Florida’s Save Our Homes Portability Benefit and Divorce: Is it a Marital Asset?
If you are going through a Florida divorce, you may worry about how to protect your home, your long-term tax burdens, and your financial stability. Many high-income professionals focus on dividing the home itself, but Florida’s Save Our Homes Portability Benefit also carries real value. If you have established a homestead in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, or elsewhere in Florida, this benefit can reduce your future property taxes, yet it is often overlooked during divorce. When you understand how it works, you can make better decisions and avoid losing tax advantages that could protect your financial future.
Quick Answer: Is Florida’s Save Our Homes Portability Benefit a Marital Asset?
Yes. Florida’s Save Our Homes Portability Benefit is usually treated as a marital asset because it grows during the marriage and can reduce future property taxes for one or both spouses. It has a value that can be taken into consideration when reaching a divorce agreement.
Key Takeaways
- The Save Our Homes (SOH) Cap limits annual increases of a homestead’s assessed value to 3% or CPI.
Authority: §193.155(1), Fla. Stat.
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0100-0199/0193/Sections/0193.155.html - Portability lets you transfer up to $500,000 of that savings to a new Florida homestead.
Authority: Art. VII, §4(d)(8), Fla. Const.
https://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?submenu=3#A7S04 - If one spouse keeps the marital home without abandoning homestead, only that spouse keeps 100% of the portability benefit.
- If the home is sold or the homestead is abandoned, the spouses can usually split the benefit or agree to a different allocation using the Florida DR-501TS form.
Form: https://floridarevenue.com/property/Documents/dr501ts.pdf - Portability affects long-term housing costs and often becomes part of equitable distribution during divorce.
What the Save Our Homes Portability Benefit Actually Is
Florida’s Save Our Homes law limits how fast your homestead’s assessed value can rise. Even when the market value increases sharply, the assessed value can only increase by 3% or the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. This creates a gap between market value and assessed value, known as the assessment difference. Over time, this difference becomes meaningful because it reduces your property taxes year after year.
Portability allows you to take up to $500,000 of that assessment difference with you when you establish a new Florida homestead. This lower starting assessment can reduce your taxes for many years, especially if you plan to stay in your new home long-term.
