The 14-Day Deadline Hiding in Your Broward TRIM Notice

Every Broward property owner got a TRIM notice in the mail this August. Most people glance at it, assume it's a bill, and set it aside. That's the mistake, and it's an expensive one.

TRIM stands for Truth in Millage. The notice itself is not a tax bill. It is a preview: your property's 2026 Just Value, the exemptions currently applied to your account, and the proposed tax rates from every taxing authority that touches your property, from the county to the school board to your city. Florida law sets the assessment date at January 1 each year, so the value on this year's notice reflects market activity through 2025.

The part that actually matters: you have a legal right to challenge that Just Value if you think it's wrong, and the window is short. The deadline to file a petition with Broward's Value Adjustment Board is September 18, 2026, twenty five days after the notice went out. Miss it, and your petition gets returned unless you can show good cause for filing late. The same September 18 date is also the cutoff to apply for exemptions you may be missing, including homestead.

This year there's a wrinkle worth understanding. The Broward County Commission lowered the countywide millage rate to 5.6658 mills for fiscal year 2026, the first reduction since 2018. That's genuinely good news, and it's exactly the kind of headline that makes people stop reading their TRIM notice closely. A lower rate does not automatically mean a lower bill. Your tax bill comes from two numbers: the rate, which just went down, and your Just Value, which the Property Appraiser sets independently based on market data. If your assessed value climbed enough this year, a lower rate can still leave you with a higher bill than you expected.

So what should you actually do with the notice sitting in your mail pile. Start by checking the Just Value against what similar homes in your neighborhood have actually sold for over the past year, not what you've seen listed. If you bought or refinanced recently, that closing statement is a useful reference point. Next, confirm every exemption you're entitled to is showing up: homestead, senior, veteran, whatever applies to your household. It's not uncommon for an exemption to fall off after a title change, a re-application that didn't process, or a simple clerical gap. Owners in Broward have caught real errors this way, and the fix is often as simple as a form.

If the numbers still look off after that, filing a petition with the Value Adjustment Board costs nothing. You can do it yourself through the Property Appraiser's website, or bring in a professional if the case is more involved, though that route isn't free. Either way, the decision has to happen before September 18. After that date, this year's number is locked in regardless of whether it's accurate.

I bring this up every year because the pattern doesn't change. The notice looks like junk mail, so it gets treated like junk mail, and by the time anyone thinks to look again, the deadline has already passed. If you haven't opened yours yet, this is the week to do it.

For specific questions about your own assessment or exemption status, the Property Appraiser's office is the right first call. For a broader read on how your Just Value compares to what's actually happening on your street, that's a conversation I'm glad to have.

Roger Averbuj, Broker | Prestige Heritage Realty | (954) 663-8461

Source: Broward County Value Adjustment Board, "Filing a Petition"