CopyPublished | Florida 3rd District Court of Appeal
...hat, under the facts
presented, the conveyance of the subject non-homestead residential
property from Taxpayer’s owners to Taxpayer constituted a “change of
ownership or control” of the property. As such, the trial court found, pursuant
to section 193.1554(3) of the Florida Statutes, that the Taxpayer lost its
annual assessment cap (the “10% Assessment Limitation”).
We affirm because the Taxpayer’s assertion that the conveyance to
Taxpayer was merely a transfer between legal and equitable title, rather than
a change of ownership, is belied by (i) the plain language of section
193.1554, (ii) the subject quitclaim deed, and (iii) Florida’s limited liability
company (LLC) law.
I....
...s dismissed, challenged the
market value assigned to the Subject Property, and is not a part of this
appeal.
4
legal and equitable title,” and therefore, did not constitute a “change of
ownership” under section 193.1554(5)....
...The trial court found that nothing in the quitclaim deed or in Taxpayer’s LLC
operating agreement indicated that the Andersons retained equitable title in
the Subject Property. Taxpayer timely appealed the judgment.
III. Analysis4
A. Section 193.1554
As mentioned above, section 193.1554(3) provides that any change
resulting from the annual assessment of a non-homestead residential
property is capped at ten percent of the assessed value of the property for
the prior year. § 193.1554(3), Fla. Stat. (2020). The property retains this 10%
Assessment Limitation so long as the property does not undergo “a change
of ownership or control.” § 193.1554(5), Fla....
...3d 804, 806 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018).
5
is “a change of ownership or control,” the property “shall be assessed at just
value as of January 1 of the year following such change in ownership or
control.” Id.
Section 193.1554(5) defines “a change of ownership or control” as
“any sale, foreclosure, transfer of legal title or beneficial title in equity to any
person, or the cumulative transfer of control or of more than 50 percent of
the ownership...
...recently assessed at just value.” Id.
The statute contains four express exemptions to this definition. The
exemption at issue in the instant case reads as follows: “There is no change
of ownership if: . . . [t]he transfer is between legal and equitable title.” §
193.1554(5)(b), Fla....
...Taxpayer asserts that when real property is transferred from two married
individuals to an LLC that is owned solely by the two married individuals, as
occurred here, only a transfer between legal and equitable title has occurred,
and ownership has not changed for the purposes of section
193.1554(5)(b).
6
In support of its argument, Taxpayer relies on two cases construing a
different statute from the one involved here – section
201.02(1) of the Florida
Statutes, the documentary tax statute....
...Stat.
(2020).
7
2d at 919; Kuro, Inc.,
713 So. 2d at 1022 (holding that the “beneficial
ownership of the land remained unchanged.”). Taxpayer urges us to come
to a similar conclusion when analyzing the transactions under section
193.1554(5).
The inquiry in both Crescent Miami Center and Kuro, Inc....
...Courts held,
documentary tax liability under section
201.02(1)’s plain language is
triggered only when there is a “purchaser” and, relatedly, when there is
“consideration.” Crescent Miami Center,
903 So. 2d at 918; Kuro, Inc.,
713
So. 2d at 1022. While our inquiry under section
193.1554(5) might seem
similar to the inquiry undertaken by the Crescent Miami Center and Kuro,
Inc. courts, our focus is not whether there was a purchaser and consideration
for the transaction. Rather, our focus, based on section
193.1554(5)’s plain
language, is whether there was a “change of ownership.” Clearly, the transfer
of the property from the Andersons – who held the property in the entireties
– to Taxpayer, a Florida LLC, constituted a change of...
...liability for occurrences on the property would not touch them. Nothing in the
summary judgment record indicates that this purpose was not effectuated by
the transfer.
Plainly, there was a “change of ownership” – as that term is defined in
section 193.1554(5) – in the Subject Property....
...Additionally, the summary judgment record does not indicate that the
Andersons’ ownership interest in Taxpayer was subject to a right of
survivorship.
9
and therefore, pursuant to the statutory exception found in section
193.1554(5)(b), no change of ownership occurred....
...retain, as a matter of law, the equitable title to the conveyed property
because those owners or members control the LLC. We therefore agree with
the Property Appraiser, VAB, and the trial court that, for the purposes of
11
section 193.1554(5)(b), the Andersons did not retain equitable ownership of
the Subject Property when they conveyed the Subject Property to Taxpayer.
IV....
...of ownership” of the Subject Property. While we are not unsympathetic to
Taxpayer’s argument that the 10% Assessment Limitation should be
retained under the circumstances presented here, we are simply not free, by
judicial fiat, to craft what would amount to a fifth exception to section
193.1554(5) to exempt from the definition of “change of ownership” any real
property transfer from individuals to a Florida limited liability company wholly
owned by such individuals....
CopyPublished | Florida 3rd District Court of Appeal
...Assessments subject to this subsection shall be
changed annually on the date of assessment provided by law;
but those changes in assessments shall not exceed ten percent
(10%) of the assessments for the prior year.
2
and its statutory counterpart, section 193.1554 of the Florida Statutes, 2 are
applied to limit the assessed value of Hassett’s property.
The Property Appraiser appeals the trial court’s determination that, in
calculating the tax lien, the 10% Assessment Limitation ap...
...erty becomes eligible
for assessment pursuant to this section, the property shall be reassessed
annually on January 1. Any change resulting from such reassessment may
not exceed 10 percent of the assessed value of the property for the prior
year.” § 193.1554(3), Fla....
... II. Analysis9
A. Whether the 10% Assessment Limitation applies to tax years 2009-
2015
Hassett’s operative complaint asserted that the Property Appraiser, in
violation of Article VII, section 4(g) of the Florida Constitution and section
193.1554(3) of the Florida Statutes, wrongfully refused to apply the 10%
Assessment Limitation to tax years 2009 through 2015, resulting in an
inflated calculation of Hassett’s lien obligation....
....
is eligible for the 10% nonhomestead assessment increase cap.
We therefore affirm that portion of the trial court’s final judgment
requiring the Property Appraiser to recalculate the tax lien consistent with
the 10% Assessment Limitation and the requisites of section 193.1554.
10
We note that, in both its briefing to this Court, and at oral argument, the
Department commendably concedes that its rule is incongruous with the
Florida Constitution and that, when a homestead exemption has been
revoked, t...
CopyPublished | Florida 5th District Court of Appeal | 2012 WL 1365061, 2012 Fla. App. LEXIS 6191
...e, “placed on the tax roll,” means with respect to the ten per cent cap on increases in the assessment of continuously owned non-homestead residential real property that previously enjoyed the status of homestead property. The phrase is found in section 193.1554(3), Florida Statutes (2010)....
...The trial court concluded that the phrase meant that the homestead value of continuously owned residential property remained in place even after the property no longer bore a homestead classification, and that the assessment on the property could not be increased by more than the ten per cent limit found in section 193.1554(3)....
...s of ten per cent of the previous-year assessment, the Appraiser had violated the ten per cent cap imposed on assessment increases for that classification of property under newly adopted Subsection 4(g) of Article VII of the Florida Constitution and section 193.1554, Florida Statutes....
...Eventually, however, the trial court granted the motion of the Sommerses for summary judgment, holding that the ten per cent cap on an increase of an assessment of nonhomestead residential property set forth in subsection 4 of Article VII of the state constitution and section 193.1554(3), Florida Statutes, applied to the Sommers’ property for 2009....
...x purposes. That is to say, in order to be classified as nonhomestead residential property and to receive the benefit of the ten per cent tax increase limitation, a parcel of real estate cannot at the same time be subject to the homestead exemption. Section 193.1554, Florida Statutes, which implements these constitutional requirements, provides in pertinent part: (1) As used in this section, the term “nonhomestead residential property” means residential real property that contains nine or fe...
...Otherwise, the property which is currently not entitled to the Save Our Homes discount, would inherently benefit from that discount if the 2008 homestead value of the house was utilized as the base value, so long as it continued to be owned by Mr. and Mrs. Sommers. The Sommerses argue to the contrary that section 193.1554(3), Florida Statutes, which governs non-homestead residential property, does not allow an assessment that exceeds ten per cent of the assessed value for the property for the prior year....
...sessed at just value accordingly. See §
193.461(4)(a), Fla. Stat. (2010). In similar fashion, nonhomestead residential property is also required to be assessed at just value on January 1st of the year following a change of ownership or control. See §
193.1554(5), Fla....
...t, to clarify the current issue. CS/HB 7097 would amend section 193.1553(2) to read as follows: (2) For all levies other than school district levies, nonresidential real property and residential real property that is not assessed under s.
193.155 or s.
193.1554 shall be assessed at just value as of January 1 of the year that the property becomes eligible for assessment pursuant to this section....
...clarifies that certain nonhomestead property is to be assessed at just value when it is subject to a new assessment limitation. Later, after discussing the unfortunate use of the term “placed on the tax roll,” the analysis repeats that: The bill amends ss.
193.1554, F.S., and
193.1555, F.S., to clarify that property is to be assessed at just valuation when it is subject to a new limitation....
