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How to Challenge Your Broward Property Assessment — and the Deadline You Can’t Miss
Every Broward County property owner got a notice in the mail last month. Most people opened it, saw a number, decided it was bad news, and put it down. That notice is the only chance you get all year to argue about what your property is worth — and there is a hard deadline on it.
For the 2026 tax roll, the deadline is Friday, September 18, 2026.
Florida sets this date county by county, 25 days after the TRIM notices go out. After the deadline passes, the Property Appraiser is barred by statute from working on your property for that tax year. Whatever is on your November bill is what you pay.
We had Marty Kiar, the Broward County Property Appraiser, on the South Florida Mortgage Report to walk through exactly how this works. He has held the office since 2017, and before that he served in the Florida House and on the Broward County Commission, including a term as mayor.
His first piece of advice was not about paperwork. It was about timing.
“It’s actually way better to call me today than on Friday. Truthfully on Friday, if people call, we’ll probably say you probably want to file a petition, because we’re working on all these other ones. But if you get there now, if you get to it tomorrow, we’ll definitely have it done.”
— Marty Kiar, Broward County Property Appraiser
First, understand what that notice actually is
It is called a TRIM notice — Truth in Millage. It is not a tax bill. That is the single most common misunderstanding about it, and it is why so many people never act.
The TRIM notice exists so you can check that you are not overpaying before the bill is issued. It shows four things:
- What your property was valued at for tax purposes
- Every tax-saving exemption currently applied to it
- The dates your local governments will be discussing their rates and budgets
- The proposed amount of property tax you will be asked to pay this year
You can pull yours up any time at bcpa.net.
How the value gets set, and why it can be wrong
Everything runs off January 1. When your November bill arrives, it reflects the condition and value of your property as of January 1 of that year — not as of today.
For a home you have owned for a while, that did not change hands, the office looks at sales in your neighborhood and community and adjusts them to arrive at a value for your property.
“At times we may be incorrect. And an appraisal is just an opinion of value.”
That is the Property Appraiser himself saying it. A mass appraisal built from neighborhood sales cannot know that your roof is failing, that there was water damage in March, or that the interior has not been touched since 1994. You have to tell them.
The four steps
1. Pull your TRIM notice at bcpa.net. Read it properly. It is not a bill.
2. Check the value, then check the exemptions. There are more exemptions available than most owners realize — homestead, senior, veteran, widow and widower, disability and others. Missing one costs real money every single year until somebody catches it.
3. If something looks wrong, contact the office before the deadline. They will go through the property with you. In his words: he can lower it. He cannot raise it.
4. Or file a petition with the Value Adjustment Board — $25. No attorney required, and you can file it online.
What the $25 petition actually buys you
This is the part worth understanding, because it does two separate things.
It keeps your file alive. Filing before the deadline gives the Property Appraiser’s office the legal ability to keep working on your property after the deadline has passed. Without it, the door closes.
And it gives you an independent hearing. The Value Adjustment Board is a separate body that settles disputes between the Property Appraiser’s office and a taxpayer. If the office still cannot help you, you can put your case to a special magistrate. Whatever the magistrate rules, the office abides by.
So if you are anywhere near the deadline and unsure, filing the petition is the cautious move. Twenty-five dollars preserves every option you have.
Bring documents, not opinions
This is where most challenges fall apart, and it is the most useful thing in the whole conversation. Kiar gave a real example from the week before we spoke.
An owner called and said the assessment did not reflect the condition of the house.
They sent in insurance information and photographs of the interior — water damage, a dilapidated condition. That was evidence the office did not have and could not have had.
It gave them grounds to drop the market value, which brought it below the assessed value, which brought the tax bill down.
Condition is arguable. Documentation of condition is persuasive. “My neighbor pays less than I do” is not a case — it is a feeling, and it will not move a number.
If you are going to challenge an assessment, go in with insurance claims, contractor estimates, engineering or inspection reports, photographs with dates on them, and anything showing a structural or systems problem.
“My value went down. Why did my bill go up?”
This is the question that makes people angriest, and there is a real answer for it. It is called recapture, and it is worth knowing because it is not an error.
When you file for homestead, the Save Our Homes cap kicks in. The value you are taxed on cannot rise more than 3% a year, or the change in the consumer price index, whichever is lower. Over time your market value usually climbs faster than that, so a gap opens between what your home is worth and what you are actually taxed on.
Now suppose the market dips. Your market value falls — but if there is still a gap between market value and assessed value, Florida law requires your assessed value to keep climbing, up to that 3% maximum, until it catches up.
Market value down. Taxable value up. Both at once, and entirely legal.
Kiar, who has to administer it, is not a fan:
“I hate the recapture rule. I’ll be honest, I hate it. I think it’s so unfair, so wrong… I hope the legislature one day repeals that stupid law.”
— Marty Kiar
He tried. While he was in the Florida House, a proposed constitutional amendment went on the ballot to end it — if your market value went down, your assessed value could not go up. It did not reach the 60% threshold needed to pass. The Legislature has tried again since, in bipartisan fashion, and it has not made it through either.
So for now, recapture is the law, and it explains a lot of angry November mail.
If you are not in Broward County
The September 18 date in this article is Broward County only. Florida sets the petition deadline per county, counted from the day that county mailed its TRIM notices, so the date moves depending on where your property sits.
If you own in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie or anywhere else in Florida, go to your own county Property Appraiser’s website and find your date. The process is broadly the same. The deadline is not.
One note if you are buying or selling
The tax figure on a listing is the current owner’s number, and it is often built on a capped assessed value they have been protected by for years. It resets on sale.
That matters more than most buyers expect. If a homesteaded property has been capped for a decade, the taxes the new owner pays can be materially higher than the taxes shown on the listing — and that difference lands in the escrow payment, not in the purchase price. When we pre-approve a buyer, we look at what the taxes will actually be, not what the seller has been paying.
If you want that run properly before you write an offer, ask. It takes a few minutes and it has saved people from a payment they did not expect.
Got a property and not sure what the taxes will really be?
Send us the address and we will run the actual numbers — what the taxes reset to, what it does to the payment, and whether the deal still works. No cost, no obligation.
Send us the address and we will run the actual numbers — what the taxes reset to, what it does to the payment, and whether the deal still works. No cost, no obligation.
Capital Partners Mortgage Services, LLC · 1515 N. University Dr., Suite D102, Coral Springs, FL 33071 · (954) 271-2024 · NMLS #2332376 · nmlsconsumeraccess.org · Equal Housing Opportunity. This article is educational commentary and is not tax, legal or financial advice, and is not a commitment to lend. Property tax procedures, fees and deadlines are established by Florida statute and administered by each county; confirm all dates and requirements with your county Property Appraiser. Statements attributed to Marty Kiar are his own, made on our program on September 14, 2026. Petition fees and deadlines were accurate as of that date and are subject to change.
