A constitutional amendment that rewrites how Florida property is taxed is on the November 2026 ballot — and it will land in the middle of every Florida HOA and condo board's 2027 budget season. On June 2, 2026, after a five-day special session, the Florida Legislature passed CS/HJR 1F 75–26 in the House and 30–9 in the Senate, sending what is formally titled the “Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes” amendment to the voters. If at least 60% approve, it takes effect on January 1, 2027 — and changes four things at once: the homestead exemption climbs from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, the non-homestead annual assessment cap drops from 10% to 5%, anyone establishing Florida residency after the new year has to wait five years for the full benefit, and counties and municipalities lose the ability to spend property tax dollars on anything outside a defined list of “core services.”
This is general information about a pending Florida constitutional amendment, not legal, tax, or political advice. Confirm the current text and how it would affect your community with your association's attorney and tax adviser. The amendment must be approved by 60% of Florida voters on November 3, 2026 to take effect, and its implementing details will be filled in by general law if it passes.
Two “Save Our Homes” — don't confuse them
Before anything else: the amendment on the ballot is not the original Save Our Homes law most Floridians have heard of for 30 years. The two pieces of law share a name and the political brand, but they do different things, and almost every owner who calls a board this fall will conflate them.
The original Save Our Homes is the 1992 amendment that became Article VII, Section 4(d) of the Florida Constitution and is implemented at FS § 193.155. It caps the annual increase in the assessed value of a homesteaded property at the lower of 3% or the change in CPI. That cap is what lets a long-time owner's tax bill stay flat even when the market value of the home doubles. It also created the $500,000 portability benefit that lets sellers carry their assessment savings to a new homestead. None of that is changing. The Pinellas County Property Appraiser has a clean explainer if anyone in your community asks for one.
The 2026 amendment, formally titled “Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes,” does something different. It does not change the 3% assessment cap. Instead, it expands the homestead exemption — the dollar amount subtracted from assessed value before millage is applied — from $50,000 to $250,000 over two years, tightens a separate non-homestead assessment cap, and restricts how cities and counties can spend the property tax they still collect. The two laws stack: a long-time Florida homesteader keeps the 3% cap and gets the bigger exemption on top. The shared “Save Our Homes” name is a marketing choice by the bill's sponsors, not a sign they are the same provision.
What the amendment actually does
CS/HJR 1F amends three sections of Article VII of the Florida Constitution — Sections 4, 6, and 9 — and adds a new section to Article XII to set the effective date. Underneath the headline number, four distinct changes happen at once.
1. The homestead exemption climbs from $50,000 to $250,000
Today, every Florida homesteader gets a $25,000 exemption that applies to all levies plus a second $25,000 that applies only to non-school levies on assessed value between $50,000 and $75,000 — a total of $50,000 if your home is worth more than $75,000 (Article VII, Section 6(a)). The 2026 amendment leaves the first $25,000 alone and replaces the second tranche with a much larger one, phased in over two years: $150,000 on January 1, 2027 and $250,000 on January 1, 2028. The $250,000 figure is indexed to inflation starting in 2029. The expanded portion applies only to non-school levies; the $25,000 school tranche stays put.
Existing Florida homesteaders do not need to do anything to get the bigger exemption. There is no opt-in, no second filing, no renewal. The property appraiser applies the new exemption automatically to every property that already carries homestead on the 2027 and 2028 rolls.
2. School taxes are completely carved out
The single most important fact to communicate to your owners is that school district taxes do not change at all. The original House version of the bill applied the expanded exemption to all levies including schools; an amendment by Rep. Sam Garrison stripped the school impact out before final passage, and the version on the ballot exempts only non-school taxes. School millage statewide runs roughly 5.5–7 mills and is calculated against assessed value reduced only by the existing $25,000 standard exemption. On a homesteaded $300,000 condo in a 6.34-mill school district, that's still about $1,744 a year in school taxes — even if the county, city, and special district portions of the bill drop to zero.
3. The non-homestead annual assessment cap drops from 10% to 5%
Less publicized but arguably more important for many Florida condo associations: the annual cap on assessment increases for non-homestead property — today 10% — drops to 5% effective January 1, 2027. This change sits in Article VII, Sections 4(g) and 4(h) and applies to both small residential (nine units or fewer) and other non-homestead real estate, including commercial. School-district levies are again exempt from the cap.
