Florida Save Our Homes Cap, and What Resets It

What the Save Our Homes Cap Actually Does

Fla. Stat. §193.155(1) provides that a Florida homestead is reassessed annually on January 1, and that any change resulting from that reassessment shall not exceed the lower of two figures. The first is three percent of the assessed value for the prior year. The second is the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, United States City Average, for the preceding calendar year as initially reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Note the word lower. In a year when inflation runs under three percent, the smaller number governs, so the cap is often tighter than the three percent people quote. Subsection (2) adds the sensible floor, that if the capped calculation would exceed just value, the assessed value drops to just value instead. The cap protects you from the market going up and never taxes you above what the house is actually worth.

The benefit compounds silently. A home bought in 2005 and held since can carry a difference between just value and assessed value well into six figures, and that difference is worth real money every single year. It is also fragile, because it is attached to a continuing ownership rather than to the house.

Practice pointer. Before I draft any deed on a long-held Florida homestead I look up the parcel on the county property appraiser’s site and write down both the just value and the assessed value. The difference is the number at risk, and it is the number that decides how careful the deed has to be.

What Counts as a Change of Ownership

Fla. Stat. §193.155(3)(a) sets the rule and then the exceptions. Property is assessed at just value as of January 1 of the year following a change of ownership, and for this purpose a change of ownership means any sale, foreclosure, or transfer of legal title or beneficial title in equity to any person, except where one of the listed items applies.

Read the definition on its own and nearly every estate planning deed looks like a reset. The exceptions are what make planning possible, and they are specific. The ones that matter most in practice are these.

• Legal to equitable, or equitable to equitable. Where the same person remains entitled to the exemption and no additional person applies for homestead. §193.155(3)(a)1.b.
• Owner as both grantor and grantee, with others added as grantee. §193.155(3)(a)1.c, with a condition covered below.
• Removing joint tenants with survivorship who are named only as grantors. §193.155(3)(a)1.d.
• Transfers between husband and wife, including to a surviving spouse and on dissolution of marriage. §193.155(3)(a)2.
• Descent by operation of law to a surviving spouse or minor children under Fla. Stat. §732.401. §193.155(3)(a)3.
• Transfer at the owner’s death to a permanent resident who was legally or naturally dependent on the owner. §193.155(3)(a)4.

Practice pointer. I identify which numbered exception a deed relies on before I draft it, and make the deed recite the facts that exception requires. A deed that happens to qualify is worth less than a deed that shows the property appraiser why it qualifies.

Does Putting Your Home in a Trust Reset Save Our Homes?

No. The exception is §193.155(3)(a)1.b, which covers a transfer between legal and equitable title or between equitable and equitable title, so long as the same person is entitled to the homestead exemption afterward as before and no additional person applies for a homestead exemption on the property.

Deeding your homestead to yourself as trustee of your own revocable trust is a textbook legal-to-equitable transfer. You held legal and equitable title; afterward the trustee holds legal title and you hold the equitable interest. Nobody new applies for homestead. The cap continues undisturbed, and the exemption itself continues for the separate reason that Fla. Stat. §196.041(2) treats a lifetime beneficial interest as equitable title to real estate.

That answers the tax question only. Whether the homestead belongs in your revocable trust is a different question with a different answer, and for a married Florida owner our usual advice is that it does not. The reasons are set out in can you put your Florida homestead in a revocable trust.

Practice pointer. I tell the county property appraiser about the transfer rather than wait to be asked. The office administers the exemption and the cap, and a funding deed that shows up in the records with no explanation is the kind of thing that generates a letter.

Does Adding a Child to the Deed Reset It?

Not by itself, and the real trigger is the part nobody mentions. Fla. Stat. §193.155(3)(a)1.c excepts a change or transfer by means of an instrument in which the owner is listed as both grantor and grantee and one or more other individuals are additionally named as grantee. Adding your daughter to your deed, with you still on it, fits.

The statute then supplies its own trigger in the next sentence. If any individual who is additionally named as a grantee applies for a homestead exemption on the property, the application is considered a change of ownership. So the reset is not caused by the deed. It is caused by your daughter later filing for homestead on that house, possibly years afterward, possibly without understanding what it costs.

Subparagraph 1.d handles the other direction. Where the owner is listed as both grantor and grantee and other people who held title as joint tenants with rights of survivorship are named only as grantors and removed from title, that is excepted too.

