Filing a petition is the part most property owners understand. What comes after it is where the process turns opaque.
You have a deadline, a form, and a filing fee. Then the county schedules a hearing sometime in the fall, and between those two points is several months of not knowing what to expect. That uncertainty is the main reason people who have a legitimate case never pursue it.
Here is what actually happens after a Florida property tax appeal is filed, who hears it, what has to be proven, and what a property owner is responsible for along the way.
If you have not gotten to the filing stage yet, start with our guide to reading your TRIM notice, which covers which number on the notice can be challenged and how to find your deadline.
You have two paths, and you can take both
Most owners assume you either talk to the county or you file an appeal. In Florida, you can do both, and doing both is usually the better approach.
The informal conference is a direct conversation with your county property appraiser’s office. You bring evidence, they review it, and in some cases the value is adjusted without any formal proceeding. It costs nothing to request.
The formal path is a petition to the Value Adjustment Board, an independent body created under Florida Statute 194.015 that exists in all 67 Florida counties. It is not part of the property appraiser’s office. That separation is the point of it: it gives owners a venue to have the county’s work reviewed by someone other than the county.
Here is the part that matters most, and the part owners most often get wrong. Filing deadlines set by Florida law do not change because you requested an informal conference. Discussing the assessment with the appraiser does not pause the clock or extend your window.
That is why we typically file the petition and pursue the conversation simultaneously. If the informal discussion resolves the value, the petition can be withdrawn. If it does not, the appeal is already properly filed and nothing has been lost.
Who actually hears your case
The Value Adjustment Board is a five-member body. Two members come from the county commission, one from the school board, and two are citizen members. One citizen member must own homestead property in the county, and the other must own a business occupying commercial space within the school district. Citizen members cannot work for a taxing authority and cannot be people who represent owners in tax appeals.
But five people cannot personally hear thousands of petitions. In practice, special magistrates conduct the hearings: independent appraisers and attorneys the board appoints to hear cases and issue recommendations. Valuation disputes generally go to an appraiser magistrate. Exemption and classification matters generally go to an attorney magistrate.
The magistrate hears the evidence and issues a written recommended decision. The board then reviews that recommendation and issues the final decision on the petition.
The practical takeaway from that two-step structure is simple: everything that decides the outcome happens at the magistrate hearing. By the time it reaches the board, the substantive work is done.
What has to be proven, and by whom
This is the part of the process that sounds most intimidating and is actually the most reassuring.
Florida law does not simply assume the county is right. Under Section 194.301, the property appraiser’s assessment is presumed correct only if the appraiser first demonstrates, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the assessment was arrived at in compliance with Section 193.011, any applicable statutory requirements, and professionally accepted appraisal practices, including mass appraisal standards where those apply.
If that showing is made, the owner then carries the burden of proving, also by a preponderance of the evidence, that the assessed value does not represent just value, or that it was arbitrarily based on appraisal practices different from those the appraiser generally applies to comparable properties in the same county.
Preponderance of the evidence means the greater weight of the evidence. It is a meaningful standard, but it is not an impossible one. Florida used to require owners to disprove any reasonable hypothesis of a legal assessment, which was close to unwinnable. The Legislature rejected that standard in 2009.
One more point that is rarely mentioned: if your challenge is to a classification or an exemption rather than to value, there is no presumption of correctness at all. The party challenging simply has to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the classification or exemption status is incorrect.
What all of this means in practice is that outcomes turn on evidence. Comparable sales, income and expense data, condition documentation, corrections to the county’s record card. A well-documented case is what carries a hearing.
The requirement that ends appeals before they are heard
There is a payment obligation attached to a pending petition that catches owners every year.
In Miami-Dade, a petitioner challenging assessed value must pay all non-ad valorem assessments and at least 75 percent of ad valorem taxes by the county’s stated deadline. A petitioner challenging a classification, an exemption, or property not substantially complete must make a good faith payment. Missing that payment results in the petition being denied outright, with any prior adjustments reversed and the taxes becoming delinquent.
An appeal does not suspend your tax obligation. Owners who assume otherwise lose cases they would have won.
The timeline
TRIM notices mailed across South Florida in mid-to-late August. Petitions are due 25 days from your notice’s mailing date. For the 2026 cycle, that deadline is September 18 in both Miami-Dade and Broward.
Hearings begin in the fall and continue until the county works through every petition, which for a heavily petitioned county can run into the following year. When your specific hearing falls depends on the county’s calendar and how many petitions it is working through, so the timing can differ from one owner to the next.
Between filing and hearing, the petitioner and the property appraiser’s office exchange evidence. That exchange period is where most of the actual work of an appeal happens.
What you do, and what we do
For a property owner working with us, the division is straightforward.
We review the assessment against current market evidence and tell you whether there is a case worth making. If there is, we prepare and file the petition, monitor the county’s deadlines, assemble the evidence, handle the exchange with the property appraiser’s office, pursue an informal resolution where one is available, and present the case to the special magistrate. We handle over 6,000 appeals a year across South Florida, so the county’s deadlines, evidence rules, and payment requirements are routine for us even when they are not for you.
You do not gather comparable sales. You do not attend the hearing. You do not communicate with the county.
What you are responsible for is providing information we request about the property, and making the required tax payment while the petition is pending. We will tell you what that payment is and when it is due.
Florida Property Tax Service works on contingency. No savings, no fee.
If the board rules against you
A Value Adjustment Board decision is not necessarily the end.
Owners who disagree with a final VAB decision may bring an action in circuit court under Section 194.171. That is a separate legal proceeding with its own timing, payment, and jurisdictional requirements, and attorneys handle it, not property tax consultants.
Knowing the path exists matters before you file, because a case that is documented properly from the beginning is in better shape if it goes further.
The short version
An appeal is a process, not an argument. It runs through an independent board, a qualified magistrate hears it, and the evidence decides it, under a standard that does not stack the deck against owners.
Most people who have grounds to appeal do not, because the process is unfamiliar and the deadline arrives during a busy month. Neither of those is a good reason to pay more than your property’s fair share.
If a number on your notice does not look right, send it to us. We review assessments at no cost across South Florida, residential, commercial, and tangible personal property. If the county’s number holds up, we will tell you. If it does not, we will make the case for you.