SPECIAL REPORT: How PROPOSITION 19 affects property taxes on inherited property

In California, parents or grandparents may transfer their primary residence to their children or grandchildren without the property’s tax assessment resetting to market value.

However, Proposition 19 only provides exemption from tax reassessment when the transferred property was the primary residence of the qualifying parent(s) or grandparent(s) and the child or grandchild continues to occupy the home as their primary residence.

A homeowners exemption must be applied for within one year of the qualifying transfer.

Proposition 19 eliminates the parent-to-child and grandparent-to-grandchild exemption in cases where the child or grandchild does not use the inherited property as their primary residence and thus, the inherited property not used as a primary residence is no longer able to be transferred without a tax reassessment to market value.

This provision of Proposition 19 went into effect on February 16, 2021.