The cap only matters in years when market value grows faster than the cap, so in flat or declining markets it does nothing. But in fast-appreciating coastal Florida markets — Miami Beach, Naples, Sarasota, Key Biscayne, parts of the Panhandle — it materially limits how fast a snowbird's, investor's, or second-home owner's assessed value can climb. The non-partisan Tax Foundation warns that the tighter cap also further compresses the local tax base, which can push counties to raise millage rates on the same non-homestead properties to offset the lost growth — partly cancelling the cap's benefit at the individual-bill level.
4. New Florida residents wait five years for the full benefit
Anyone who establishes Florida residency on or after January 1, 2027 receives only the $25,000-plus-$50,000 standard exemption ladder for their first four years of homestead, and becomes eligible for the full $250,000 exemption starting in their fifth year. The wait was added to address concerns that a $250,000 exemption available to brand-new movers would accelerate the existing in-migration to Florida and worsen housing affordability for long-time residents.
Two narrow exceptions are baked into the amendment. First, an existing Florida homesteader who simply moves to a different Florida homestead is not a “new resident” and keeps full eligibility. Second, beginning in 2030, a county or municipality may waive the five-year wait by a two-thirds vote of its governing body for a “critical local need” — language the sponsors framed around teacher, nurse, and first-responder recruitment.
5. Counties and municipalities can only spend property tax on “core” uses
The amendment also adds a new restriction to Article VII, Section 9: the property tax revenue that does still flow to a city or county can be spent only on a defined list — public safety, education, infrastructure including stormwater control, natural-resource and flood-control projects, debt service on local bonds, employee retirement obligations, and general operations. That list omits at least three categories that show up in current county budgets: Economic Environment (affordable housing, jobs programs), Human Services (hospitals, indigent care, developmental disability services), and Culture and Recreation (libraries, parks, beautification). Together those categories account for roughly 17% of county and 10% of municipal spending today, according to the bill's State Affairs Committee staff analysis.
The amendment doesn't shut those programs off — it just says they can't be funded with general ad valorem revenue going forward. Local governments would have to find other funding mechanisms: fees, special-purpose districts, sales taxes, grants, or pulling them onto private entities. That last option is where this lands on your board.
What it means for condo owners
Three owner archetypes live in nearly every Florida condo or HOA, and the amendment treats them very differently — with a fourth party, the local government, picking up the cost.
The homesteaded owner
This is the clearest winner. Existing Florida homesteaders see no change in their school tax bill but a significant drop in their non-school portion in 2027 and an even larger one in 2028. Owners whose total assessed value is at or below $250,000 may pay zero in county and city property tax on the homestead by 2028, owing only the school portion. The 3% Save Our Homes assessment cap continues to apply on top, so long-time owners stay protected against market-value spikes.
The snowbird / second-home owner
These owners do not get the expanded exemption at all — the homestead is for primary residences only — but they do benefit from the tighter 5% cap on annual assessment increases. The benefit accumulates slowly and only in appreciating markets. In a fast-growing Miami Beach or Naples sub-market with 8% annual market growth, the cap can save the owner roughly $1,300 to $2,300 a year by year five, partly offset if the county raises millage in response.
The out-of-state buyer (post-2027)
An Ohio or New York buyer who closes on a Florida condo in 2027 and files homestead by March 1, 2028 will only receive the standard $25,000-plus-$50,000 exemption for their first four homestead years. They become eligible for the full $250,000 exemption in their fifth year. On a $400,000 Tampa condo at typical millage, that's roughly $3,000 a year more in tax than a long-time-resident neighbor in the same building — for five years.
The investor / rental owner
Like the snowbird, an investor-owned unit does not qualify for any homestead exemption, but it does get the new 5% non-homestead cap. The cap is especially relevant in buildings where lender scrutiny is already a problem — investor-owned units in buildings on the Fannie Mae blacklist have few enough things working in their favor that a tax-predictability improvement is genuinely helpful.
One often-missed nuance: buyers relocating from out of state will not qualify for the full $250,000 exemption until they complete five years of Florida residency, so management companies and on-site staff should expect more closing-table questions when issuing an estoppel certificate to a non-resident purchaser. The estoppel itself doesn't change, but the conversations around it will.
