Posted on Wednesday, 09.16.2009


The deadline to file property assessment appeals is only two days away and local tax appeal firms say they are overwhelmed by the surge of South Florida and Miami real estate property owners hoping to lower their taxes.

Larry Puyanic with Tax Savers of Miami says they are swamped and don't have enough people to man the phones.

Owners of South Florida and Miami real estate properties have until Friday to file an appeal and pay the $15 filing fee to challenge their tax assessments.

About 10,400 South Florida real estate property owners had filed appeals in Broward, as of Tuesday,18,000 appeals had been entered into the system in Miami-Dade, but heaps of applications still needed processing.

Property tax abatement companies are seeing a 20 to 30% increase in business this year as angry South Florida real estate property owners look for ways to reduce their contact to rising tax rates levied by cities and other taxing authorities.

Even though Miami real estate property owners are seeing a decrease in their assessed values, their property taxes are going up and it’s very exasperating.

Boward County’s value adjustment board and documents manager, Jo Bieber, expected fewer filings than last year's 30,000, because of the drop in appeals from residential property owners.

However, he said the county could see slightly more filings from Miami commercial real estate property owners.

There were 102,000 appeals filed last year that Miami-Dade is still dealing with.

There are still about 36,000 appeals that have to be heard.