Pinellas County Real Estate Today Loses Chance to Cut Property Taxes by up to 32%

Pinellas County Real Estate News – Well all Pinellas County home owners, property investors and others got some bad news today following the news we received on August 15th when a Leon County Circuit Court removed Amendment 5 aimed at lowering everyone’s property taxes off the November ballot. We all had been waiting to see what Florida’s Supreme Court would decide. By a 7-0 ruling on September 3rd they struck the Property Tax Amendment from our ballot and their decision is final so Amendment 5 will not be on the ballot this November.

The Florida Supreme Courts’ ruling ends a long fight to help provide property tax relief to Floridians. The court’s ruled to uphold the Circuit Court’s decision to remove Amendment 5 from this fall’s ballot because of the language in the property tax amendment which said “education funding would be held harmless”. The issue was that Amendment 5 funding would only be held harmless for the 1st year and then education funding would be determined by the Florida State legislature.
We will continue to keep you posted on what’s happening with Pinellas county real estate issues that effect you! Stay tuned for any new developments.

The Florida Association of Realtors, which supported the amendment, decried Cooper’s ruling saying “Homeownership is a fundamental right, and Floridians deserve a say on how their property is taxed,” said Chuck Bonfiglio, president of the Florida Association of Realtors, in a prepared statement. “We are shocked that the court decided to deny property owners’ the ability to dramatically lower their property tax rates.”

We as Pinellas County Realtors and home owners were excited about voting YES for Amendment 5 Property taxes. We believe it would have helped Pinellas County Real Estate buyers, residents and renters because everyone should have experience savings. We also believe it would have helped home sellers since by making Pinellas County homes more affordable and more appealing to buyers who do not currently qualify for homestead exemptions.

Florida property taxes have doubled over last 6 years!

Amendment 5 proposed a sales tax 1% or less to fund education.

Amendment 5 was expected to save Florida property owners 25-40% on their property taxes in 2010 by sharing the cost of education with all Pinellas County residents and tourists.

In this Pinellas County Real Estate market Amendment 5 would have helped people buying vacation homes or invests in Clearwater Beach and the Clearwater area with it’s 5% annual property tax cap on all non-homestead property (which was set at 10% this past February) One of the challenges second home property buyers struggle with is the fact that yes – prices and home values are down now but as they rise – so does the cost of ownership and many fear not being able to own these properties for the long term.

Additional aritcles discussing Amendment 5 being removed from the ballot:

Amendment 5 had projected savings for Tampa Bay property owners

  • Hillsborough property owners = 23%,
  • Pinellas County property owners = 25%
  • Pasco property owners = 32%

Amendment 5 Property Tax Details

Now we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the future. Here are the details for the Amendment 5 proposal at Give Me 5 Florida and the actual Amendment 5 property tax proposal. Benefits: Amendment 5 would have provided much-needed tax relief to Florida’s seniors, many of whom fear losing their homes because of an inability to pay higher property taxes on a fixed income.

Amendment 5 proposal built on what Ammendment 1 already gave us:

  • Portability
  • +25K Homestead exemption
  • 10% cap for non homestead property owners

Other articles of interest

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