Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Property Tax Appeal topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Hernando County magistrate hears valuation dispute for Woodland Waters home; decision pending
Summary
A petitioner disputed a 2024 assessment for a Woodland Waters single‑family home during a Jan. 17 special magistrate hearing in Hernando County. The hearing concluded after testimony from the property owner and the Property Appraiser's Office; the magistrate said a written recommended decision will follow.
On Jan. 17, 2025, a Hernando County special magistrate heard testimony in Petition 380 from petitioner Kevin DeFini and representatives of the Property Appraiser’s Office over the assessed value of a single‑family home in the Woodland Waters neighborhood.
The property record shows the subject home as built in 1998 with 2,155 heated square feet. For 2024 the Property Appraiser’s Office listed the just and assessed values at $308,334 and the taxable value at $258,334. DeFini told the magistrate he owns roughly 1.1 acres but said about half of the lot is within a preservation/drainage area and not usable for development; he asked the panel to account for that when comparing sales.
The Property Appraiser’s Office presented a sales‑comparison analysis using three neighborhood sales, noted a weighted mean and square‑foot indicators, and said it considered the eight criteria in Florida Statute 193.011 when arriving at what it described as the preponderance of evidence supporting the assessed value. The petitioner disputed component allocations used by the appraiser, particularly the depreciation percentage applied to the subject property; DeFini said several comparables had higher reported depreciation (for example, some comps listed about 26% depreciation while the subject was shown at 16%). DeFini also said his 2021 purchase price was $330,000 and argued the current assessed value did not reflect market movement he expected.
The hearing included detailed back‑and‑forth over comparable selection: DeFini questioned distances, neighborhood differences (several comps were in the gated Spring Ridge development), heated‑area discrepancies, and dates of sale. The magistrate cautioned that evidence must be available as of the lien date and that sales occurring after February 2024 generally receive little or no weight for estimating value as of Jan. 1, 2024. The magistrate also allowed discussion of a prior magistrate decision raised by the petitioner but warned that admissibility would be decided before the decision was finalized. The magistrate said he would “make my ruling at that time” after reviewing the record and materials submitted.
The hearing record closed at the end of the session; the magistrate announced he would review the submitted documents and issue a written recommended decision later. No final assessed‑value change or formal order was issued during the hearing.
Details recorded at the hearing include the parcel key number listed for the petition (01269807), the stated heated square footage (2,155), the year built (1998), assessed/just value ($308,334) and taxable value ($258,334), and petitioner claims about roughly 24,000 square feet of the lot being restricted drainage/preserve area and therefore not usable for typical land comparables.
