St. Lucie County Property Appraiser: Veteran Exemptions

The exemptions are the State's; the Florida entries explain them. The St. Lucie County Property Appraiser (Michelle Franklin) takes applications online and at its two offices, Fort Pierce, 2300 Virginia Avenue, and Saint Lucie West, 250 NW Country Club Drive, Port St. Lucie; 772-462-1000, and 772-462-1021 for exemption questions. What its Learn About Exemptions page gets right. The total exemption under section 196.081 for an honorably discharged veteran certified by the federal government with a service-connected total and permanent disability; the homestead discount at 65 for a combat-related disability under section 196.082, on form DR-501DV, with the discount equal to the disability percentage; and the deployed military exemption under section 196.173, on form DR-501M, which a spouse or designee may file. Where it is narrower than the law. - The $5,000 exemption. The page offers it to "honorably discharged veterans with a service connected disability rating of at least 10%". Section 196.24 covers a disability of 10% or more "by misfortune or while serving during a period of wartime service", so a wartime veteran's rating qualifies on that ground as well. - The surviving spouse. The page says the unremarried surviving spouse of a disabled veteran may qualify "if married at least 5 years at the time of the veteran's death". Section 196.24 sets no length-of-marriage test; a spouse married a shorter time should cite the statute. - The wheelchair veteran exemption. The page does not list the section 196.091 exemption for a veteran with a total service-connected disability who uses a wheelchair and has received VA specially adapted housing assistance; its "Total Exemption with Gross Household Income Limit" section is the separate, income-capped exemption in section 196.101 for wheelchair users and the legally blind generally, not the veteran exemption. Ask for section 196.091 by number. The deployed exemption page lists the qualifying operations as they stood before 2026: it still lists Resolute Support, which chapter 2026-239 dropped, and omits the operations the same chapter added for the 2026 roll, along with that act's August 1, 2026 deadline for 2026 and its partial refund of 2024 and 2025 taxes for members with more than 365 days on the added operations; see the Florida entry and ask the Appraiser about the refund.