RV friendly counties

[Fernando Sr]

Does anyone know which counties in Florida allow full time RV living with full hookups on your own land?

 

[FL-JOE]

I'm guessing that almost any county in Florida would allow full time living in an RV on land that you own. The information you would have to obtain from each county would be:
1. Is there a minimum amount of acres required.
2. How is the land zoned where you want to purchase.
3. Would it even be possible to get electric service to the land you want to purchase.
4. What type of sewer system would be required.

 

[RKins]

In Sarasota you can park your RV on your property but not live in it. The neighbor behind us has had a coach for as long as I can remember and it is parked beside his house. A couple times over the years someone complained and the code enforcement came out and found that no one was living in it. He keeps it plugged in, like I do.

 

[MapNerd]

I'm guessing that almost any county in Florida would allow full time living in an RV on land that you own.

I’ve been looking for some time and haven’t found one yet. Many will allow temporary living while you are building a house, but it seems none to very few allow full time. But if you want to live in a ratty old mobile home that is practically falling off its frame, that seems to be fine because you can fine plenty of those around FL.

a nice, well cared for RV that can move out of harms way at a moment’s notice though? Nope. Why not? My best guess is that an RV doesn’t improve land value and so the local government’s revenue remains pretty much the same.

 

[FL-JOE]

I’ve been looking for some time and haven’t found one yet. Many will allow temporary living while you are building a house, but it seems none to very few allow full time. But if you want to live in a ratty old mobile home that is practically falling off its frame, that seems to be fine because you can fine plenty of those around FL.

a nice, well cared for RV that can move out of harms way at a moment’s notice though? Nope. Why not? My best guess is that an RV doesn’t improve land value and so the local government’s revenue remains pretty much the same.

John, you are half right, more or less. First of all FL property taxes are pretty low compared to other States. Where they make some of that up is when you purchase a home they add "impact fees" into your closing costs. Each county can add up to a certain amount of these impact fees. The fees are a one time payment to school districts, fire departments, police departments, public works, etc. In other words, the fees are used to off-set regular annual property taxes. Now you still pay annual property taxes, based on the value of your property, but they really aren't very high.

Now if you just purchase 2 acres and park your 30 foot travel trailer on it you won't pay hardly anything at closing because you are just buying land. However, you and your 6 kids are still living there and using all the services in the county. The only thing you have to pay is about $22 a year for a license plate sticker on that travel trailer. The counties really don't care if you want to park a million dollar Class A on your lot, they just know as a property owner your won't be paying your fair share.

However, if you want to park that travel trailer, or your million dollar Class A for that matter on that lot, jack it up on blocks, run regular "residential" utilities to it, and show the county that it is a permanent residence, then they will be more than happy to allow that. They will a access it as real property, add impact fees, and from then on you will pay annual property taxes which would be more that if it was just empty land. You won't be buying a registration sticker anymore though.

Other than that you can build a barn-a-minium on a couple acres to park your RV in and only pay impact fees initially on that plus annual taxes on that, which would be a cheaper way to go. I've never really looked into the idea of just building an open RV port, but I suspect most counties wouldn't buy into that.

A couple of us have crunched some numbers trying to figure a way to spend the winters down here on our own land. We haven't found a good solution yet. The closest I have come is our current RV lot lease ($287 per month).

 

[Hoshi]

Does anyone know which counties in Florida allow full time RV living with full hookups on your own land?

It is not necessarily the county, city codes are more of a hassle. Most places do not allow you to park your RV on your property unless you have a homestead on it.

 

[Rick&Mary]

From a couple of YouTube videos I've watched, apparently, Taylor County up in the Big Bend is RV friendly so long as you are outside of city limits (Perry being one). One couple purchased a one-acre lot, cleared it themselves, and added a culvert pipe and driveway into the property. They then had a concrete pad poured, an electric pole brought in, a well drilled, and a septic system installed. Probably a bit more expensive to do now than it was before the current economic mess.

 

[Fernando Sr]

Yes I’m sure a year ago or so things were much more attainable then now for sure

 

[TheLooks]

I hunt in the middle of nowhere in VA and we were stunned that this is the law there also. The house next door to our hunting place sold and they brought in a very nice camper and his son tried to stay in it. Neighbor across the street complained and the police came. Mind you, there is only about 12 houses in a 3 mile stretch, just happens that 3 of them are in a cluster. We have never been bothered staying about a week at a time in a camper on the property. We do own the house in front and pay on that however. Go up into the wilds of Maine where I am from and you can live in anything you can imagine.