Proposed by the Legislature, Amendment 5 amends the Florida Constitution, effective Jan. 1 to increase the maximum time from two years to three years the period of time you have to transfer your Save-Our-Homes cap from a prior homestead to a new homestead.

The “Save Our Homes ” Amendment was approved in 1992. It prevents the assessed value of a property with a homestead exemption from going up in value no more than 3 percent or the consumer price index CPI, whichever is lower. This is important because you currently don’t really have two years but rather the date in which your home sales till the end of the following year.

So if you sell on December 1st you would only have 13 months. This Amendment adds an additional year to transfer that cap. This is important because sometimes it takes more than a year to build or remodel a home.

I believe this amendment is very fair to those taxpayers who have a homestead exemption who can’t control the time it takes for construction. The amendment is opposed by the League of Woman Voters because they oppose reducing any property tax revenue.

If you believe it is fair to allow an additional year to transfer the homestead cap, Vote YES.

If you want to keep it as it is currently, Vote NO.

This like all amendments require 60% approval by voters to become law.