Save Our Homes and Portability — Brevard County, Florida

The SOH cap, Florida's homestead assessment limit, holds the yearly rise in a Brevard County homestead's assessed value to 3 percent or the CPI change, whichever is lower, from the year after BCPAO first grants the exemption.

The statute sets the two limits side by side: 3 percent of the prior year's assessed value, or the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers for the preceding calendar year (Section 193.155, Florida Statutes). The Brevard County Property Appraiser (BCPAO) applies that rule from a base year. Its SOH card explains that the first year an owner receives homestead exemption, market value and assessed value are equal, and only in later years does the cap hold assessed value below a rising market (BCPAO SOH card).

The gap that builds up is the benefit. The Florida Department of Revenue calls the accumulated difference between assessed value and just value the SOH benefit, and it adds a point that surprises owners: even if the market value of a home decreases, the assessed value may still increase by the limited amount, though it can never exceed just value (DOR PT-112). On a BCPAO record, that is why a Palm Bay or Melbourne homestead can show a higher assessed value in a year when sales prices dipped.

Taxes are figured after exemptions. BCPAO defines taxable value as the assessed value less any applicable exemptions, so the cap and the homestead exemption work in sequence: the cap limits the assessed figure, and the exemptions come off that capped number (BCPAO).

For the 2026 tax roll the SOH cap applied by BCPAO is 2.7 percent, down from 2.9 percent in 2025 and the full 3.0 percent ceiling that held from 2022 through 2024.

The Department of Revenue publishes the yearly figure that BCPAO and every other county appraiser applies, with the CPI change taken from the year before the tax year listed (DOR SOH table). In three straight years, 2022, 2023 and 2024, inflation ran above 3 percent, so the statutory ceiling did the limiting. For a Brevard homestead, each of those years added the gap between market growth and 3 percent to the accumulated benefit on the BCPAO record.

The cap also has a floor of sorts in low-inflation years. The Department of Revenue table shows a 0.7 percent cap for 2016 and 0.1 percent for 2009, so an owner in Barefoot Bay or Grant-Valkaria who held a homestead through those years saw almost no assessed increase from the cap itself (DOR).

A sale or other change of ownership ends the cap: BCPAO raises the assessed value to market value on January 1 of the year after the sale, and the buyer starts a new base year only after qualifying for homestead.

The BCPAO SOH card says the cap will be removed and the assessed value increased to equal the market value on January 1 following the sale or conveyance, and that new owners must apply for and receive a homestead exemption to set their own base year (BCPAO SOH card). The same card covers an owner who still owns the home but no longer qualifies for homestead: the exemption and the cap are removed in the following year. The Department of Revenue defines a change of ownership as any sale, foreclosure, or transfer of legal or beneficial title (DOR PT-112).

Some transfers do not reset a BCPAO assessment. The statute lists a change or transfer between husband and wife, including a transfer to a surviving spouse or one due to a dissolution of marriage, among the events that are not a change of ownership (Section 193.155).

Building work changes the base without removing the cap. BCPAO adds the full market value of improvements or additions, other than normal maintenance, to the capped assessed value, so a new pool or room in Palm Bay enters the roll at market while the original house keeps its benefit (BCPAO). The card also limits the cap to the owner-occupied part of a parcel with multiple buildings, extends it to the residence and curtilage on agricultural land, and allows a partial cap when only some tenants in common live on the property.

Portability lets a Brevard homeowner who leaves one Florida homestead carry up to $500,000 of the accumulated SOH benefit to a new Florida homestead, if the new homestead is established within three years and Form DR-501T reaches the property appraiser by March 1.

BCPAO traces the rule to 2008, when voters approved transferring the cap to another Florida property, and states that the maximum amount that can be transferred to a new homestead property is $500,000 (BCPAO portability card). The window has been three years since January 1, 2021. The BCPAO card gives its own example: an owner who sold or left a homestead in September 2021 had until January 1, 2024 to re-establish homestead on another Florida property.

The clock runs from January 1, not from the closing date. The Department of Revenue tells owners to establish the new homestead within three years of January 1 of the year the old one was abandoned, not three years after the sale, and to file the transfer form with the homestead application by March 1 (DOR PT-112). Form DR-501T is an attachment to the original homestead application, with one part for the new homestead and one for the previous homestead and its county, and co-applicants transferring from a different homestead each file a separate form (Form DR-501T; BCPAO). A move from Indian River County or Orange County into Brevard works the same way; the previous county is named on the form.

BCPAO subtracts the full portable amount when an owner moves up to a home of equal or higher market value, and applies a ratio when the owner moves down to a cheaper home.

In the porting up case, the statute sets the new assessed value at just value minus the lesser of $500,000 or the prior home's difference between just value and assessed value (Section 193.155). The BCPAO example moves a $150,000 difference ($400,000 minus $250,000) onto a $600,000 home, for an assessed value of $450,000 (BCPAO portability card).

In the porting down case, the new home keeps the same share of value protected. BCPAO rounds the ratio to 68.7 percent and prints $171,750; the unrounded arithmetic, $275,000 divided by $400,000 equals 0.6875, times $250,000, gives $171,875 (BCPAO). When two or more owners leave a jointly titled Brevard homestead, the statute divides the prior difference by the number of owners who held the homestead exemption, unless the title sets specific shares (Section 193.155).

Brevard owners file the DR-501T with the homestead application at one of the four BCPAO offices, and a denial can be taken to the Value Adjustment Board, with a $15.00 portability petition fee listed by the Brevard County Clerk.

The Department of Revenue states that an owner whose portability application is denied may petition the county value adjustment board (DOR PT-112). In Brevard County, petitions are filed through the Clerk of Court's Value Adjustment Board page, which lists a $15.00 filing fee for portability petitions, payable to Brevard Clerk of Courts (Brevard Clerk VAB petitions).

A change to the wider system is on the November 3, 2026 ballot. Amendment 3, as printed by the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections, would raise the homestead exemption for non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, and reduce the annual cap on assessment increases for non-homestead properties from 10% to 5% (Brevard Supervisor of Elections).

Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the Brevard County Property Appraiser and Florida Department of Revenue websites.