There was at least one court case over it, in 2008, regarding Michael Dell buying a hotel in Santa Monica via a holding company, where he prevailed in court: ht

There was at least one court case over it, in 2008, regarding Michael Dell buying a hotel in Santa Monica via a holding company, where he prevailed in court: http://www.santamonicadispatch.com/2013/05/prop-13-gives-edge-to-dell/ http://www.santamonicadispatch.com/2013/05/prop-13-gives-edg... It seems it's more complex than what I implied, though. The property needs to not only be owned by a holding company, but sales of the holding company have to be structured in such a way that overall ownership of the holding company isn't deemed to have changed. If the above article is correct, that's triggered when a new owner acquires a majority stake. So to avoid triggering a change in ownership in this case, Dell structured the sale so that he, his wife, and another business partner all bought interests in the company, split so that no single purchaser acquired more than 49%.