The Lake County Property Appraiser says the tax bill you got at the beginning of November may be wrong.

  • $50 fire fee should only apply to buildable vacant lots
  • Some lots were taxed by mistake
  • Fire fee funds county's fire protection services

Property Appraiser Carey Baker said some people got billed for a new $50 fire fee for vacant lots when they shouldn't have been, as the fee was supposed to apply only to buildable vacant lots.  

"The county hired a consultant to identify all the vacant properties in Lake County and they all have a use code on it," Baker said. "Well, what they adopted wasn't quite perfect, and so my office is aggressively trying to resolve these issues when people call in."

Baker provided some examples of issues his office is seeing.

"If you own your home and you have a little sliver of a parcel, if that parcel is not buildable, if you can't put a house on that, yet you’ve received a $50 fire fee on that little sliver, that’s incorrect." he said.

The fire fee funds the county's fire protection services, for things like fire prevention and suppression. Baker said county commissioners expanded the existing fire fee to include vacant land and reduced the fire fee that's currently on property that has homes or businesses.

"Quite frankly, I blame the consultant," Baker said. "I think the consultant should have been more a little more thorough in his job and what he recommended."

If you think your tax bill is incorrect, call the Lake County property appraiser's office at (352) 253-2150. Those who've already paid the fire fee but weren't supposed to will get a refund.