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There's actually a separate program to help low-income homeowners who are excessively burdened by increasing property taxes: https://www.sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_
by Kalium 8y ago
There's actually a separate program to help low-income homeowners who are excessively burdened by increasing property taxes: https://www.sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_tax_postponement.html https://www.sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_tax_postponement.html
It's even got the limits you suggest baked in - only residential, only primary residences, requires high equity ratio, etc.
- TulliusCicero 8y agoNeat! This actually sounds too narrow though, especially the income limit (35k is comically low for coastal California homes). I think a simpler solution would just be: you may choose to lock in a lower/earlier assessed property value for the purposes of property taxes, with the caveat that the state gets right of first refusal at the assessed value when you decide to sell. Bam! One and done. Grants flexibility, too; each household can decide whether to treat their house as an investment or as a home, but not both.
- Kalium 8y agoI think it might even be easier - take the PTP program and relax a few constraints for eligibility (or at least link it to AMI) and you're done! The option to convert deferred taxes to liens is in there, and the interest rate is high enough to make people think twice about using this for financial engineering without being punitive. At that point the state has the ability to get their money from any future sale without the extra complexity of having to own the property.
- rcpt 8y ago35k is plenty of money to get by if you outright own a $1.5M house
- TulliusCicero 8y agoNot if you're living in that house (instead of renting it out) and are paying normal level, non-prop 13 property tax rates. Even a property tax rate of just 1% on a 1.5M home would be 15,000/year.