Why a homestead exemption needs more than a how-to page
Florida has no state income tax and no single agency that runs its property tax exemptions. The Department of Revenue sets the statewide rules and publishes the forms, but the homestead exemption itself is granted, denied and enforced by whichever of the state's 67 county property appraisers has jurisdiction over the property, and then billed by that county's separate tax collector. Each office runs its own website, in its own format, with its own answer to whether it takes an application online. This site's own county directory shows the spread: 32 of the 67 appraisers state that they accept online homestead filing, 28 publish their own tax estimator, and several others simply don't say — marked “Check site” because the office's own page didn't answer either way when this was compiled, not because the option doesn't exist. Search results for a given county also turn up private lookalike domains that aren't the government office at all; the directory links only to the official ones.
Two more systems, and a third office for appeals
Getting the exemption is only the first step. It unlocks the Save Our Homes cap under s. 193.155, Florida Statutes — a separate limit on how fast the assessed value can rise, that starts the year after the exemption is first granted and resets to full just value the moment ownership changes. Carrying up to $500,000 of accumulated Save Our Homes benefit to a new Florida homestead is a third action, portability, with its own form (DR-501T) and a three-tax-year window — not automatic, and not something an application page built around Form DR-501 covers.
Appealing any of it adds a fourth office. A challenge to an assessment runs on a 25-day clock from the TRIM notice; a denied exemption or portability transfer runs on a separate 30-day clock from an earlier notice. The petition goes to the clerk of the value adjustment board — not the property appraiser, not the Department of Revenue — and the filing fee, capped at $50 per parcel by s. 194.013, is actually set by each of the 67 boards on its own resolution. This site is split into separate pages for the exemption, the cap and portability, the county directory, and the value adjustment board because those are, in practice, four different processes with four different clocks.
Who writes this, and what it doesn't do
One person writes and maintains this site, independently. It is not the Florida Department of Revenue, not any county property appraiser or tax collector, not a value adjustment board, and not any other government body — see the disclaimer for the full list. It is not a law firm or an accounting practice either; nobody involved is an attorney, a CPA, an enrolled agent or a property appraiser, and nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice. Google AdSense pays for hosting and the time spent tracking 67 counties' worth of pages; no figure, ranking or link on this site is a paid placement.
It is a static, hand-updated reference, not a live feed from any county or state system. The savings estimator does arithmetic on numbers typed in — it isn't connected to any parcel, county system or government database, and it's not a substitute for a county's own tax estimator or a TRIM notice. Every dollar amount, deadline and form number on this site is meant to trace to a specific statute section, a Department of Revenue bulletin or CPI notice, or a named county's own page, cited at the bottom of the page it appears on rather than folded into the text.
The person behind it
This site is written by Marc Aschoff, who also runs a handful of other independent reference sites on tax and paperwork topics. He is not a lawyer, accountant or appraiser and claims no professional credential in this subject; what he brings is the habit of reading the primary documents — Chapters 193, 194 and 196 of the Florida Statutes, the Department of Revenue's property tax forms and bulletins, and the county offices' own pages — and writing down what they say in ordinary language. The author is reachable by email through the contact page, and the blog posts carry his byline and a publication date.
How a page here gets written and checked
Each topic page starts from the statute or form that governs the question, not from another website's summary. The rule is stated, the section that creates it is cited at the bottom of the page, and the page carries the date it was last reviewed against those sources. Where the law leaves something to the county — whether an appraiser takes applications online, what documents a given office asks for, what a board charges to file a petition — the page says so and points to the county directory rather than guessing a single answer for all 67. Numbers that are indexed to inflation, such as the second exemption, are re-checked when the new figure is published each year, and anything that is only proposed, like a pending ballot measure, is labelled as proposed and kept off the pages that describe current law.
What is on the site, and what is not
There are four reference pages, one for each process a homeowner actually has to deal with: applying for the exemption, the Save Our Homes cap and portability, the other exemptions for seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and others, and the value adjustment board for appeals. Alongside them are the county directory, a page on the November 2026 ballot amendment, and a blog of shorter practical pieces. What the site does not do is take or file applications, store anything about your property, or tell you whether you personally qualify; those decisions belong to your county property appraiser.
Fixing it when it's wrong
Exemption amounts move every January, the Legislature and voters amend the rules most years — the November 2026 ballot measure is only the latest example — and covering 67 counties' worth of pages means something here will eventually be out of date. If a county has changed its filing option, a figure or fee is wrong, or a citation is off, say so — see contact for how to reach this site directly. A correction is checked against the specific statute, bulletin or county page the figure is tied to, not against whichever version sounds more likely to be right.