The Break on Your Tax Bill
ORC 323.152 — the homestead reduction, and ORC 323.153 — the day it is applied for by
The valuation page on this site is about arguing the number the auditor set. This one is about a reduction applied after that number is settled, for owners the chapter names, and it is the most commonly missed thing in the whole tax title, because nobody is enrolled in it automatically.
Who handles this in Ohio: legal aid programs, lawyer referral and the state offices, listed in the Ohio directory.
Who the reduction is for. The reduction is for an owner occupying the homestead who is sixty five years of age or older or permanently and totally disabled. It also reaches the surviving spouse of such a person who applied and qualified in the year of death, where the surviving spouse was at least fifty nine and under sixty five on the date of death. A person who received the reduction for tax year 2013, or the parallel manufactured home reduction for tax year 2014, keeps it without an income test; anybody else is held to the total income limit the section sets.
The figures move every year, on purpose. The section sets the total income threshold at thirty thousand dollars and the reduction at twenty five thousand dollars of true value, and the tax commissioner adjusts both each September using the gross domestic product deflator. So the figures in the statute are starting points, and the adjusted figures for a particular tax year are the ones the commissioner publishes and the county auditor applies.
The reduction is on taxable value, not on the bill, so what it is worth in money depends on the rate where the house is. Two owners with identical houses in different districts get the same reduction in value and a different reduction in dollars.
The application goes to the county auditor, by the last day of December. The original application, any subsequent application, and any late application are filed with the county auditor on or before the thirty first day of December of the year for which the reduction is sought. The application is on a form the tax commissioner devises and supplies, which requires no more information than is necessary to establish eligibility and the amount.
Each year during February the county auditor mails an original application to the owner, as of the first day of January of that year, of a homestead or manufactured or mobile home that transferred during the preceding calendar year and that qualified for and received the reduction. A house that changed hands is the case the chapter singles out for a fresh application.
| The question | The chapter's answer |
|---|---|
| The questionWho qualifies | The chapter's answerAn owner occupant sixty five or older, permanently and totally disabled, or a qualifying surviving spouse |
| The questionThe income test | The chapter's answerThirty thousand dollars of total income as adjusted each year, for anybody who did not receive the reduction for tax year 2013 |
| The questionThe reduction | The chapter's answerTwenty five thousand dollars of true value as adjusted each year, times the assessment percentage and the effective tax rate |
| The questionWhy the figures change | The chapter's answerThe tax commissioner adjusts them each September using the gross domestic product deflator |
| The questionWhere the application goes | The chapter's answerThe county auditor, on the commissioner's form |
| The questionBy when | The chapter's answerThe thirty first day of December of the year the reduction is sought |
How total income is computed, the separate reduction for disabled veterans and its own larger figure, the reduction for manufactured and mobile homes, the continuing application a recipient files, and what happens where a recipient's circumstances change are not on this page. The county auditor's office administers the reduction and holds the form, and the adjusted figures for a particular tax year are the ones the tax commissioner publishes for that year.
Sources for this section (2)
- ORC 323.152 — Reductions in taxable value for the elderly, disabled and surviving spouses
- ORC 323.153 — Applying for the homestead reduction, and the day the application is filed by
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Ohio attorney.