Chinese Drywall Affected Homes to Receive Property Tax Break

A recently signed new law designed to give homeowners with tainted Chinese drywall a break on their property tax goes into effect this month. And according to the Florida Department of Revenue the law will also apply to town homes and condos.

The legislation’s focus is to reduce the tax burden for property owners’ with defective imported or domestic drywall that have had to move out because of the unsafe environmental conditions inside the property. The structures on these affected properties will be assessed at $0 dollars if it is deemed uninhabitable. The property owner would still pay taxes on the value of the land.

Because of the convoluted wording of the law there have been many inquiries as to whether or not condo and townhouse owners will receive these tax breaks as well. Some interpretations of the law say it only covers single-family residential properties since a condo or townhouse owner doesn’t typically own the land the structure is on.

Robert Babin, legislative affairs director for the Florida Department of Revenue, acknowledged that the law does not define “single family residential property.” But he said in a statement that the department interprets it as “any residential property where one family lives,” except for rented apartments not owned by an individual family.

Because of the confusion, county appraisers evaluating condos may have difficulty assessing values as it would be difficult to delineate between the value of the building and the value of the land. For condos the inherent value of the property comprises of common elements, like the surrounding land, clubhouses and pools.

Tainted drywall was first publicly reported more than a year ago with complaints that some wallboard made in China gave off a sulfuric gas that smelled bad, corroded metal in the home and caused health problems.

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