Voters will decide Florida's Amendment 3 on November 3. If it passes, it sorts homeowners into tiers using one test. The test isn't the price paid or the closing date. It asks whether the owner kept a permanent residence in Florida on December 31, 2026. Take two buyers closing on matching homes in The Falls in 2027. One is moving up from Kendall and the other is relocating from New Jersey. Under the amendment's text they would start with very different exemptions on the non-school part of their bills.
That gap matters more in Weston than in most Broward cities. The City of Weston gets 57% of its revenue from ad valorem taxes, 88% of its tax base is residential, and 62% of that taxable value is homesteaded. So a buyer comparing homes here is weighing two things: their own exemption tier, and how the city covers the revenue that homesteads stop paying.
The sentence that sorts buyers
This is the official ballot summary on the Florida Department of State's initiative page:
"Persons who are not Florida residents on December 31, 2026, will receive the existing homestead exemption upon qualifying for a homestead exemption, with the increased homestead exemption beginning with the fifth year of exemption, to the extent permitted by the U.S. Constitution."
For everyone else, the amendment raises the homestead exemption on all non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, with inflation adjustments after that. It takes effect January 1, 2027.
The enrolled text of HJR 1F sets the newcomer tier at $25,000 against school levies and $50,000 against all other levies. Starting with "the fifth year of exemption," the owner moves up to the standard amount. The test looks at whether the person lived in Florida. It doesn't ask whether they owned this particular house, or held any Florida homestead, by the cutoff. That is why the two buyers above end up in different places.
One street, three tax treatments
Here's how the amendment's text would treat three buyers of similar homes in The Falls:
| Buyer | Non-school homestead exemption, 2027 | 2028 onward | Assessment cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida resident on Dec. 31, 2026, such as a family moving from Pinecrest or Kendall | $150,000 | $250,000, inflation-adjusted from 2029 | Save Our Homes: 3% or CPI, whichever is lower |
| Not a Florida resident on Dec. 31, 2026 | $50,000, plus $25,000 against school levies | $50,000, inflation-adjusted from 2028, until the fifth year of exemption | Save Our Homes: 3% or CPI, whichever is lower |
| Second home or rental, no homestead | None | None | Non-school cap drops from 10% to 5% |
The Kendall family in the first row gets the larger exemption in the first year their Weston homestead qualifies. Florida TaxWatch likewise says residents as of the cutoff qualify for the larger amounts starting in 2027. The relocating family in the second row has the same address, the same square footage and possibly the same price, but starts four exemption years behind.
None of this touches school levies. Under the amendment, school district taxes are calculated the same way for every homestead.
January 1 pushes the newcomer clock back
The exemption-year count runs into a rule that's already on the books. The Broward County Property Appraiser treats January 1 as the annual date for deciding homestead: the property has to be the owner's permanent home on that day. Under that test, a family relocating from out of state who closes in The Falls in spring 2027 would usually have no homestead for tax year 2027. Their first exemption year would ordinarily be 2028.
Counting forward from there looks like this:
- Year one of exemption: 2028, at the $50,000 non-school amount
- Years two through four: 2029 through 2031
- Year five: 2032, when the standard amount applies, adjusted for inflation
If a newcomer's first exemption year is 2027, year five is 2031. In either case, a relocating buyer would be paying the higher non-school bill for several years after closing. That matters if they compare their expected carrying costs with a neighbor's actual tax bill.
The calendar adds another wrinkle. Anyone relocating to Weston in the next eleven weeks is close to the December 31, 2026 line. Whether a person counts as a Florida permanent resident depends on the facts, and the property appraiser makes that call. The Florida House bill analysis lists the kinds of evidence involved: a declaration of domicile, where children attend school, employment, prior residence and when it ended, Florida voter registration, driver's license, vehicle tag, the addresses on tax returns and bank accounts, and utilities. This is a description of how the determination works. It doesn't predict how any one household's facts would come out.
Portability doesn't change your tier
Portability and the new exemption tiers are two separate mechanisms. Under Save Our Homes, annual assessment increases on a homestead stay capped at 3% or CPI, whichever is lower. When a home changes hands, the assessment generally resets to just value unless portability applies. Portability lets an owner carry the gap between assessed and just value to a new homestead, up to $500,000, if they had a homestead exemption as of January 1 in any of the three preceding years.
