When comparing the estimated property tax rates calculated in late 2019 to the amounts ultimately billed by the applicable counties, it appears credits will be issued to many Disney Vacation Club members for overestimated property taxes in 2020.
Disney's Wilderness Lodge
In December of each year the DVC Board of Directors approves the annual budgets for the DVC resorts. When the budgets are approved, the Board can only estimate what the property taxes may be for the upcoming year. This is because the actual tax amount charged against a resort in Florida is not finalized until late in the following year.
In some years, the estimated taxes are higher than the actual tax amount. When that happens a credit is applied to the maintenance fees that will be billed in the following year. If the actual tax amount is higher than the estimated amount, then an additional charge is assessed and added to the maintenance fee billed in the following year.
In December 2019, the Board estimated that the 2020 property taxes for Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas would be $1.5195 a point. This amount was included in the 2020 maintenance fees for Animal Kingdom owners and due by January 15, 2020.
The final 2020 tax bills were recently released and they show that Animal Kingdom Villas owners will actually pay about $10,455,056* in property taxes, which equates to about $1.4166 per point. Since the resort's actual tax amount is less than the estimated amount, owners should see a credit for the difference. If a DVC member owns 100 Animal Kingdom points, they should expect to have a credit of about $10.67 appear on their 2021 Annual Dues statement.
The chart below shows the estimated credit that DVC resorts at Walt Disney World should receive due to overpayment of 2020 property taxes. Disney’s Riviera Resort is not included because its property tax information is not fully available.
Please note that these amounts are estimates calculated by DVCNews, not official information received from Disney Vacation Club. DVC will apply its own formula to the numbers received from the county, which may impact the values listed above.
Final cedits will be issued when the Annual Dues are billed in December 2020. The 2021 Annual Dues statements should be available on the DVC member website about a week or two after the 2020 Condominium Association Meeting on December 10.
*Note: The original version of this story listed an amount of $4,288,753 for Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas. That is actually the total for Disney's Beach Club Villas. The correct Animal Kingdom figure is now listed.
Wil Lovato is a contributor to DVCNews.com and has been a Disney Vacation Club owner since 2009. His DVC Home Resorts include Copper Creek Villas, Bay Lake Tower, Animal Kingdom Villas, and Aulani. He can be found posting on many Disney discussion forums under the username of “wdrl.”
