Millionaire Fined $990,000 For Homestead Shenanigans

Posted by Jose Lambiet , October 7, 2012 Print

A Golden Beach millionaire who failed to adjust her homestead exemption status for more than 10 years has just made Miami-Dade County history!

The Miami-Dade Property Appraiser’s Office just placed its highest ever property-tax lien on an oceanfront home after determining that the owner, Irene Archer, 63, has to pay $990,813.45 in back levy, penalties and interests!

The fine comes to nearly half the house’s current market value of $2.2 million.

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Archer saved the money over a decade by failing to tell the appraiser that she didn’t live at the 2,800-square-foot property after inheriting it from her mother, who did own a rightful exemption.

“It is the highest lien ever recorded by us,” said Appraiser Spokesman Patrick Smikle.

When at home in Michigan, Archer called it a “whole big misunderstanding.”

She referred follow-up questions to her lawyer, Kenneth Bloom, who said: “There are remedies in the law for the unsuspecting.”

Homestead exemptions allow homeowners to keep property taxes lower with the help of up to $50,000 in homestead deductions.

The catch: You have to live on the property, and not claim an exemption on any other home.

Until this year, when Archer was caught, her beachfronter was assessed at just $820,000!

Smikle said Archer likely came to the property appraiser’s attention through a new software that mines information about homeowners on a national level.

I’m told by a source close to the situation that records showed Smikle has been voting in Michigan and has a Michigan driver’s license.

This article appears today in my column in the Miami Herald

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