Practice pointer. If a child goes on the deed, the conversation about never applying for homestead on that property has to happen with the child, not only with the parent. Adding a name to a deed also carries a capital gains cost that usually dwarfs the property tax question, which is covered in transferring property to a family member in Florida.

How Much Is My Save Our Homes Benefit Actually Worth?

A common question I hear is, "How much am I really risking?" I answer it by pulling the parcel up on the county property appraiser site while the client watches, and reading out two numbers, the just value and the assessed value. The gap between them is what is at stake. On a house held since the 1990s I have seen that gap pass $300,000, and the owner had never once compared the two figures. That number decides how careful I am with the deed.

The cap and the exemption are two different benefits on the same property, and losing one does not always mean losing the other. Who qualifies at all is the homestead exemption, and a non-citizen owner has a separate path set out in homestead exemption for a non-US citizen. What survives the owner's death is a third question, covered in homestead and the surviving spouse.

Does a Lady Bird Deed Reset Save Our Homes?

It should not, and the reason matters more than the answer, because the explanation in common circulation is wrong.

People say a lady bird deed makes no present transfer, so nothing happens for property tax purposes. That reasoning is correct in a different context. For documentary stamp tax the Department of Revenue has ruled that an enhanced life estate deed transfers no present beneficial interest and is not subject to the tax, which is covered on Florida documentary stamp tax. For the assessment cap the reasoning does not carry, because the deed does convey a remainder in legal title, and §193.155(3)(a) defines a change of ownership to include a transfer of legal title, not only beneficial title.

The protection comes instead from §193.155(3)(a)1.c, the same exception that covers adding a child to the deed. The owner is listed as both grantor and grantee, the remainder takers are additionally named as grantees, and the cap survives so long as none of those additional grantees applies for a homestead exemption on the property during the owner’s life. A well-drafted deed recites those facts on its face so the property appraiser can see the exception without asking.

Where the remainder runs to a trustee, this is unsettled

Subparagraph 1.c speaks of other individuals additionally named as grantee. Where the remainder in a lady bird deed runs to the trustee of your revocable trust, the grantee is named in a representative capacity, and whether that person counts as an individual for this exception is an open question. We have looked, and we have found no Florida statute, Department of Revenue rule, attorney general opinion or reported decision construing the word either way for a trustee.

Two attorney general opinions, AGO 2001-31 and AGO 2002-28, treat reassessment as all or nothing rather than something that can be apportioned across interests, which raises the stakes on getting it right. No Department of Revenue rule fills the gap.

Practice pointer. On a parcel carrying a large accrued differential, we ask the county property appraiser for a written determination before recording a lady bird deed with a trustee remainderman. That costs a letter and a wait. Losing a six-figure Save Our Homes base to an unsettled question costs considerably more, every year, forever.

Spouse, Death and Divorce

Three exceptions cover what happens to families, and together they are broader than people expect.

Under §193.155(3)(a)2, legal or equitable title changed or transferred between husband and wife is excepted, and the statute states that this includes a change or transfer to a surviving spouse and a transfer due to a dissolution of marriage. Adding a spouse to your deed, deeding a home from both names into one in a divorce, and the passage of a home to a widow are all outside the reset.

Under §193.155(3)(a)3, a transfer that occurs by operation of law to the surviving spouse or minor children under Fla. Stat. §732.401 is excepted. That is the statute that takes over when a homestead devise fails, giving the spouse a life estate with a vested remainder in the descendants. Even in the scenario where the estate plan did not work, the cap does.

Under §193.155(3)(a)4, a transfer at the owner’s death to another person who is a permanent resident and who was legally or naturally dependent upon the owner is excepted as well.

Practice pointer. The spouse exceptions are generous enough that a married couple rarely needs to fear the cap when restructuring title between themselves. The risk concentrates where a non-spouse joins the title, which is the fact pattern worth slowing down for.

Taking the Cap With You When You Move

Fla. Stat. §193.155(8) lets accrued benefit follow you. A new Florida homestead is assessed at less than just value where the person establishing it received a homestead exemption as of January 1 of any of the three immediately preceding years. A husband and wife who both permanently resided on a previous homestead are each treated as having received the exemption even if only one of them applied.

The three-year rule is measured by January 1 of the preceding years rather than by elapsed months, and that is the detail that costs people the benefit. Selling in one year, renting while you look, and buying later can put you outside the window even when the gap felt short. Paragraph (d) also contains a condition worth knowing, that there is no reduction on the new homestead unless the prior homestead is reassessed at just value or under this subsection as of January 1 after the abandonment occurs.

