Every year, Walt Disney World files a flurry of lawsuits against Orange County’s Property Appraiser Office over their property taxes. One suit from 2016 has finally been resolved.
Disney Wins Property Tax Lawsuit
The case, first filed in June 2016 over their 2015 property taxes, argued Property Appraiser Rick Singh’s assessed value of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge and Disney’s Wilderness Lodge exceeded the actual market values of the resorts and included intangible property, which is a violation of the Florida Constitution.
The judgment delivered this week sided with Disney, determining the value of Animal Kingdom Lodge to be $226,607,023 — almost $25.2 million lower than Singh’s original $251,785,581 assessment. Wilderness Lodge’s value assessment dropped to $166,976,423 — almost $18.6 million lower than the original $185,529,359 assessment. In total, that lowers the values by $43.8 million.
Though Singh’s name is still on the closed suit, he was replaced by Amy Mercado in the years since and she is now named in the suit. Other players changed, in part due to the switch from Reedy Creek Improvement District to Central Florida Tourism Oversight District in 2023…