VOTE YES FOR AMENDMENT 5

As you head to the polls in the coming weeks, be sure to vote YES for Amendment 5 – Limitations on Homestead Assessments. If approved by voters, this amendment will extend the portability period of homestead exemptions by an additional year, giving homeowners three years of portability instead of two.

As a brief recap, in January 2008, sixty-four percent of Florida voters approved an amendment to the State Constitution to allow a homestead property owner to transfer up to $500,000 of the “Save Our Homes” tax benefits in a current homestead property to a new homestead property. The act of transferring this benefit is known as “portability.” Portability is allowed only if the new property receives the homestead exemption as of January 1st in either of the immediately preceding two years. Effectively, this two-year period only allows an owner a single full year without any homestead exemption.

Amendment 5 seeks to increase this period from two years to three years; thereby allowing a Save Our Homes benefit to be transferred to a new homestead established by January 1st of the third year subsequent to abandonment of the old homestead. If approved by voters, this change will go into effect January 1st, 2021 and will apply to the 2021 property tax roll.

SOURCE: FLORIDA REALTORS