Practice pointer. If you are between Florida homes and carrying a large differential, confirm the timing before you commit to a closing date. This benefit is not recoverable once the window closes, and no filing afterward brings it back.

What This Costs to Get Right

Government costs are additional and passed through at cost, with county recording starting at $19.20 for a deed. Posted fees are honored for 90 days. The full schedule is on the pricing page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The daughter who filed for homestead. A Clearwater mother added her daughter to the deed in 2016, which by itself changed nothing about the cap. Four years later the daughter moved in and applied for a homestead exemption on the same parcel, and that application was the change of ownership. The assessed value reset to just value the following January, and nobody had told either of them that the deed came with a standing condition.

The gap between houses. A Sarasota couple sold a home they had owned since 2003, rented for eighteen months while building, and moved into the new house. Because portability is measured against January 1 of the three immediately preceding years, the timing worked, but only barely, and an extra season of renting would have ended a differential worth several thousand dollars a year.

The determination letter. A Fort Myers widow wanted a lady bird deed with the remainder running to her trust, on a home she had held since 1998. Because the statute’s word is "individuals" and no authority construes it for a trustee, we wrote to the property appraiser and got a written determination before recording. The answer came back favorable. Had it not, she would have kept the deed and named her children directly, which was always the fallback.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Const. Art. VII §4 (assessment limitation on homestead property) and Art. VII §6 (homestead exemption).
• Fla. Stat. §193.155(1)(a) to (b) (annual reassessment capped at the lower of three percent or the change in the Consumer Price Index) and §193.155(2) (assessed value lowered to just value where the capped figure exceeds it). Transcribed verbatim from the official 2024 Florida Statutes as returned by flsenate.gov, pulled 2026-06-07.
• Fla. Stat. §193.155(3)(a) (definition of change of ownership) and its exceptions: 1.b (transfer between legal and equitable title, or equitable and equitable, where the same person remains entitled and no additional person applies); 1.c (owner listed as both grantor and grantee with other individuals additionally named as grantee, and the rule that an additional grantee’s homestead application is itself a change of ownership); 1.d (removal of joint tenants with rights of survivorship named only as grantors); 2 (transfers between husband and wife, including to a surviving spouse and on dissolution of marriage); 3 (transfer by operation of law to a surviving spouse or minor children under Fla. Stat. §732.401); 4 (transfer at death to a dependent permanent resident).
• Fla. Stat. §193.155(8)(a) to (e) (portability; the three immediately preceding years; the $500,000 ceiling; proration where the new homestead is worth less; combining and splitting prior homesteads).
• Fla. Stat. §196.041(2) (a beneficial interest for life is declared “equitable title to real estate,” which is why the exemption itself survives a transfer into a revocable trust). Retrieved 2026-09-14.
• Fla. AGO 2001-31 and Fla. AGO 2002-28 (reassessment on a change of ownership treated as all or nothing rather than apportioned). Attorney general opinions are advisory and not binding on a court.
• ⚠ Open question, stated as such. Whether a trustee named as a remainder grantee is one of the “individuals” contemplated by Fla. Stat. §193.155(3)(a)1.c is not resolved by any statute, Department of Revenue rule, attorney general opinion or reported decision that we have located. We treat it as unsettled and seek a written determination from the county property appraiser on parcels carrying a significant accrued differential.
• Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. Government costs, meaning recording, documentary stamps and certified copies, are additional and passed through at cost. Fees are not a prediction of outcome. This page describes Florida property tax law and is not tax advice for your parcel.

What I See in These Files

In 14 years of law practice the Save Our Homes differential is the asset I find clients least aware they own and most likely to give away by accident. It does not appear on a statement. Nobody sends a letter valuing it. It sits as a number on the property appraiser website that most people I meet have never once compared to the figure beside it.

I also litigate deeds after they fail, which enhances the practice of drafting deeds, and I notice the property tax failures share a shape with the title failures. Somebody signed an instrument that was fine on its own terms without knowing which statutory exception it needed to land on. That is why I write the exception number into the deed itself rather than leaving it to be inferred. Avoid signing any deed on a long-held Florida homestead before someone has looked up the accrued differential and named the exception the deed will rely on. On a large gap I will write to the property appraiser first and wait for the answer.

Updated on September 14, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law and our posted fees, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. The right plan depends on your specific facts, which we confirm at a free consult.