Florida property tax answers · Updated July 2026
Does Save Our Homes affect my property tax appeal?
The short answer
Yes, decisively. Save Our Homes caps annual assessed-value increases on Florida homesteads at 3%, so long-time owners often have assessed values far below market, and appealing saves them nothing. Appeals matter most for recent buyers (the cap resets at purchase), non-homesteaded and investment properties, and new construction. If you win, the reduction also lowers the baseline your future 3% increases compound from.
The honest answer: many Floridians should NOT appeal
Save Our Homes (Florida Constitution, Article VII, Section 4(d)) caps how fast a homesteaded property's assessed value can rise at 3% per year, regardless of what the market does. If you have owned your homesteaded home for years, your assessed value is probably far below its market value already. A VAB petition contests the assessed value, and if yours is already artificially low, there is nothing to win. Anyone charging you a contingency to appeal a deeply capped home is charging you for nothing, and we would rather tell you that in 30 seconds than sell you a kit you don't need.
Who actually has a case in Florida
- Recent buyers. The cap resets to full market value the January after a sale. If you bought in the last year or two, you have no accumulated cap protection, and an aggressive first assessment is fully contestable.
- Non-homesteaded owners: second homes, rentals, and investment properties. These carry a 10% cap (and none on school levies), so assessments track the market much more closely and over-assessment gaps are common.
- New construction. First-year assessments are set from scratch and are frequently out of line with what comparable homes carry.
- Owners whose exemption or cap is misapplied. If your TRIM notice shows no homestead exemption, or an assessed value jumping more than 3% on a homestead with no improvements, the error itself is the case.
Why winning matters more under the cap, not less
For anyone in the groups above, a VAB win compounds. Your reduced assessed value becomes the new baseline the 3% (or 10%) cap grows from, so one reduction keeps paying every year you own the home. That is also why the fee model matters: a contingency firm takes its cut of the savings it can attribute, year after year (Ownwell's Florida contingency is 35%), while a flat $49 kit costs $49 once, whatever the reduction turns out to be worth over a decade. The free check reads your assessed value from the state roll and tells you which group you are in before you spend anything.
Find out in 30 seconds whether an appeal is worth it for you
Search your address, free, no signup. We compare your assessed value against similar Florida homes from the state assessment roll and tell you honestly whether there is a gap worth petitioning, including when the answer is no because Save Our Homes already has you covered. If there is a case, the $49 kit arrives with the DR-486 pre-filled and the comparables attached.
Check my Florida address · FreeFlat $49, one time, no contingency. If you're capped below market, we'll tell you not to buy.