Dan B

I have searched without luck.

I bought a house on Sept 28th 2010 in Florida. It is my primary residence. I am married to a USC. I am on an H1-B and at the very beginning, i.e., still filling in the paperwork, process of adjusting my status to LPR.

I am trying to file for the Homestead Exemption to remove $25,000 of the value of my home for property tax purposes. I have been told (and read on the form) that I am required to be a USC or LPR in order to qualify for this tax exemption.

Is this true? If so, it f'ing stinks and I might have to have my first rant about Florida since moving here last January.

I'm still going to file for it anyway, and see what happens. If they want to deny me a tax break because I am a foreigner, at least I can make them do the paperwork for it

Rete

What's the problem, if it is true. You have a USC spouse, put 1/2 the house in her name if you don't want to put it all in her name.

Ray

Yup they are correct ...a few years ago they took away my homestead until I produced my GC

or take your name off the house ... you cant have half ..its hers or no relief

vegas

Yup it is true. we were in Tampa on an L2 visa they would not let us have homestead

meauxna

What's your timelines for all this? Maybe your LPR will be approved before you need to file this homestead thing?

Dan B

Homestead exemption needs to be filed before March 1st. LPR will be way after that, mainly because I need to wait for my federal tax return before I have enough $'s for the fees.

I'm not sure of the ramifications from transferring the deed into wholly my wife's name. She was not involved in the purchase of the house at all. We kept her name out of everything as she sold her old house at the beginning of the year. By leaving her out I end up qualifying for the full $8k new homebuyers tax credit. So, I suppose, I should just suck it up this year (homestead) and be patient.

airways

Whats it actually worth in real terms? $125 dollars or something or have I misunderstood how the tax and allowance works?

Dan B

The difference for me, if I have worked it out correctly, is $1000 a year.

Steve_

Yeah, they changed this several years ago because I had the homestead exemption then they changed it to LPRs and citizens only.

The idea is that it increases county revenues because there was a cap put on the increase in rates for people who can claim it. So if you have a vacation home in Florida the rates went up and have been going up. I seem to recall there was a referendum about three or four years that fiddled with it again.

However the upshot is that people don't want to buy vacation homes in Florida anymore because the property taxes are too high, I don't think this has been picked up on sufficiently in Florida. Everyone is going to Arizona instead now.

uknobby

Yup suck it up you got 8K new buyer tax credit so you didnt do to bad