Col. Mike Greer, a reservist from Boston, and his wife Martha come inside after enjoying the view from their upstairs deck. BRUCE HOSKING/Tribune photo

TAMPA - After Marine Col. Mike Greer moved from Boston to work at U.S. Central Command, he and his Colombian-born wife took to Tampa’s climate – and decided to make the move permanent.

They paid $105,000 in 2004 for a vacant lot on a river that runs into Mobbly Bay.

Their 2005 tax bill, on a $102,596 assessed value, was $2,338.

This year, with their dream home near completion but not yet on the tax roll, they got a nightmare of a proposed tax bill: $8,000, for the land that the property appraiser’s office says is now worth $360,000.

“It’s just wacky, actually,” Greer said. “In Massachusetts, the property taxes are not so high. But here, it’s a huge thing. Before I made the decision (to build), I didn’t quite know that.”

Recent buyers in Florida’s housing market are learning hard lessons, come tax time.

The year after a home qualifies for a homestead exemption, it is shielded from the double- or triple-digit assessment hikes that have been the norm in the sellers’ market of the past few years. That shield comes courtesy of a Save Our Homes cap that limits such increases to a maximum 3 percent a year.

But before that kicks in, the reassessments that take place when property is sold can yield astounding changes in taxable value.

For Jamie Tingen, the surprise came with this year’s tax bill. A Florida resident for a half-century, she traded up from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom townhouse on the same street.

Her tax bill more than tripled.

“I have a granddaughter and I wanted to have a place for her to stay when she visits,” Tingen said. “I moved right down the street, just a few buildings. At my old place, I think (the property tax bill) was $500. I just got the (new) bill, and it’s $1,800.”

Just last year, Tingen, as a longtime owner of a homesteaded property, was on the enviable side of the street of Florida’s property tax system. Her smaller townhouse, which she bought in 1980, had an assessed value last year of $45,305 – held down for the past decade by the Save Our Homes cap.

Its market value was far more. She sold it for $137,000. The tax bill for the new owners leaped to $2,200 from the $500 Tingen paid last year.

She says such disparities are unfair: “Everybody seems to be in the same boat, and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.”

The issue, however, is the focal point of a number of groups studying Florida’s tax system.

Gov. Jeb Bush created a Property Tax Reform Committee this summer and charged its members with offering solutions for the uneven tax burden that resulted from the Save Our Homes cap and the heated real estate market of recent years.

The committee will offer suggestions to the Legislature, the Department of Revenue and a Florida Tax and Budget Reform Commission – which will be established next year.

There are efforts afoot to ease the tax burden of longtime Florida property owners. An ongoing petition drive for a constitutional amendment would allow homeowners to transfer part of their Save Our Homes cap to another home if they want to move as Tingen did.

But newcomers are also begging for relief.

Aldegonda Caris and her husband, Glenn Smith, moved from Long Island, N.Y., to Tampa last year after Smith accepted a job as an assistant professor at USF’s College of Education. They heard the cost of living in Florida was lower. Then they bought a house.

“We have a smaller house and pay more taxes,” said Caris, who said their property taxes on a larger home in New York stayed at about $5,500 a year. “The taxes increased gradually, while in Florida, every time the house is sold, it goes up significantly.”

Between last year and this year, the tax bill on their Tampa Palms home nearly doubled to $6,300.

Caris was shocked to see neighbors in a similar home pay $2,500.

“We get the same benefits. Why would we need to pay so much more?” Caris said. “I don’t see what the goal for Florida is. Why do they give a higher burden to newcomers? Maybe they want to chase them away. I definitely think they should do something about it.”

So does John Sarver.

The civilian strategic planner at U.S. Central Command moved to Brandon late last year from Colorado Springs. That recent arrival earned him the not-so-enviable position on the block as the man with the highest property tax bill.

He’ll pay almost $9,000 this year in property taxes. That’s more than he paid for both property taxes and state income taxes in Colorado. Most of his neighbors pay a third or half of that, even though their homes are about the same size as his – or larger.

“I look across the street,” said Sarver, who bought his home for $475,000 at the height of the market late last year. “I know my neighbors have enjoyed all this equity they’ve gained from ’03 to ’05, but I feel like I subsidize their property.”

Greer’s worry is he’ll never be able to enjoy the home he is building.

He and his wife, Martha, are challenging the 250 percent increase in their assessment with the county Value Adjustment Board. In a small conference room Monday, they faced off with two employees from the property appraiser’s office before a special magistrate.

“The sales and listings would support the assessment you have,” said Becky Lopresto, an appraisal manager with the land department who cited a vacant lot down the street priced at $380,000.

Greer said the prices only went up recently after property assessments soared: “I shopped that woman’s lot when I bought mine – and I couldn’t afford it because it was $175,000.”

He also noted that, unlike the other lots, half of his lot can’t be developed because it is wetlands covered in mangroves. Lawrence Langowski, team leader from the Land Department, said he may be able to lower the assessment based on that.

Greer hopes that happens.

“You make reasonable assumptions: The house is going to be about $650,000, the land about $105,000,” Greer said. “Now with this assessment, you’re talking $360,000 and $650,000. It’s going to be a nice house. But it’s not a million-dollar house.”

If the tax rate stays the same by the time his home is built, a million-dollar assessment would cost Mike and Martha Greer almost $22,000 a year in property taxes.

Said Greer: “I’m in a situation where, if the assessment stays as it is, I may not be able to afford the house.”

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at (813) 259-7815 or at kbranch-brioso@tampatrib.com