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As cap lifts, new homeowners get shock

Homes that are sold lose the benefit of the Save Our Homes law, and property taxes are reassessed at market value. In some cases, the levy can triple.

By JAMES THORNER
Published August 28, 2005

Lewis and Geraldine Plate live in a 2,300-square-foot beige stucco house in Meadow Pointe. Their property tax load is about $4,000 this year.

William and Julia Still live three doors away in, yes, a 2,300-square-foot beige stucco house. Their tax bill: $1,900.

The Plates are retired, the Stills in their 30s with three school-age children. But it's the Plates, via their higher taxes, who essentially subsidize schools, parks and roads for the Stills.

"We were prepared for the taxes when we moved here," said Lewis Plate, a retired schoolteacher in his late 60s who lives on Distant Oaks Drive. "Doesn't mean we like it."

The explanation is simple. The Stills bought their house in 1998 and benefit from Florida's Save Our Homes law, which caps property assessment increases at 3 percent a year.

Though the Stills recently had their house appraised at $320,000, Pasco County taxes them at a value nearly equal to the $134,000 they paid in 1998.

The Plates bought their house in April for $237,500, and their taxes reflect the higher sales price. When you move into a new house, you lose the Save Our Homes cap enjoyed by the previous owner.

"I just kind of laugh when I see how little we pay," said William Still, a 37-year-old who works in sales. "It's the benefit of staying in a house."

Those kind of tax discrepancies are accumulating by the thousands as Pasco, like the rest of Florida, experiences a massive run-up in real estate values.

About 9,000 new homes, townhomes and apartments broke ground last year, added to the thousands of resales of existing homes. The average price of a new home is about $240,000, double what it was just a few years ago.

New homeowners in places such as Seven Oaks in Wesley Chapel, Ballantrae in Land O'Lakes, and Longleaf in New Port Richey are paying a heavier share of the government's bills.

Consider these recent big ticket items: A multimillion-dollar Wesley Chapel Regional Park, the doubling in size of the Land O'Lakes and Regency Park libraries and the hiring of hundreds of new school teachers.

The Pasco Property Appraiser's office, which combines school and county taxes in the same yearly statement, mailed its 2005 notices to property owners last week.

Appraiser Mike Wells cautioned people to consider Save Our Homes before buying property. It's not unusual for taxes on a house to triple with a change of ownership.

Save Our Homes, originally pitched as a salve for retirees afraid of being taxed from their homes, has applied to Floridians of all ages since 1995.

"That's one of the benefits of being a permanent resident of Florida," Wells said.

Wells sympathized with homeowners who complain they're paying twice what their neighbors are paying, but if there's a fairer system of taxation he'd like to know.

In a few years, with thousands more homeowners pouring into the county, the home buyer of 2005 will be viewed as undertaxed. Attempts in Tallahassee to let homeowners preserve Save Our Homes caps even when they change houses have gone nowhere.

"I still think taxes in Pasco County are a bargain in relation to the rest of the United States," Wells said.

(That's true if you're talking about many places in New York, California and Massachusetts. But the owner of a $250,000 house in a comparable Sunbelt suburb like Cobb County near Atlanta is taxed about $1,000 below the owner of the same house in Pasco.)

Newer Pasco residents suffer other financial disadvantages as well. New houses pay thousands more in impact fees than older houses.

Impact fees are one-time charges builders pay local government to fund schools, roads, parks, utility lines, fire stations and libraries. Builders include the fees in the price of each house.

Until a few years ago, the fees were relatively low. They've recently climbed past $10,000 per house.

As for the Plates, they realize things could be worse, despite their $4,000 tax bill.

The couple moved to Meadow Pointe from pricier Fort Lauderdale and pity the young family that bought their Broward County house.

The Plates lived in Fort Lauderdale 17 years and for 10 years enjoyed low taxes under Save Our Homes.

"We used to pay very little, but they got nailed," Lewis Plate said. "You have to be be very careful."

[Last modified August 28, 2005, 01:14:15]