Broward's guidance says portability moves the Save Our Homes benefit, not the exemption itself. It takes two filings: a new homestead application and a portability application. A Miami-Dade owner moving to The Falls could therefore get two separate benefits: the larger exemption tier, based on residency, and a transferred assessment benefit, based on their prior homestead. An out-of-state buyer gets neither of these when they arrive.
Second homes and rentals work on another track. The 5% cap covers non-homestead residential property of nine units or fewer, and the text still requires a reset to just value at the next assessment date after a change of ownership or control. An investor who buys a townhome near Weston Town Center would still start at full market value. The tighter cap only slows increases after that.
How Weston's budget would absorb the gap
Up to now this has been about one household's bill. The city's budget is the other side, and it decides how the gap gets filled.
City of Weston taxes are about 19% of a resident's total property tax bill. The city published Broward County Property Appraiser estimates built on the 2025 tax roll. The appraiser calls them hypotheticals, not an official position. In those estimates, a $150,000 exemption reduces Weston's modeled levy of $43,408,264.14 by $4,792,221, or 11.0%. At $250,000, the reduction is $9,178,014, or 21.1%. The 5% non-homestead cap cuts it by another $517,580, or 1.2%.
Weston has fewer levers than most cities. It runs on contracts, with police, fire rescue and parks as the largest. It has twelve employees and no defined-benefit pension plan. The city says it can't cover 100% of the lost revenue through service cuts without residents noticing. It names citywide events, Fire Rescue's whole-blood service, school resource officers, crossing guards, park hours, traffic and planning services, and code enforcement as examples. The city also says that if it raised millage enough to recover the full amount, most homesteaded owners would still save and non-homestead owners would pay more.
Millage has already moved this year. The FY2027 budget adopted September 28, 2026 sets the city rate at 3.5046 mills and budgets $45,566,200 in ad valorem taxes. According to the city's September 17 tax explainer, the rate had been 3.3464 mills for eight years, and this is the first increase in that time. Using median taxable values of $492,199 for a single-family home and $260,410 for a condo, the city estimates the change adds $77.87 and $41.20 a year to the Weston line of the bill.
So the money moves in two directions. Rate decisions are made at City Hall. The amendment decides who carries the base those rates apply to. If the base narrows, homesteads that qualify early get the largest shield. Newcomers in their first four exemption years and owners of second homes get the smallest.
What's still unsettled
Several parts of this story are still open:
- Passage. Amendment 3 needs 60% of the vote. Early voting starts October 24.
- Counting. The text says "fifth year of exemption." Some explainers, TaxWatch among them, describe it as five years of Florida residency. None of the sources reviewed explains how the count works when someone becomes a resident in one year and first qualifies for an exemption in a later one.
- Legal durability. The Florida TaxWatch guide to the 2026 amendments says the five-year waiting period raises equal-protection concerns and notes that a similar waiting period was struck down in 1982. The ballot summary itself applies the provision only "to the extent permitted by the U.S. Constitution."
- Local discretion. Starting January 1, 2030, a county or city could shorten the five-year wait for a critical local need with a two-thirds vote.
- Ballot wording. On August 4, a judge found the original title and summary defective. The current Department of State page carries the rewritten language.
Quick answers
Does the amendment change school taxes? The larger exemption applies only to non-school levies. Newcomers get $25,000 against school levies, the same amount as other homesteads.
Where can I see estimates for my own property? The Miami Herald reports that the state, Florida TaxWatch and the Florida Policy Institute each publish their own calculator. FPI's research director told reporters that not all of the calculators are accurate.
Has Broward said how it will apply the December 31 date? The Broward County Property Appraiser's homestead page currently explains the general January 1 test. It hasn't published an interpretation of the cutoff specific to Amendment 3.
If you're relocating to The Falls and want to see how the January 1 homestead date and the December 31 line affect your closing timeline, SearchingHomes can lay out the dates with you and bring in our title and closing team to confirm the filing steps, in English or Spanish. Let's talk about your next move.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