What HOA & condo boards should watch
The amendment is sold as “tax relief for owners,” and at the individual level it largely is — on the non-school portion of the bill. But Florida community-association boards have a separate set of things to track, because the same amendment that cuts owner tax bills also creates a $4.6 billion-to-$8.4 billion annual hole in the local government budgets the association depends on for shared services. The State Affairs Committee staff analysis estimates non-school local revenue would fall by more than $4.6 billion in fiscal year 2027–28 and by more than $8.4 billion in 2028–29 if the amendment passes.
- Non-ad-valorem fees that are not capped. Counties and cities will have an incentive to lean harder on stormwater fees, solid-waste fees, fire MSBUs, and MSTU assessments for lighting, road maintenance, and street improvements — none of which are constrained by this amendment. Some of these flow directly to your owners on the TRIM notice; others get pushed onto the association as a private-area cost.
- Service shifts onto the association. Counties that lose revenue often look for services they can hand back to private entities. Garbage collection, stormwater maintenance, road repair, lighting, and landscaping in private-road communities are the typical first candidates. A “new” HOA expense that used to be a county service is the silent killer in a 2027 budget.
- Property value movement and reserves. If owner tax bills drop, buyer purchasing power rises, and that pressure often shows up in higher sale prices, higher insurance replacement values, and higher reserve study estimates. The SIRS structural-integrity reserve study recalculation cycle will not pause for the amendment.
- What the millage-rate response actually looks like. Counties cannot raise the school portion to offset their non-school losses (different taxing authority), so any millage response has to come from county BOCC, city, MSTU, or special-district levies. Watch for non-homestead millage rebalancing and new special-district creation in fall 2026 TRIM notices.
Because the first exemption increase takes effect on the January 1, 2027 tax roll, every Florida board drafting their 2027 budget this fall needs to model two scenarios — one where the amendment passes and one where it fails — before adopting assessments in October. Owners reading the ballot summary may assume lower property taxes will translate into lower association fees, they won't, and boards should be ready to explain why Florida HOA fees keep rising even when individual tax bills shrink.
If municipalities respond to the new revenue cap by cutting services — drainage, road repair, code enforcement — the cost of those functions often migrates onto the association, which can trigger a special assessment the board never planned for. Because condos and HOAs are governed by different statutes — Chapter 718 versus Chapter 720 — the downstream effects on assessments, reserves, and budget timing will land slightly differently in each. Condos with shared building systems and reserve-mandated structural inspections feel cost shifts faster; HOAs with private roads, drainage, and amenities feel them on a slower but heavier timeline.
Three scenarios with real math
Headlines about “a $250,000 exemption” obscure what individual owners would actually save. Three scenarios using current adopted millage rates from county property appraisers:
Scenario A: A homesteaded condo, Tampa (Hillsborough County), $300,000 assessed value
Using Hillsborough's 2025 final adopted millage for a City of Tampa parcel (6.34 school mills and 13.50 non-school mills, for about 19.84 total):
- Today (current $50K exemption): School portion ($275,000 × 6.34 mills) = $1,744. Non-school ($250,000 × 13.50 mills) = $3,375. Total: about $5,119 / year.
- 2027 ($150K exemption): School unchanged at $1,744. Non-school ($150,000 × 13.50 mills) = $2,025. Total: about $3,769 / year. Savings: $1,350.
- 2028 ($250K exemption): School unchanged at $1,744. Non-school ($50,000 × 13.50 mills) = $675. Total: about $2,419 / year. Savings: $2,700, or about 53% off today's bill.
Note the floor: even in 2028, the owner still pays roughly $1,744 to schools. The non-school portion does most of the cutting.
Scenario B: A snowbird's $700,000 non-homestead condo in Naples or Miami Beach, five-year horizon
Assume 8% annual market growth (a conservative coastal-condo scenario). The 5% cap caps assessed value at 5% growth a year starting 2027; the old 10% cap was effectively the market in years like this.
- Year 5 assessed value, old 10% cap: tracks market, about $1,028,000.
- Year 5 assessed value, new 5% cap: $893,000, about $135,000 lower.
- Annual savings at 21 mills (Miami Beach): roughly $2,250 / year by year five.
