Ask Me: Episode 1

In this first "Ask Me" episode, agricultural attorney Amanda Carl answers questions submitted by listeners. Topics in this episode include the denials or revocations of agricultural tax classifications, inverse condemnation, and suits against neighboring property owners and developers for flooding issues.  This episode contains such great content, and you will not want to miss out!

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Amanda Perry Carl 0:02

Welcome to the Legal Field Podcast, where we discussed legal and regulatory topics and of critical importance to the agricultural industry. I am the family called I am an agricultural lawyer whose family has been farming in Florida since 1823, before Florida even became a state. I have spent almost 20 years in my family in the agricultural industry. If you want fruits, vegetables, or sod, if you are involved with the aquaculture, toastgrass, or horticulture industries, if you are fighting a good fight to help our citrus industry survive, or if you just like to eat and you appreciate our ag producers, this podcast is for you. If you are interested in protecting and preserving our agricultural heritage, lands, and way of life, then come join us in the legal field and see what's growing on. These Ask Me episodes will air the second Thursday of each month, and on these episodes, I will try my best to answer all of your questions. If you have any questions that you would like for me to answer during an ask me segment, please email them to me at Amanda at FloridaAg Law.com. That's Amanda at F L O R I D A A G L A W dot com. Now before we get started with this ask me episode, I have to provide some legal disclaimers. The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It is not intended to create and receipt of it does not constitute an attorney-client relationship. You should not act upon any information provided without seeking professional legal counsel tailored to your specific situation. We recommend consulting with a qualified attorney for advice on any particular legal matter. So now that that stuff is out of the way, the listeners have submitted some really awesome questions thus far, and I'm going to take some time to answer a few of those questions here today. I've actually received quite a few questions over the last couple of weeks regarding the loss of ag classification for tax purposes on your ag properties. Many of you have had your ag classifications removed by your local property appraisers' offices this past year seems to have been quite a regular thing in this past year. And some of you have asked why your property taxes have been reassessed, and some of you say yours have doubled where there has been no change in your use. Now let me say this has been a really hot topic lately, especially over the last few months. Especially notices have been sent out this year for a lot of folks who have not had their ad classification renewed, and many of you have had your ad classifications dropped after many, many years of having that classification. I've been working on a lot of these issues for quite a few clients here in Florida, particularly in Central Florida. So just know if you're dealing with these issues with you losing your ad classification or having your assessments change dramatically, you are not alone. So first of all, let's do a little bit of education here on what the ag classification is. Despite some common jargon that's often thrown around, this is not an ag exemption. It does not exempt a property owner from paying taxes on their property. The ag classification is set forth in section 193.461 of the Florida statutes, and it provides for the property to be classified at the value of the property for agricultural uses. And this protects the property owner from having the land assessed at the same rates as developed property. This is especially important here, you know, in Florida, where we've got so many areas where we've got development popping up all around, and those ag lands are being surrounded by these developments that are popping up all around. And so it's a way to allow our ag producers to keep their land in agriculture and not have it assessed at what the value would be if it was developed into a subdivision or into a multi-use property. Now, in counties all over the state of Florida, I've seen a lot of people, as I said earlier, having their ag classifications removed by county property appraisers this year. It's happening where people have had their ag classification for 20 years, for 25 years, for 15 years, and then suddenly they weren't renewed this year. And I believe that there are definitely some reasons that we have seen an increase in denials and non-renewals. But I'll say that the whole conversation for another day, perhaps offline, if anybody would ever like to discuss that. I will say that one of the big issues that I'm seeing is that folks who have had damage from hurricanes and they're still trying to rebuild and they've lost their ag classification because they don't currently have production agriculture or they don't have production agriculture on all of their property because they're still trying to rebuild from Ian and Milton and even some people with Helene and other parts of the state. And so this includes flooding damage, fencing damage, so many other types of damages that come from hurricanes and other natural disasters. But as we know, most of what we have seen here over the last few years in Florida has been significant hurricane damage. And I've been seeing a lot with clients and, you know, folks around the state that the county property appraisers are coming in and oftentimes they're seeing that production has halted or has been slowed or there's not production on the entire parcel or not any sort of, in their opinion, ag work going on on all of the parcels. So they're denying and revoking ad classifications. However, as I've seen a lot, these same property appraisers' offices are unaware or say that they're unaware of a very critical provision in 193.461 that I mentioned earlier, which is the statute that provides for these ag classifications. And this specific provision in that statute protects agricultural producers after a natural disaster. So section 7C of the ag classification statute, 193.461, provides a property owner with five years of the ag classification. If you've had hurricane damage or damage from any natural disaster for which an emergency declaration has been made and it has halted your ag production. Well, this subsection was obviously added by the Florida legislature, and it was out a few years ago, but it was obviously added for good reason. If ag producers have damages from a natural disaster, particularly hurricanes here in Florida, it's really expensive to rebuild, you know, as it is. And if you're having to worry about getting the money to rebuild and having to worry about your property taxes going up because you don't have the ag classification, because at the moment you're not currently in production because of that hurricane damage, we would have even more ag lands going to development than we already have. And as we all know, we are