Whether a Florida property is within a municipality determines the portion of the debtor’s homestead that will be protected.
People facing a chapter 7 bankruptcy not knowing if they can keep their home face tremendous anxiety. If their lawyer can show their home can be protected from creditors during the initial consult, their anxiety levels can decrease considerably. Article X of the Florida Constitution has a provision for protecting homesteads that is dependent on the number of homestead acres and whether it is in a municipality.
For a Florida homeowner who occupies his or her home within a municipality, the acreage limit of the homestead is ½ acre. For a homestead outside a municipality, i.e. showing the municipality field as “unincorporated”, the acreage limit is 160 acres.
How to search Florida homestead municipality and parcel acre?
The size and location of the client’s homestead property can be determined in about a minute by going to USgeocoder.com and entering the address in its live demo. Once the data comes up, scroll down to parcel data and click the +. The Assessor’s parcel number and the acreage size will appear. Then click the + next to Districts and Elected Officials. A long list of data will appear. Scroll down till you see Municipality and Municipality Type. If it does not say “unincorporated”, the municipality it is within will appear. Voila!
Very important to ask, if the Florida homestead is within a municipality and more than half or one acre in size, “When you purchased this property, was it outside the municipality limits? If yes, then ask, “When the municipality expanded to include your property did you give consent to reduce your homestead to ½ care (if single) or one acre (if married)? If the answer is “No” then they have the original outside the municipality limit.
However, for a belt and suspenders approach, attorneys are advised to confirm consent has not been recorded by running a deed history search on the property by a title company. If no consent was recorded against the deed, the creditor will have a hard time overcoming the debtors testimony.
USgeocoder’s live demo is also known as USgeocoder’s online lookup tool. It is free to use for the first 30 requests. After that, it costs $250/year or $25.00/month for unlimited queries by a single user.
If you have further questions that do not require legal advice, please contact us.
What is My Municipality and How to Find It