Louisa County Disabled Veteran Real Estate Tax Exemption

Louisa County's Commissioner of the Revenue, at 1 Woolfolk Avenue in Louisa, takes the statewide disabled-veteran real estate exemption on its own application, with the original VA letter showing a disability that is 100% service-connected, permanent, and total, a photo ID, and a utility bill for the home. There is no income test, and the application is refiled only after a move, as section 58.1-3219.6 provides. Acreage. The county's page says "the exemption is allowed on the primary residence, with all other improvements on the property subject to taxation", and mentions no land. Section 58.1-3219.5(C) of the Code of Virginia exempts the land under the home, at least one acre, and a garage or shed on it used for vehicles or household goods. It also requires a locality that exempts more than one acre under its elderly and disabled program to exempt the same acreage for the veteran. Section 70-33(a)(1) of the county code lets "a dwelling and up to ten acres of land" qualify for that program, and section 70-33(a)(5) leaves the same ten acres out of net worth. On those words the veteran's exemption reaches up to ten acres. A veteran billed for land or a garage should cite subsection C and section 70-33. Ownership and surviving spouses. The page asks for real estate "owned or jointly owned with a spouse by the veteran"; section 58.1-3219.5(D) and (E) also reach a home held in a life estate, a revocable or irrevocable trust, or with co-owners, prorated. The page and the application's surviving-spouse affidavit say the spouse must "continue to occupy" the exempted home. Section 58.1-3219.5(B) has let the spouse move to a new principal residence since 2019 without losing the exemption. Neither the page nor the form names individual unemployability; a veteran paid at the 100% rate on that basis and rated permanent and total should ask the office, since the Department of Veterans Services treats that rating as qualifying.