A new law designed to give homeowners with tainted drywall property tax breaks also will apply to town homes and condos, the Florida Department of Revenue said.
The legislation, which was signed into law this month, aims to offer a consistent tax break by saying that assessments of homes with defective imported or domestic drywall need to be reduced to reflect loss of value.
But inquiries arose about the wording of the law, which says it’s intended for single-family residential properties. Condo owners and property managers questioned whether they, too, would be eligible for up to $0 assessments on the value of their buildings.
According to the law, the value of the building should be assessed at $0 in instances where homeowners have had to move out because of the defective drywall. The owner would still pay taxes on the value of the land.
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.
Pamela Lamb of the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office agreed that condos should fall under the law’s purview.
But she added that redoing condo appraisals under this law could be tricky, as it would be difficult to delineate between the value of the building and the value of the land.
“For condos, inherent in the value of the property is a share of all common elements, like the land, the clubhouse, the pool,” Lamb said.
Paul Wilkis is the property manager for The Whitney condominiums in downtown West Palm Beach, which has found defective drywall in a number of its units.
“I was happy to see the legislature was taking this issue into consideration,” Wilkis said. But he added that “a lot still needs to be clarified about the law.”
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.
Copyright © 2010 The Palm Beach Post, Fla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