- Annual savings at 12 mills (Naples): roughly $1,285 / year by year five.
The benefit accumulates slowly and only materializes in appreciating markets. In a flat or down year, the 5% cap does nothing.
Scenario C: A New York retiree buying a $400,000 Tampa condo in March 2028
Because she establishes Florida residency after January 1, 2027, the buyer is subject to the five-year wait. Her first eligible homestead year is 2029 (must own and reside on January 1). For her first four years of homestead she gets the same exemption as current law: $25,000 off the school portion and $50,000 off the non-school portion. The full $250,000 non-school exemption kicks in with her fifth year of homestead — 2033.
- 2029–2032 (current-law exemption): roughly $7,100 a year at Tampa millage.
- 2033 onward (full expanded exemption, indexed): roughly $4,000 a year — $3,100 less.
A long-time-Florida-homesteader neighbor in the same building would pay the lower amount the entire time. The amendment creates a real five-year cost penalty for out-of-state buyers, and the Tax Foundation flags that as the constitutional question most likely to draw a court challenge.
What boards can't do with association funds
An HOA or condo board is also a fiduciary, and the most common board question this fall will not be about exemption math — it will be about whether the association can endorse, oppose, or even circulate political material about a constitutional amendment. The short answer is to be very careful, and to get counsel before spending a dollar on advocacy.
Neither FS § 720.303 nor FS § 718.111 contains a bright-line ban on a Florida community association spending funds on a ballot measure. But three guardrails matter:
- Fiduciary duty. Directors owe a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the association — not their personal political views. Spending dues money on partisan or politically charged advocacy can be challenged by an owner as a breach of that duty, even where no statute is directly violated. The Florida Condo & HOA Law Blog's primer on fiduciary duty and the business judgment rule is a useful refresher for boards.
- Chapter 106 election-code exposure. Once association activity crosses into electioneering communications — spending money to expressly advocate the passage or defeat of a ballot measure — Chapter 106 of the Florida Statutes can impose political-committee registration, reporting, and disclaimer obligations. The line between “factual education” and “electioneering” is not always obvious, and counsel should review anything close to it.
- DBPR scrutiny on official communications. The Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes oversees condo association elections and conduct. Mixing political advocacy with official association channels — newsletters, websites, on-site signage, the manager's email signature — raises the risk of complaints regardless of whether a specific statute is violated. Most Florida association law firms, including Becker, Kaye Bender Rembaum, and Siegfried Rivera, advise boards to distribute neutral, citation-backed information only and steer clear of an endorsement.
The safest posture: share a one-page factual summary citing CS/HJR 1F and the relevant constitutional sections, point owners to nonpartisan resources, document any communication in board minutes, and let owners reach their own decision. Anything stronger should go through counsel first.
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What happens on November 4
Florida constitutional amendments require at least 60% of the vote to pass under Article XI, Section 5(e) of the Florida Constitution. That is a steep threshold: of the 16 amendments on Florida ballots in the past decade, the 60% bar has been the most common reason a popular-support amendment has failed (the 2024 marijuana amendment passed 56% and still failed). CS/HJR 1F is also a joint resolution, not a statute, so it is not subject to the Governor's veto and goes directly to the voters once both chambers approve.
If it passes: the amendment takes effect January 1, 2027. The $150,000 exemption applies to the 2027 tax roll, the $250,000 exemption to the 2028 roll, the 5% non-homestead cap kicks in January 1, 2027, and the five-year residency wait applies to anyone moving to Florida on or after that date. Existing Florida homesteaders receive the bigger exemption automatically. The Legislature still has to fill in implementing details by general law — the form of the homestead application, how property appraisers code the new exemption, and how the “allowable uses” restriction is enforced at the county level — all of which will be in the 2026 special session and 2027 regular session.
If it fails: nothing changes. The $50,000 homestead exemption, the 10% non-homestead cap, and the existing local-government revenue authority all remain. The Legislature could place a revised version on a future ballot — possibly a narrower exemption increase that polls above 60% — but cannot enact the change without voter approval.
Either way, the amendment cleared the Legislature during the 2026 legislative session alongside the year's other condo-and-HOA reforms, and your board should treat it as material to your 2027 budget regardless of the November result — because the cost-shifting pressure on counties has already started, and they will respond in next year's TRIM notices either way.
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