{"id":24754,"date":"2025-10-29T06:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T06:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/24754\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T06:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T06:10:12","slug":"hialeah-mayors-home-nearly-doubles-in-size-in-county-records-after-code-fines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/24754\/","title":{"rendered":"Hialeah mayor\u2019s home nearly doubles in size in county records after code fines"},"content":{"rendered":"

The size of Hialeah Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves\u2019 home has doubled in size in county property-tax records, just days after the Miami Herald reported that she has been fined for property code violations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to a Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser\u2019s summary report, Garcia-Roves\u2019 house, built in 1949, expanded on the documents from a three-bedroom, one-bathroom home with a living area of 936 square feet to a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home measuring 1,612 square feet. The property, purchased by Garcia-Roves\u2019 parents in 1985, was transferred to her in 2019 following her father\u2019s death, the same year she was elected to the city council.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A general view of Hialeah\u2019s Interim Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves\u2019s in East Hialeah on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Hialeah, Fla., who has been fined by the city for code violations. <\/p>\n

Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Tom\u00e1s Regalado told the Herald that his office opened an investigation into Garcia-Roves\u2019 property after receiving multiple complaints in August about potential code violations, including alleged illegal expansions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral months ago, when the campaign started, several complaints came in, and one of the complaints was that the mayor\u2019s house didn\u2019t have the square footage,\u201d Regalado said.<\/p>\n

\"Miami-Dade<\/p>\n

Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser Tom\u00e1s Regalado <\/p>\n

Following the complaints, the Property Appraiser\u2019s office conducted an aerial inspection on Oct. 10, according to David Guerra, director of the Residential Inspection Division.<\/p>\n

When asked how the office verified the change from a 3\/1 to a 4\/2 layout based on an aerial inspection, Regalado said, \u201cThat was verified with the owner.\u201d He did not specify the exact date of confirmation but noted that Garcia-Roves made a courtesy visit to his office in August, after the complaints were received by the county. Guerra confirmed that the matter was discussed directly with Garcia-Roves early in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen all this started\u2014the complaints\u2014she told us that what appeared on the Property Appraiser\u2019s summary was incorrect,\u201d Guerra told the Herald during a conference call alongside Regalado, noting that Hialeah mayor specifically stated her property was not actually a 3\/1 but a 4\/2. \u201cShe also said she didn\u2019t know why the information was incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A general view of Hialeah\u2019s Interim Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves\u2019s in East Hialeah on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Hialeah, Fla<\/p>\n

However, Garcia-Roves has repeatedly denied any expansion of her property. She told the Herald on Tuesday that she met with Regalado on Aug. 8 to present information about Hialeah\u2019s taxes, not about her own home.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Hialeah mayor denies building violations cited by her own department on her property<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an informative presentation,\u201d she said. She noted that at the meeting with Regalado there was a reference to a Herald public-records request regarding a Hialeah candidate\u2019s property, but said it did not involve her home. However, on Aug. 4, the Herald had requested public records from the Property Appraiser\u2019s office specifically for Garcia-Roves\u2019 property.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt no point was my property mentioned\u201d at the meeting with Regalado, she said. She added Regalado is \u201cnow lending himself to lying\u201d about what happened because he supports another candidate for Hialeah mayor in the Nov. 4 elections.<\/p>\n

\"Hialeah<\/p>\n

Hialeah Mayoral candidates, from left Interim Mayor Jackie Garcia-Roves, former Councilman Bryan Calvo listen as councilman Jesus Tundidor talks during a Mayoral debate at Univision 23 (WLTV) channel ahead of the November 4 elections, in Doral, Wednesday October, 15 2025.5.<\/p>\n

Regalado responded to Garcia-Roves\u2019 accusation, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m lying about. We investigate every complaint, and it turned out there was more square footage in her property. This has nothing to do with any political preferences. I\u2019m not involved in these investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Oct. 22, following another complaint to the Hialeah Building and Code Compliance Department, Garcia-Roves was fined $250 for multiple violations on her home, including an addition, awning, re-roof, fence, and columns that had been built without permits. The inspection was conducted from outside the property. She said she received the notice of the inspection days later, the same day the county Property Appraiser\u2019s Office updated her home\u2019s dimensions, on Oct. 27.<\/p>\n

Guerra noted that the updated sketches and assessed values of Garcia-Roves\u2019s property will not appear in the county\u2019s public records until the 2026 tax rolls. He estimated that her property\u2019s market value could increase by more than $100,000 \u2014 from the current $365,534 to as much as $550,000. Last year, Garcia-Roves paid $3,229.84 in property taxes, which could rise substantially under the new assessment.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A Google Street View image from April 2022 shows substantial exterior modifications to Hialeah Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves\u2019s home, decades after her family acquired the property.<\/p>\n

The Property Appraiser\u2019s office said it did not plan to fine Garcia-Roves for the previously undisclosed additions to the property because they cannot determine the exact date the home\u2019s dimensions changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The size of Hialeah Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves\u2019 home has doubled in size in county property-tax records, just days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[15376,18894,225,227,226,4541,18893,18895,18892,7074],"class_list":["post-24754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-code-violations","tag-david-guerra","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-miami-herald","tag-miami-dade-county-property-appraiser","tag-property-appraiser","tag-property-appraisers-office","tag-property-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}