Transferring A California Property Tax Base On An Inherited Home

If you’re a member of one of the many families who owns real property in California – it would be wise to understand how much Prop 13 and Proposition 19  can affect property tax reassessment, no matter where you live in the state. 

In fact, it’s never been more important than now to understand how profoundly these property tax relief measures can impact your life – plus how important it is to do everything correctly when dealing with property tax breaks like Proposition 19 and Proposition 13.

Number One Strategy: Avoid Making Mistakes!

For whatever reason, a fair amount of residents do not fully understand how these tax breaks work, and how to make them work.  The problem is, families often trigger reassessment of their property taxes by accident, due to a variety of reasons – refusing to hire an estate attorney simply to save money; faulty data; or mistakes filing information; missing document deadlines… so on and so forth.

Consequently, what can be lost can be significant… such as the ability to avoid property tax reassessment, to miss out on property tax breaks such as parent-child transfer and the parent-to-child exclusion; the right to transfer parents property taxes, to keep parents property taxes after a CA property tax transfer, when inheriting property taxes.

It’s not difficult to mishandle a transfer of property when inheriting a home, or mishandle the drafting of a trust in such a way that expectations towards a cap on property taxes are disappointed. Of course, these types of errors and subsequent property tax  reassessment brings great happiness to the parties responsible for collecting property taxes all over California.

Families that are concerned with making sure these processes go smoothly generally enlist advice and/or the services of a real estate law firm or estate attorney such as Rachelle Lee-Warner, Esq. at Cunningham Legal or a Trust Lender such as Commercial Loan Corp.

Proposition 19 and Revisions to California Property Tax Relief

It is difficult to avoid the fact that property tax breaks in California have been impacted, one way or the other, by Proposition 19; which was voted into law Nov 2020, becoming active on Feb. 16, 2021.

Under Proposition 19, a parent can transfer their primary residence and low property tax base to their children (i.e., heirs) — allowing  offspring to move into an inherited home rather quickly, within 12-months, as a principle residence.  Although, if the home is valued at more than $1,000,000 it may be reassessed, with an impact on the parent-to-child exclusion from current tax rates.  On the other hand, if you’re over 55, physically impaired, or a victim in some way of the frequent wildfires California has been experiencing, or some other natural disaster such as a flood or earthquake — you can be a recipient of numerous property tax breaks on top of CA property tax transfer (discussed in detail elsewhere within this Blog).

However, beneficiaries of parental property have other options, such as working with a trust lender such as Commercial Loan Corp, for example, in addition to having expertise in CA property tax transfer,  the ability to provide funding to an irrevocable trust, in order to buyout co-beneficiaries looking to sell off their inherited property shares, as well as establishing a permanently low property tax base. If you think you may benefit from a Proposition 19 property tax transfer on an inherited home, you can reach Commercial Loan Corporation at 877-464-1066 for a free benefit analysis.