Hernando County special magistrate hears 12 property tax appeals; disputes focus on cost-of-sale, comparables and sinkhole adjustments

SPRING HILL, Fla. — Special Magistrate Robert Hicks heard 12 residential property value appeals for Hernando County on Oct. 27, taking testimony from property appraiser staff and petitioners and saying he would file written recommendations to the Value Adjustment Board in the coming weeks.

Hicks opened the session by reminding participants he is an independent hearing officer and that he could consider only evidence presented on the record. Property appraiser staff, identified on the record by Doug Mack and others, presented sales-comparison packets for each parcel that included property record cards, three to four comparables, square‑foot medians and a computed weighted mean that the office used to derive a cost‑of‑sale adjustment applied in its assessments.

The core disputes across multiple petitions concerned three recurring technical issues: how the appraiser applied a general cost‑of‑sale adjustment (often described in the hearing as 15% but shown in packet calculations at varying observed rates), whether the comparables…