Nygren Florida Home Has Homestead Exemption – Part 3

Inspired to look further into McHenry County Sheriff Keith and his wife Margarete Nygren’s ownership of a home in Cape Coral, Florida, by the blog

Dirty Keith vs. Dirty Harry

McHenry County Blog has been reporting the details of this Lee County residence.

Two days ago, it was reported that the home has a Florida Homestead Exemption. Yesterday, the question of the exemption holder, Margarete Nygren’s apparently being registered in both Florida and Illinois was explored.

Only “bona fide Florida residents living in the dwelling” can received such an exemption.

Apparently, one spouse can claim to be a resident of Florida, while another resides officially elsewhere.

In the Nygren family, wife Margarete applied for the Florida exemption.

In the Florida Homestead Exemption rules is the following (printed in boldface in the original):

“In addition, if you are married, your spouse cannot receive exemption, tax credit or rollback in any other jurisdiction. (Emphasis added.) Section 6 (b) Article VII, Fl Constitution states that not more than one exemption shall be allowed any individual or family unit. You will be asked to sign an affidavit stating that you have been informed and that you are responsible for removing any other exemption in order to qualify in Lee County.“

Therein lies the problem.

Look at the McHenry County tax bill for the Nygren’s Hebron home. Look on the lower right hand side.

The property received a Homestead Exemption of $5,500 this year.

There’s an old song entitled, “Love and Marriage.”

I remember dancing the cha-cha to it in a class right after we moved to Salt Lake City in 1953 from Easton, Maryland. Another line is

“You can’t have one with out the other.”

Of course, we are no longer in the moral universe of the 1950’s, but something similar seems relevant here.

If the song were entitled,

“Homestead Exemption,”

one of the lines might be

“You can have one, but not the other.”


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *