Invoice Pulte, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Company, talking on CNBC’s Squawk Field on Sept. 4th, 2025.
CNBC
Shut kin of the federal official who has accused a Federal Reserve governor of improperly claiming major residence on two properties have declared the identical standing on two properties in two completely different states, public data present.
Mark and Julie Pulte, the daddy and stepmother of Invoice Pulte, President Donald Trump’s appointee as director of the Federal Housing Finance Company, since 2020 have claimed so-called “homestead exemptions” for residences in rich neighborhoods in each Michigan and Florida, in accordance with the data. The exemption is supposed to offer a reduction to householders on taxes for properties they use as their major residence.
Native tax officers in each states informed Reuters that claiming multiple house as a major residence is not usually allowed of their jurisdictions and could possibly be punishable by fines or again taxes. After Reuters contacted tax officers in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, to inquire in regards to the twin claims, Darrin Kraatz, director of assessing, on Thursday stated the township “as of right this moment” would revoke the exemption on the Pultes’ residence there.
Based on public actual property data, and a resident on the Michigan home on Thursday night, the house was rented out by the Pultes this yr, a transfer that additionally violates guidelines for the exemption. “Revised tax payments will probably be issued to the Pultes, together with all relevant penalty and curiosity,” Kraatz stated by e mail. He did not reply to a follow-up query in regards to the worth of any cost now due and Reuters could not decide a exact determine for earlier tax funds they’ve made.
Officers in Florida, citing the declare for exemption in that state as older, stated any battle with the second exemption would have to be addressed in Michigan.
A house listed as bought by Mark and Julie Pulte, on a quiet cul-de-sac in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, U.S., September 4, 2025.
Rebecca Cook dinner | Reuters
Reuters was unable to succeed in Mark or Julie Pulte for remark. Representatives at Mark Pulte’s enterprise and a Pulte household basis did not reply to telephone calls or emails searching for remark for this story.
Officers on the FHFA, the federal company led by Invoice Pulte, did not reply to a request for remark. The information company was unable to succeed in him in any other case.
The declare of multiple property as a major residence has been the premise for Invoice Pulte’s accusations in opposition to Lisa Cook dinner, the Federal Reserve governor Trump fired consequently and who has since filed go well with in opposition to the president to struggle the dismissal. Pulte referred the matter to the legal professional normal, prompting a probe of Cook dinner by the Justice Division.
Along with that formal motion in opposition to Cook dinner, Pulte in latest days has made a number of public statements in opposition to her, accusing her of defrauding mortgage lenders and the general public. “Monetary fraud is an enormous deal,” Pulte wrote final weekend on X, the social media website, to his three million followers. “Do not do it!”
He additionally criticized Cook dinner after studying she rented out one of many properties that she had declared as a major residence. “Lisa Cook dinner’s declared ‘PRIMARY RESIDENCE’ is being RENTED out to tenants,” he wrote in one other X submit.
Cook dinner has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. “How Governor Cook dinner described her properties,” her legal professional wrote in an announcement on Thursday, is “not fraud.”
Within the storage of the Michigan home, on a quiet cul-de-sac with wood-shingled properties and manicured yards, a person informed Reuters that he lives on the property as a tenant and would not know the title of the house owner. He declined to be recognized by title or say by way of whom or how lengthy he has been renting the property.
A drone view reveals a house listed as bought by Mark and Julie Pulte at Royal Palm Yacht & Nation Membership in Boca Raton, Florida, U.S. September 5, 2025. REUTERS/Marco Bello
Marco Bello | Reuters
‘They received fortunate’
The Pulte household, which rose to prominence with a housing empire began in Michigan by Mark Pulte’s father, is energetic in conservative circles. Each Mark and his spouse, electoral data present, have made a number of marketing campaign contributions to Republican candidates and causes.
Along with founding his personal housing firm in Florida, the place he has specialised in constructing luxurious properties, Mark Pulte is a senior official at a Pulte household basis. His high-profile actual property actions have included the 2021 sale of a property for $122.7 million, a report for Palm Seaside on the time. Years earlier, the property had been amongst Trump’s Florida holdings.
In his feedback to Senate officers for his affirmation as director of the federal housing company, Invoice Pulte thanked his father and stepmother for his or her help. He stated he grew up visiting development websites of properties constructed by his father and grandfather. In previous public statements he has stated that Mark helped finance Pulte Capital Companions, the Florida-based non-public fairness agency Invoice based.
The homestead exemptions claimed by Mark and Julie Pulte, eight tax and actual property consultants informed Reuters, would sometimes be permissible solely in a uncommon exception that may be made for a pair by which spouses are conducting solely impartial lives – dwelling individually on the two addresses, separating their funds and submitting their taxes individually. Reuters could not decide whether or not the Pultes certified for such an exemption or had used such grounds to justify their homestead claims.
“It is not one thing that both state usually helps you to get away with,” stated Lisa Bender, a longtime actual property agent in each Michigan and Florida. Bender stated she personally is aware of the ins-and-outs of the homestead exemptions as a result of she additionally owns properties in each states. “I want I may declare each,” she stated. “Someway they received fortunate.”
No mortgage data exist for the Michigan and Florida properties, which suggests the Pultes doubtless paid for the properties in money, actual property consultants stated. By paying decrease taxes on each properties, they added, the couple is contributing lower than they in any other case would to public coffers, together with funding for space faculties.
On properties like these owned by the Pultes, the exemptions can add as much as 1000’s of {dollars} in financial savings every year. On the Florida house, in Boca Raton, the exemption saved the Pultes an estimated $158,000 in taxes for 2025, in accordance with officers with the tax assessor’s workplace in Palm Seaside County, the property tax jurisdiction. The county granted an extra exemption on the property as a result of the home – a waterfront house with marble flooring, in-ground pool, and a ship dock – surpasses a sure worth threshold, the data point out.
The Pultes purchased the Boca Raton home in 2016 for $4.25 million and later transferred the title to a authorized entity by which they’re each listed as beneficiaries, the data present. Mark Pulte filed the exemption request.
On the Michigan property, listed as a four-bedroom house with sauna and bought for almost $1 million in 2020, each spouses are named on a belief that owns the home. Julie Pulte claimed the exemption there.
When contacted by Reuters in regards to the twin exemptions, Nery Mejia, an exemptions supervisor for the Palm Seaside County Property Appraiser’s Workplace, stated the workplace would look into it. In a follow-up by e mail, she stated the paperwork in Florida is legitimate and predates the Michigan declare. “Based mostly on this,” she wrote, “the matter needs to be dealt with by Michigan.”
It is not clear how a lot the Pultes could have saved every year due to the Michigan declare, however on Friday property data already indicated the exemption there may be now zero.
