Property Taxes Doubled After Purchase

[Jeremy Kuchenbecker]

I purchased a duplex about a year ago. I just got a letter from my lender stating my property taxes were going up, almost double to what they were previously.

Is that normal? Is that even legal? Still a great income producing property but my property taxes literally doubled.

[Wayne Brooks]

This is likely a Florida specific issue.  Similar to CA's proposition 13, a person's primary residence, regardless of increases in market value, has an annual cap of a 3% increase for taxing "assessed value".  When the property changes hands, this artificially deflated tax value disappears of course, and the property is then taxed at their market value computation.  I suspect the previous owner's taxes were based on it being their primary residence, and they owned it for a relatively long period of time.  This would not be a surprise if you how the system works.