How this site is written
Every number on this site is imported from a single sourced data file and renders with a link to where it came from. Nothing is typed into an article by hand. Where sources disagree and we have not resolved it, the figure is withheld rather than guessed — and the page says so.
Several of the figures that decide real money here are re-indexed every year. The homestead exemption is $51,411† for 2026 and will be a different number in 2027. Typed into an article, that is silently wrong within twelve months and nobody notices. Imported from a dated, sourced record, it can only be wrong on purpose.
The four rules
- Cite the source, and prefer the government one. The Department of Revenue, the Office of Insurance Regulation and the statutes themselves already outrank us on these terms. Linking to them costs us nothing we were going to win, and it lets you check the claim instead of trusting it.
- Give the number, not the hedge. “Costs vary depending on several factors” is not an answer. A range with what moves it is.
- Say when the answer is no. Several pages here tell you not to buy a service, not to file an appeal, or not to volunteer for an inspection. If the honest answer is that you do not need something, that is what the page says.
- Withhold what we cannot verify. This is enforced in the code rather than left to memory — see below.
What "enforced in the code" actually means
Two mechanisms, because good intentions do not survive a deadline.
- Facts cannot render without a source. There is no way to display a figure on this site except through a component that reads it from the sourced record and attaches the citation. A figure marked unresolved throws an error at build time — the page physically cannot be published carrying it.
- Pages are checked after they are built, not before. A separate gate reads the finished HTML and fails the build if a published page cites nothing, is too short, has no structured data, has no canonical, or reads with the flat uniform sentence rhythm that machine-written text tends to have.
You will see a specific percentage quoted elsewhere for the share of flood claims that come from outside high-risk zones. We found it published as a fifth, a quarter and nearly a third over different periods, and FEMA’s own pages refuse automated access, so we could not open the primary source. That number is marked unresolved in our data and cannot appear on any page here. The flood page says the figure is contested instead of picking the most persuasive version.
Where this differs from what you will read elsewhere
Florida changes its property law often, and a great deal of published guidance has not been reviewed since it did. Several pages here contradict widely repeated figures, and in each case the statute is cited so you can see which is current.
| Commonly published | Current law |
|---|---|
| Insurer has 90 days to pay or deny a claim | 60 days† |
| Three years to file a supplemental claim | 18 months† |
| Property tax appeal costs $15 to file | $50†, raised in July 2025 |
| Homestead exemption is a flat $50,000 | $51,411†, re-indexed annually |
| Month-to-month notice is 15 days | 30 days, since July 2023 |
None of that is a claim to be smarter than anyone. It is a claim to have read the statute recently, which is a much lower bar and a much more checkable one.
What this site is not
- Not legal, tax or insurance advice. It is general information about how Florida rules work. Your situation may turn on facts a general page cannot know.
- Not a law firm, and not a licensed insurance agency. Where a licensed professional is required, the pages say so and say which licence.
- Not a listings portal — yet. Property search requires licensed data and a licensed brokerage. Until that exists, publishing search results would be pretending.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, we want to know, and we will change it and say that we changed it. Tell us — a statute reference or a link to the source is the fastest way to get it fixed.
Two corrections we have already made to our own data are worth naming, because a site that claims accuracy should show its working: we had the Save Our Homes portability window recorded as two years when it has been three since 2021, and we had confused the $5,000 notice-of-commencement threshold with the separate $2,500 contractor licence threshold. Both are fixed and both are cited.
Start here
Common questions
Who writes this site?
It is published by Merica Estate Hunter, a Florida property information service. Pages are written against primary sources — Florida statutes, the Department of Revenue, and the Office of Insurance Regulation — and every figure carries a link to its source so you can verify it independently.
Is this legal advice?
No. It is general information about how Florida rules work. Where a licensed professional is required we say so and say which licence. Take advice before relying on anything here in a live transaction.
How do I report an error?
Use the contact page. A statute reference or a source link is the fastest route to a correction, and corrections are made and acknowledged rather than quietly edited.
Sources are cited inline throughout. Florida law changes; pages carry the effective date of the figures they rely on.