Renting out your home ends the homestead exemption
Occupancy is the test. Moving out without saying so creates a problem that compounds.
Homestead exemptions require the owner to occupy the property as their principal residence. Let it and the entitlement ends.
Common situations
Moving and keeping the old house as a rental. A second home. Adult children living in a property the parents own. A property held in a trust and occupied by a beneficiary — this one is fact-specific and worth asking about rather than assuming.
Why not to leave it running
Counties audit. When an exemption is found to have been wrongly claimed, the usual result is a back assessment for the years involved, sometimes with penalty. It is a far worse outcome than the exemption was worth.
What to do
Tell the assessor when occupancy changes, and claim the exemption on your new principal residence.
The other side of it
A landlord has no homestead exemption but still has every other remedy. Uniformity and market-value appeals do not depend on occupancy, and rental property is frequently assessed on stale assumptions about condition. The exemption is gone; the appeal is not.