Florida Boat Appraisers

An owner of record transferring an interest in a hull damaged vessel, where the damage happened on their watch and they know of it, must either apply for a new certificate carrying the title brand Hull Damaged or mark the existing certificate and hand it to the transferee; an insurer must apply before it transfers at all. The department then creates the branded certificate within 30 days, and failing to do any of this is an infraction penalized at $5,000, then $15,000, then $25,000. Hull damaged is defined as the integrity of the hull being compromised by a collision, allision, lightning strike, fire, explosion, running aground or similar event, or by a sinking that puts the hull at significant risk. The brand follows the boat, so it is part of the valuation rather than a footnote to it.

Each tangible personal property return is eligible for an exemption of up to $25,000 of assessed value, and a single return is filed for each site in the county where the owner transacts business. The filing requirement is then waived while the value listed stays under the exemption, but only for an owner who filed an initial return claiming it, and the exemption does not apply at all in a year a required return is late. For a chartered or rented vessel that turns the question into a valuation question: whether anything is owed depends on a figure somebody has to establish and stand behind.

In arriving at just valuation a property appraiser is directed to consider eight things: present cash value, meaning what a willing purchaser would pay a willing seller at arm's length; highest and best use; location; quantity or size; cost and the present replacement value of improvements; condition; income; and the net proceeds of a sale after the usual and reasonable costs of selling. Three of the eight are the ones that move a vessel, and a report that answers them in the statute's own terms is far harder to wave away than one built on a single guide figure.