seeing Florida develop very rapidly and a lot of ag lands going into development. So the legislature passed this for good reasons so that if you have damages that halt your ag production, you get five years of the ag classification after that, even without having your operations back up and running. It gives the producers, it gives the property owner time to get things fixed and back up and running. I've seen many property appraisers' offices this year who seem to be or at least act clueless as to the existence of this provision. And I've managed to get multiple clients ad classifications reinstated under this subsection of 193.461 by going to the property appraisers and explaining to them they have an obligation to keep that ad classification for the property owner for five years, and they do not have the authority to revoke that when there was hurricane or other natural disaster damage. So Hurricane Ian was three years ago. If someone had damage from three years ago, they still have two more years from now of the AG classification. Hurricane Milton was a year ago. Someone still has four years of the I classification if they had damages that halted their production. If you've had your AG classification denied, it may have been denied for other alleged reasons by property appraisers' offices. Um if you have a bona fide ag operation and not a hobby farm, then you might have a solid argument for the reinstatement of your ag exemption. Also, if you have a legitimate agritourism operation, you might have a solid argument for the reinstatement of your ag exemption. There are some property appraisers' offices that don't seem to properly apply this ag classification in agritourism operations, and sometimes it just takes a little bit of education and conversation with them. As for the questions regarding significant increases in assessed values this year, not necessarily the revocation or denial of ag classifications. Um, just so everyone knows, the property appraisers offices typically do assessments on January 1st of each year for that following the following year. And there could be many issues involved in such significant increases if you've had your your taxes or your assessed value double. And those would need to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to see why your assessments increased so much. There could be a host of reasons for that, some of them legitimate, some of them not legitimate, and you would need to push back and try to get your assessed value to the appropriate place. Now moving on, and another question that I receive from a few listeners, and we see this happening all over the state. We see it happening a lot here in my county of Volusia County, but we're seeing it happen everywhere, and a lot of this has to do with the development I mentioned earlier. These questions focus on what actions can be taken against either local governments or neighboring private property owners or developers due to flooding issues on your properties due to development, construction, other actions taken by either private property owners, developers, and local governments. This is a big one. And again, this is going to be a case-by-case analysis, but I do want to provide a few options that are out there, perhaps if your facts meet these scenarios. There are some possible options for folks who are experiencing major flooding issues caused by either government actions or the actions of neighbors and developers. The first of these legal actions is something that's called inverse condemnation. So inverse condemnation is basically a claim made by a property owner that the effect of a governmental action on its property is so devastating that it's the equivalent of the direct exercise of eminent domain and requires just compensation. And these claims are also can also be referred to as regulatory takings. And sometimes these claims happen um because of some action the government has taken that has allowed this flooding to occur. To establish liability, um, property owner will need to prove that it was deprived of all or substantially all economically beneficial use of its property, and that could be temporarily or permanently. And if your property was flooded due to government drainage, your access was cut off by a road project, your a regulation has made your land useless, you might have an inverse condemnation claim. So this could be sometimes a wide variety of things, government actions that have led to the subsequent flooding of your property, and you could potentially have an inverse condemnation claim. So basically just think of it as it wasn't a taking where they physically came in and took your property and took ownership of your property, but their actions were led to the effect of taking your property because it made your property not be able to be used in the way that you know it needed to be used. And that's why they're called regulatory taking sometimes and why it's inverse condemnation. Now, if the flooding issues involve perhaps a neighbor's action being the cause of the flooding or developers being the cause of the flooding, and there's also a potential for um a lawsuit under common law nuisance. And Florida's common law follows what's called the reasonable use rule for surface water, which allows property owners to manage run runoff in a way that's considerate of their neighbors. But if that runoff management ends up harming another property, then it may give rise to liability for that person who has not been reasonably managing their runoff and has been harming the property of another. So if a neighbor changes their land in a way that significantly increases runoff to your property, there's a chance of liability. If a neighbor negligently fails to maintain their property in a way that prevents excessive runoff, they might be responsible for damages to your property. And then kind of a third thing here on a broader scale, there's also the potential for a claim for public nuisance. Um and this is when an action significantly interferes with public rights, affecting a community or neighborhood at large, um, construction or things that affect local waterways that lead to widespread flooding. And there are a few factors that need to be considered in public nuisance. Um and again, all of these are potential causes of action for when your property is flooded. And all of these causes of action, along with a whole host of other potential causes of action. This is not an exhaustive list, of course. These are just some of the big things that I I wanted to discuss and throw out there. Um these are all very spec facts specific and must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. So you can't, it's not just a one-size-fits-all. You need to look at all the details and the facts and the facts that can be proven to be able to see if you do have a case for one of these causes of action if there is flooding on your property. Now that's all the time that we have today for our Ask Me episode. But if you have any other questions or topics that you want me to discuss in the next episode, again, please feel free to email those to me at Amanda at FloridaAglaw.com. Thanks and have a great day.