calculation for your property, and they're not something that you're able to appeal through either the value adjustment board process or even in circuit court. So when you get the trim notice, you know the best thing to do is to look at it immediately, because that 25 days, that clock is ticking.

Uh, you want to look at the trim. Notice from the standpoint of a comparison, say, between last year's assessed value or taxable value and this year's. So you're looking for, uh, increases that maybe the market in your neighborhood or your area doesn't support, in your view, you want to make sure that you've received the benefit of any exemptions that you have applied for and are entitled to.

So if you see any of those things that seem out of place to you, um, a dramatic increase in your value that you really don't understand, that's the time that you're going to want to reach out to me. We want to do that as early in the 25 day process as possible, so that we have time to analyze what might have gone wrong in terms of the assessment of your property.

And then that gives us time also to file what we call a petition before the value adjustment board. So every county under state law has a value adjustment board. The value adjustment board is in place in order to deal with any appeals that property owners have concerning their either their assessed value or the denial of exemptions that they may have applied for.

In some counties, you're if you appear in an appeal, you would actually appear before the actual value adjustment board. Um, DeSoto County is, for example, one of those counties. Um, other counties. Uh, which is really the majority use magistrates. Sometimes they will use licensed appraisers to be magistrates to hear value challenges.

Uh, and then they'll also use attorneys in order to hear exemption challenges. If you've looked at your trim notice and something doesn't seem right. Um, that's the time to reach out to give us a call for a consultation. Uh, what we do is we then look at your trim notice. Uh, there's some things about it we can see in terms of trends and value, uh, that that may have affected or even an exemption that was not provided to you.

Um, if you end up retaining us to assist you in that process, we would file the VAB petition for you. Um, we would then begin the process of gathering evidence that we're going to need to present to the magistrate. That type of evidence can be anything from sales of similar homes in your neighborhood or in surrounding neighborhoods.

We could go as far as actually commissioning an appraisal. Um, it's important to have photos if we're dealing with a condition, issues that you have an older home and you don't believe the property appraiser has considered the condition. So we would gather that evidence for you, and then at some point, we would receive notification that your Value Adjustment Board petition has been scheduled to be heard before a magistrate.

We would then appear with you, uh, at that hearing, uh, for purposes of presenting the evidence to the magistrate. And then at some point following that hearing, usually the magistrate will issue a decision or a recommendation. Um, those recommendations ultimately have to go before the value adjustment board.

That's not a full hearing. They just receive those and normally just approve them as recommended by the magistrates. So in the state of Florida, assessments issued by property appraisers are entitled to what we call the presumption of correctness. Um, 2010 that was watered down a bit to allow, uh, a little easier challenge to some value issues and exemptions.

But in Florida, the presumption of correctness is afforded to any assessment done by the property appraiser of real property, so long as the property appraiser can show through a preponderance of the evidence, which is more than 50% on a scale that they have followed the statutory factors that they are required to consider when they are assessing property in the state that they have considered, and granted appropriate exemptions and followed assessment caps.

So in the state, there are your values capped in certain instances, for example for homestead under Save Our Homes. And then lastly that they have used an appropriate appraisal methodology and in some cases mass appraisal methodology, because they are doing so many properties at one time in a county. So we have to overcome that at the value Adjustment Board hearing. And we do that through the type of evidence that I mentioned previously. So as I said, eventually the Value Adjustment Board magistrate will issue a recommendation or decision that eventually goes in front of the value adjustment board.

From there, you typically have approximately 60 days either from that decision or if you haven't gone to the value adjustment board, you have 60 days from the first certification of the tax roll. So the certification occurs. The property appraiser sends up to Tallahassee to the Department of Revenue the entire tax roll, which is their assessment of each and every individual parcel within a given county.

So you've got about a 60 day window there that will take you into December? Um, the important thing to realize is that in Florida, each and every tax year stands on its own. So it's it's the only time you're going to have to challenge those assessments is in the year in which we're dealing with that tax year. Uh, so if we're talking about 2026, for example, uh, which is now about to occur with the trim notices. Um, if you haven't done the challenges you need to do before the VAB or in circuit court. Usually by the end of December, you will no longer be able to challenge the taxes in the 2026 tax year.

So because of the way Florida does its ad valorem assessments and issues its tax bills in November, um, we have a relatively short window in which we can help you examine whether your property was valued appropriately and whether you were granted the exemptions to which you qualify. So it's imperative that when you receive a trim, notice that you look at it carefully.

And if there are things that you find that might be objectionable, whether it's the value or the failure to grant an exemption that you qualify for, then reach out to us for a consultation. I've practiced in this area for over 37 years, and generally I can look at a trim notice and with a little additional work, I can tell you whether or not we have an opportunity that we might proceed to reduce that assessment, which of course, then would reduce your value and of course, then reduce your tax burden that you would have to pay for taxes in the county that you reside in.

So give us a shout if you see that something wrong. And but again, remember we have a somewhat limited window. If you come to see me next year about your taxes this year, it'll probably be too late.