Proposition 19 carries your old taxable value to your next home, so you can move without your tax bill jumping to today's prices.
Any one of these is enough
No sign-up. This is an estimate, not tax advice. Your county assessor decides.
Most homeowners think moving resets their property tax. Under Proposition 13 alone, it did. Since April 2021, often it does not.
You pick the home, not the county. Move near your grandkids in San Diego and keep the low bill you built up here.
Three transfers, not one. Downsize now and you can still change your mind later without losing the benefit.
Only the amount above your limit gets added, not the whole price. The bars below show where your purchase lands.
The form starts on a worked example. Type over it with your own numbers and you get two figures: your tax with the transfer, and your tax without it.
You need to be one of these on the day your old home sells. Any one is enough.
Either order works, and you get two years. This sets your equal or lesser value limit: 100 percent if you buy first, 105 percent in year one, 110 percent in year two.
Today's market price for your current home.
What you expect to pay for the home you move into.
Optional, but better
Your bill calls this the net assessed value or the factored base year value. Type it and we use it instead of the estimate. It is the one number that makes this page accurate.
The ad valorem base rate is 1 percent. Voter-approved bonds push most Los Angeles County bills to about 1.16 to 1.25 percent, so 1.2 is the honest planning number. Your bill shows yours.
These are example numbers, not yours. Change any field and every number below switches to your home.
This is what you would pay on the new home with your old taxable value moved over.
You file the claim. Your old taxable value follows you.
You do not file, or you do not qualify. The county taxes what you paid.
Your numbers, in the order the assessor uses them. What moves is your base year value, not your tax bill.
First, the price test
Then, your new taxable value
The questions people actually ask, in the order they usually ask them. Sourced from the California State Board of Equalization and checked August 2026.
Proposition 19 is a California constitutional amendment that took effect in 2021. It lets homeowners who are 55 or older, severely and permanently disabled, or victims of a declared wildfire or natural disaster move the taxable value of their current home to a replacement home anywhere in California. It replaced Propositions 60 and 90 for any transfer on or after April 1, 2021, and it narrowed the separate rules for passing a low property tax base from parent to child.
Three groups qualify. Homeowners who are at least 55 years old, homeowners who are severely and permanently disabled, and homeowners whose home was substantially damaged or destroyed by a wildfire or a governor declared disaster. Only one spouse or co-owner needs to meet the age requirement.
Yes, anywhere in California, all 58 counties. Before Prop 19, Proposition 60 allowed transfers only within the same county, and Proposition 90 worked only if the receiving county had voted to accept them, which roughly ten counties had done. Prop 19 replaced both and made the transfer statewide.
Three times, for the 55 and older group and the severely disabled group. Transfers you already took under the older Propositions 60, 90, or 110 count against that limit. Homeowners who lost a home to a wildfire or a declared disaster are not held to the three transfer limit.
If it costs the same or less, your taxable value transfers straight across and nothing is added. If it costs more, you keep your old taxable value and add the difference in market value between the two homes. Sell at $900,000 with a taxable value of $200,000, buy at $1,100,000, and your new taxable value is $400,000 rather than the full $1,100,000. There is no price ceiling. Buying up always works, it just costs you the difference. Prop 19 removed the old sliding scale that gave you 100, 105, or 110 percent depending on how quickly you bought.
Two years. The replacement home has to be purchased or newly built within two years of selling the original home, and it can happen either before or after that sale. Buying first and selling second is allowed.
No. You have to file a claim with the assessor in the county where the new home is located. The form for the 55 and older group is BOE-19-B. File within three years of buying the replacement home and the relief reaches back to when you bought it. File later than that and the relief starts in the year you file, so the years in between are lost. Never file, and you pay tax on the full new value for as long as you own the home.
No. Both the home you sell and the home you buy have to be your principal residence, eligible for the homeowners' exemption or the disabled veterans' exemption. Rentals, second homes, and vacation homes do not qualify for a base year value transfer.
Only if a child moves in. Prop 19 narrowed this sharply. Under the previous rules a parent could pass a home to a child and the child kept the low tax base whether or not they ever lived there. Now the child has to make it their own principal residence and file for the homeowners' exemption within one year of the transfer, or the home is reassessed at market value. Even then the exclusion is capped. If market value at the time of transfer is more than $1 million above the existing taxable value, the amount above that cap is added to the new tax base. That $1 million figure is adjusted for inflation every other February, so confirm the current amount with the Board of Equalization. Rentals and vacation homes passed to children are now reassessed with no exclusion at all. Family farms follow their own version of these rules.
No. It moves your existing taxable value, it does not lock it. That value still rises by up to 2 percent a year under Proposition 13, exactly as it did on your old home, and voter approved bonds and direct assessments are charged on top of it.
It depends entirely on the gap between your taxable value and today's market value. A homeowner who bought in 1986 for $180,000 may have a taxable value near $400,000 today on a home worth $1.4 million. Moving that base to a $1.5 million replacement home produces a taxable value near $500,000 instead of $1.5 million. At a rate around 1.1 percent, that is roughly $11,000 a year. Your county rate and your own numbers decide the real figure, which is what the calculator on this page is for.
Answers here summarize published rules. They are not tax or legal advice. Confirm anything you plan to act on with your county assessor or a tax professional. Board of Equalization, Proposition 19.
Three things decide whether any of the money above ever reaches you. None of the three are us.
The form is BOE-19-B, Claim for Transfer of Base Year Value to Replacement Primary Residence for Persons at Least Age 55 Years. File it with the assessor in the county your new home is in, within three years of buying. File late and the break starts the year you file, instead of reaching back. Never file, and you pay the full new tax forever.
Whether you qualify, and what your final taxable value is, are set by the assessor where your new home is. Their number is the one you pay. Treat this page as a question to ask them, not an answer from them.
We sell real estate. We are not tax attorneys, CPAs, or the county. Talk to a tax professional before you list your home or write an offer based on anything here.
Rules on this page come from the California State Board of Equalization: Proposition 19 overview, Publication 801 fact sheet, and Letter To Assessors 2022/009, plus Revenue and Taxation Code section 69.6. Checked August 2026. Tax law changes. Confirm current rules with the assessor before you act.
Two questions usually come next. Both take about a minute.
Kurt picks up. He will walk through your tax bill with you and check the numbers before you list anything, no strings on the call.
Call Kurt at 805-796-1793 ← All buyer tools