Cape Coral Assessments Explained

When browsing Cape Coral real estate listings, you will often see terms such as “Assessments Paid!” or “Assessment balance to be assumed by buyer.” The Cape Coral assessments language refers to public utilities being installed by the city.

What are those assessments? It refers to the city installation of public water, sewer and irrigation. Areas of the city that are on well water and septic are, or have been, converted to city utilities. The public utilities were installed in regions over many years and there are areas of the city still awaiting public utility installation.

Cape Coral is a large city by land mass: an area of 115 square miles. When the city was first established about 50 years ago, there were no public utilities (water, sewer, irrigation). Much of the Southeast and Southwest portions of the city are now on public utilities. When those utilities were installed, homeowners were charged for the installation – the assessment. When it says “Assessment Paid” it means that assessment has been paid in full. Your real estate agent can verify this by requesting a payoff report from the city.

In most cases, homeowners decided to pay the assessment over time via their property tax bill.  In some areas there is still an assessment balance on the property tax bill (middle and upper portions of the city). Typically, this translates to about $800- $1,000 per year for properties that had installation a few years ago. In some northern parts of the city where installation was recently completed, the rates are higher: $2,000 – $2,500 per year. When the property is sold, the new owner assumes the assessment balance. The balance is transferred to the new owner and the owner continues to pay it off annually via the property tax bill or can opt to pay it in full at any time.

You can learn more about the assessments and the process on the city website: Cape Coral Utilities Extension Project. There is also a look-up tool to check if a property is in an assessment area. 

The image below shows and example of the assessments on a property tax bill.