The Value Adjustment Board: contesting your assessment

The value adjustment board (VAB) is a quasi-judicial body, separate from the county property appraiser, that hears a property owner's challenge to an assessment, a denied exemption, classification or portability transfer, or a denied tax deferral. Chapter 194, Florida Statutes, governs the process; Florida Administrative Code Rule Chapters 12D-9 and 12D-10 set the detailed procedure. In most counties the actual hearing is held by an appointed special magistrate rather than the board members themselves, but the board issues the final written decision.

Petitioning the VAB is a different action from applying for the homestead exemption itself. If you missed the March 1 application deadline and want to petition on that ground alone, the deadline and process below still apply — see how to apply for what the property appraiser is looking for at that petition.

What you're contesting determines which notice starts the clock, and the two notices go out months apart.

Section 194.011(2) lets a taxpayer ask the property appraiser to informally confer about the assessment before petitioning. It is optional — the statute says expressly that it is not a prerequisite to petitioning the board or to judicial review — and the appraiser must show the taxpayer the facts supporting the assessment. The statute does not say a conference extends the petition deadline, and nothing in it or in Department of Revenue guidance suggests it does. Treat the 25- or 30-day clock as running regardless of whether a conference happens or resolves anything.

Section 194.032 requires at least 25 calendar days' notice of the scheduled hearing. A petitioner may reschedule once for good cause — circumstances beyond their control that reasonably prevent adequate representation — and a rescheduled hearing needs at least 15 days' notice. The board must remain in session until every petition is heard, and cannot certify the tax roll until all hearings on it are complete.

At least 15 days before the hearing, both sides must exchange their evidence: lists of witnesses and documents, and copies of the documents themselves. The property appraiser must also provide the property record card for the parcel. Showing up without having exchanged evidence on time can get evidence excluded at the hearing.

Section 194.301 governs the burden of proof for a value dispute. The property appraiser's assessment is presumed correct only once the appraiser shows, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it was arrived at using the statutory criteria and professionally accepted mass appraisal practices. If the taxpayer then shows, also by a preponderance of the evidence, that the assessment doesn't reflect just value or was arrived at using different appraisal practices than those applied to comparable properties in the county, the presumption is overcome. At that point the board or court sets the value from whatever competent, substantial evidence is in the record, or — if the record doesn't support a value either way — remands the case to the property appraiser with directions to reassess.

The board issues a written decision. A taxpayer who disagrees can bring an action in circuit court under s. 194.171, but only within 60 days of the decision — and only after paying the collector at least the amount admitted in good faith to be owing. Both conditions are jurisdictional: a court has no authority to hear the case without them. The case is also dismissed if taxes assessed on the property in later years, while the action is pending, are not kept current as they're admitted to be owed.