Florida city being billed $271K for unpaid taxes on closed golf course. How come?

USA Today

19-06-2025

Florida city being billed $271K for unpaid taxes on closed golf course. How come? The Volusia County Tax Collector said Ormond Beach owes for taxes and delinquency interest a total of $377,466.69.
Citing case law, a judge has ruled that a Florida city is responsible for unpaid property taxes on the shuttered River Bend Golf Course and has ordered a hearing to determine how much the city must pay.
Circuit Judge Kathryn Weston issued the ruling on Monday in the legal battle in which Ormond Beach sued Volusia County Property Appraiser Larry Bartlett and Volusia County Tax Collector Will Roberts. Roberts also counter-sued.
Ormond Beach owed $271,000 in unpaid taxes, according to Bartlett in a News-Journal story three years ago.
The city maintained it was exempt from property taxes because it is a municipality.
But Weston cited case law in ruling that since the golf course was leased to a private for-profit business during the time the taxes were levied, it was not exempt from taxes. Weston wrote that the city was responsible for unpaid property taxes.
'Accordingly, the Court finds that Ormond Beach is the proper taxpayer for ad-valorem property taxes imposed on the property,' Weston wrote.
Weston ordered the city, property appraiser, and tax collector to coordinate on a date for an evidentiary hearing to determine the amount of taxes the city owed.
The city leased the land in 1988 to the River Bend Investment Group which ran the golf course next to the Ormond Beach Municipal Airport. The golf course lease was transferred to Wes and Stacie Norwood of River Bend Management Group LLC in 2010, according to a News-Journal story by Mark Harper. River Bend Management went out of business in 2020, the story stated.
Harper wrote in the April 2022 story that Ormond Beach had paid $338,208 in legal fees by the end of March 2022 in the legal battle over the $271,000 in unpaid taxes.
The story stated the county had paid the salaries of its staff.
River Bend legal fight reaches back to 1997
Weston wrote that a court's 1997 final judgment providing a retroactive public purpose tax exemption for the River Bend golf course property was based on a part of state law found unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court in another case involving the Sebring Airport Authority.
'The Court finds that the property was not exempt from ad valorem taxation while leased to a private entity,' Weston wrote.
She noted that the Florida Constitution Article VII Section 3(a) which states that all property owned by a city and 'exclusively used for municipal or public purposes' will be exempt from taxes.
But she wrote that a 2009 lease ended Ormond Beach's 'exclusive use and control of the property.'
She cited another case in which the 2nd District Court of Appeal to relied on the Sebring case to rule that a for-profit golf course is not a public purpose and therefore not entitled to a property tax exemption.
Florida Supreme Court ruling still holds despite notice to River Bend
There was also a dispute on whether Ormond Beach had received proper notice that it was being billed for the property taxes. But Weston wrote that the issue didn't change, that the exemption had been ruled unconstitutional by the state's top court.
Weston wrote that she was 'unpersuaded that the lack of statutory notice requires this court to grant the very tax exemption that the Florida Supreme Court found unconstitutional' in the Sebring case.
River Bend listed as taxpayer in documents
Weston was more agreeable to the argument by Ormond Beach that River Bend Management as the leaseholder should be solely responsible for the property taxes from 2013 through 2020. Weston noted that the Property Appraiser's records support this argument. She noted that River Bend Management was listed as the taxpayer in documents in 2013 and 2014 and in Trim notices in 2015, 2016, 207, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
She also noted that the Department of Revenue also reasoned that River Bend Management was the taxpayer.
'The court finds these arguments highly persuasive,' Weston wrote.
But Weston cited another case, Grove Key Marina LLC versus Casamayor, in which the 3rd District Court of Appeal held that the city alone was responsible for unpaid property taxes on 'municipal property leased to a private entity for non-governmental purposes.'
Weston noted that the Department of Revenue argued in its memo that the appeals court wrongly decided the Grove Key case. But she wrote that neither Ormond Beach nor the Department of Revenue had distinguished the River Bend Case from the Grove Key or 'cited contrary case law.'
Weston wrote that she was bound by the Grove Key decision unless that was changed by a ruling from the 5th District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach.