Senior Downsizing Real Estate Agent in Anaheim Hills, CA
Paula Aragone represents owners aged 55 and over leaving a hillside house in Anaheim Hills, where the property tax base can follow them to the next address under Proposition 19, and where the buyer who eventually signs will have asked an insurance carrier before asking anything else.
Two things move people out of these hills, and both are honest. The first is the ground and the stairs, because a descending pad and a flight of steps stop being neutral at some point. The second is insurance. If you are at least 55 on the day the house sells, Proposition 19 carries your base year value to a replacement anywhere in California, up to three times, provided you buy or build within two years.
| The age test | At least 55 on the date the original primary residence sells |
|---|---|
| Transfers available | Three under Proposition 19. Propositions 60 and 90 allowed one. |
| The window | Two years between the two transactions, running in either direction |
| The claim | Form BOE-19-B, with the assessor of the replacement county |
| The local date | Anaheim adopted the 2025 fire hazard severity zones by Ordinance 6612 on 17 June 2025 |
| The jurisdiction | Anaheim Hills is part of the City of Anaheim. ZIP 92807 and 92808. |
Two Reasons People Leave These Hills, and Both of Them Are True
Nobody moves out of Anaheim Hills because of the view. They move because of what the ground asks of them, and because of what a carrier now says about it. Neither reason is a criticism of the house.
Scattered pockets here, chiefly Peralta Hills and Mohler Loop, date from the 1940s and 1950s. The master planned build began after 1970, when Texaco Industries bought rancher Louis Nohl's land and planned roughly 7,000 homes, and construction started in 1971. Anaheim Hills was the first residential development to use landform grading, a technique adopted precisely because the initial master plan proved unsustainable against the topography and geology of the area. That is the record's own phrasing, and it is the most useful sentence in it for anybody selling here.
The consequence is a lot pattern that runs two ways. Pre master plan and early Texaco era parcels tend to be generous, with a usable flat pad and a descending slope below it. The later ridge and Summit phases put smaller pads on parcels that are largely engineered slope. Either way the slope is part of the lot and part of the maintenance obligation, and on a great many of these streets the split level plan that made sense at 45 has become a set of internal stairs at 78.
The history is documented rather than rumoured. In January 1993 a landslide destroyed over 30 homes and affected more than 200 others. In winter 2005 a twenty day rain event produced a slide along Ramsgate Drive that destroyed three homes and a private street. The seismic hazard zone position is disclosed through the Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement under Civil Code 1103.2, which covers landslide and liquefaction. The California Geological Survey publishes a landslide inventory and Map Sheet 58, with the caveat that the inventory is not updated in real time.
The second reason is the one that has changed most in the last two years. Anaheim Hills has a repeat fire record: a damaging fire in October 1982, evacuation and destruction in the Freeway Complex Fire of November 2008, a first Canyon Fire in late September 2017 that burned roughly 2,600 acres with no property damage, and Canyon Fire 2 from 9 to 17 October 2017, ignited by embers from that first fire near the 91 Freeway and Gypsum Canyon Road, which burned 9,217 acres, destroyed 25 structures, damaged 55 and forced 16,570 people out.
There is a geographic reason it repeats. Santiago Canyon is a water gap where the Santa Ana River cuts between the Santa Ana Mountains and the Chino Hills, and it is named for the particularly intense Santa Ana winds it experiences compared with the surrounding area. Fires in 1969, in November 2008 and in October 2017 all ran through it. The honest version for a seller is also that no January 2025 fire burned Anaheim Hills. CAL FIRE's 2025 incident archive lists no Orange County incident at all for that year. It repriced the insurance anyway.
That repricing is the item that decides sales here. California FAIR Plan policies grew from 124,000 in 2019 to more than 645,000 by December 2025, and after the January 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires the Department of Insurance approved a FAIR Plan assessment on member companies, part of which reaches policyholders as a surcharge. The FAIR Plan covers fire, lightning and smoke only, caps residential policies at three million dollars, and normally needs a Difference in Conditions companion to approximate a full package. A buyer's quote can decide the sale of a house its owner has held for thirty years.
What Has to Happen Before an Anaheim Hills House Goes on the Market
Nine steps, in the order that protects both clocks and keeps the insurance question from arriving late. The first two happen at a kitchen table, months before anybody photographs anything.
Settle the age test and count what is left of the three
Proposition 19 requires the claimant to be at least 55 at the time of sale, and allows up to three transfers where Propositions 60 and 90 allowed one. Only one spouse needs to be 55, and must be on title to both properties. Whether a married couple counts as one claimant for the three is a question for the county assessor.
Put a number on the section 121 gain before anyone falls in love with a replacement
The exclusion is 250,000 dollars single and 500,000 dollars on a joint return, unchanged since 1997. It needs ownership and use as a principal residence for periods totalling 24 months inside the five years ending on the sale date, and no other section 121 exclusion claimed in the previous two years. On a Texaco era house bought in the 1970s the gain routinely runs past it.
Decide which escrow leads, and price the difference
Selling first and buying inside the following year sets the adjusted full cash value of the original at 105 percent, and a purchase in the second year at 110 percent. Buying first drops that factor to 100 percent and starts a stretch of tax at the replacement's full market value that is never refunded. The panels below set out both routes.
Empty a house that has a slope behind it
Forty years of contents is not a weekend, and a hillside house adds the parts nobody has opened: the lower level under the pad, the storage cut into the slope, the shed at the bottom of the steps. Put dates against what goes to the replacement, what goes to family, what is sold and what is thrown, and start at the bottom of the property.
Repair against the geotechnical report, not against the paintwork
The defining Anaheim Hills inspection item is slope and retaining wall condition, and on a descending pad the right instrument is a geotechnical review rather than a home inspection alone. Anaheim Municipal Code Chapter 17.06 governs grading and fills in hillside areas. Pools sited on fill or near a descending slope are the second item. Not everything should be repaired. Everything has to be disclosed.
Confirm the parcel's 2025 zone class with the city, then build the package from it
Anaheim adopted the updated CAL FIRE maps by Ordinance 6612 on 17 June 2025, into Municipal Code Chapter 16.40. The map is filed with the Anaheim Fire Department and the Office of the City Clerk. A High or Very High class brings the Civil Code 1102.6f fire hardening disclosure on homes built before 1 January 2010 and Civil Code 1102.19 defensible space documentation.
Answer the insurance question before a buyer has to ask it
Establish whether the house sits with an admitted carrier or on the California FAIR Plan with a Difference in Conditions companion, and whether a buyer could reasonably obtain similar terms. A seller who has completed the low cost retrofits listed under Government Code 51189 has both a disclosure item and an underwriting argument, and in this market those have become the same fact.
Market it, then close and watch the withholding line
Broad exposure produces a choice of offers rather than one, which matters when a single buyer's carrier can end the transaction. At escrow the state withholds 3 and one third percent of the sales price by default under FTB Publication 1016, with a principal residence exemption claimed on Forms 593 and 593-V. It is claimed, not automatic.
Send BOE-19-B to the assessor who will actually act on it
The claim goes to the assessor of the county where the replacement property sits, not the county of the original, within three years of the purchase or of completion of new construction. File later and relief begins with the calendar year of filing, with nothing refunded for the years in between. This is the single cheapest thing on the list to get right.
What the Tract Does to the Move, and to the Buyer Who Replaces You
Elevation, pad geometry, build era and who owns the slope are the four variables here. All four change what the house asks of an owner, which is usually the reason the conversation started.
Peralta Hills
Pre master plan, 1940s and 1950s in origin, large lot and the equestrian pocket on the west edge. The least Anaheim Hills part of Anaheim Hills, and the layer where galvanised supply lines still turn up.
Mohler Loop
The other pre master plan pocket, individually designed houses that do not read to a tract type. Long tenure is normal here, which means a long improvement history and a permit file worth pulling before listing.
Anaheim Hills Estates
Early 1970s Texaco era custom and semi custom homes on the original large pads. Deep tenure, aluminium branch wiring in anything permitted through the mid 1970s, and generous grounds that eventually become a maintenance decision.
The Highlands
The large 1970s and 1980s tract that most people picture when they hear the name. Consistent product, a deep buyer pool, and the era where Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels appear in the inspection report.
The Summit
The late 1980s and 1990s upper elevation build, gated in parts, including Summit Pointe, Summit Renaissance, Summit Springs, Summit Terrace and Lake Summit. Highest view premium and highest exposure to wind driven fire in the same square mile.
Westridge
Ridge sited and view oriented, where slope maintenance is the recurring inspection item and the question of which entity owns the engineered slope needs a documented answer rather than a recollection.
Hidden Canyon Estates
Interior canyon siting with longer driveways and a heavier slope maintenance obligation. A steep drive is a small thing at 50 and a daily one later, and it belongs in the honest reasons list.
Sycamore Canyon
Canyon floor and lower slope, mature planting. Drainage and retaining walls are the questions here, and mature planting close to the structure is exactly what the fire hardening disclosure asks about.
Country Hills
Golf adjacent, more conventional lot geometry, and one of the flatter walks in the area. Where a downsizer wants to stay in Anaheim Hills rather than leave it, this is usually the first place to look.
Rim Crest Villas
Attached and small lot product on the rim, governed by an association. Less ground to maintain personally, which is the point, but the association documents and its fire insurance deductible both need reading.
Belsomet
Small, tucked and high identity, a name known mainly to people who live here. Limited comparable sales inside the pocket, so the valuation has to be built carefully rather than drawn across the district.
Canyon Rim and Sunset Ridge
Rim sited above the canyon with the exposure that goes with it. Any listing here starts with the 2025 zone class and the current carrier arrangement, not with photographs.
Mountain Park
Part of the late 1990s and 2000s phase, newer systems and tighter architectural control. Fewer defect findings, more association paperwork, and any change made without approval will surface at resale.
Firenze and Village at Fiesole
The 2000s attached and small lot Tuscan influenced product. Modern construction, and the closest thing in the immediate area to a low maintenance replacement for an owner who wants to stay put.
Nohl Crest
Named for the rancher whose land became the master plan. Established, elevated and long held, with the usual consequence that the improvement receipts are somewhere in the house and need finding before the clearing starts.
Yorba Woods
Established pocket on the eastern side, mature street planting, and close enough to the Placentia Yorba Linda Unified boundary that the school question has to be verified by address rather than assumed.
Six Things That Change What an Anaheim Hills Move Costs
Anaheim Hills, California
None of these are market events. Each one is a document that was obtained late, or a question that was asked after an offer instead of before the listing.
The buyer's carrier priced the house before the buyer did
In this part of Anaheim the binding constraint on a hillside sale is frequently insurance availability rather than buyer appetite. The Department of Insurance has designated 662 distressed ZIP codes and now requires insurers to write policies covering at least 85 percent of their statewide market share in those areas, and six homeowners insurance groups are expanding in California, but none of that helps a specific escrow on a specific ridge in the fortnight before it is due to close.
Establish the position first. Admitted carrier or FAIR Plan plus Difference in Conditions, what the current premium reflects, whether defensible space documentation exists, and which of the Government Code 51189 low cost retrofits have actually been done. A seller who can answer those four questions on day one loses far fewer buyers than one who finds out with them.
The zone class came from a report written before 17 June 2025
Anaheim adopted the updated CAL FIRE fire hazard severity zone maps by Ordinance 6612, section 2, on 17 June 2025, into Municipal Code Chapter 16.40, which had previously been amended in 1995 and 2012. Senate Bill 63 requires local agencies to adopt all three classes in the Local Responsibility Area, so parcels that carried no designation at all now carry Moderate or High.
A natural hazard report pulled from an older map will therefore be wrong in the direction that hurts. Order the Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement fresh, confirm it reflects the 2025 adoption, and remember the map itself is filed with the Anaheim Fire Department and the Office of the City Clerk rather than published as a marketing document.
The geotechnical contingency was the last item instead of the first
On a descending pad, a downslope lot or anything with an engineered slope, a buyer will ask for geotechnical review, and inside a mapped Zone of Required Investigation a permit for any later addition triggers a site investigation and engineering countermeasures reviewed by the California Geological Survey.
Two conditions produce most failed hillside sales here: a pool that was never permitted, and a pool the geotechnical report will not clear. Both are findable before listing. Neither improves by being discovered in week six of an escrow, at which point the seller is negotiating from a position they did not choose.
The replacement was secured first and the cushion went with it
Buying before selling qualifies, and the two year window runs in both directions. What it costs is the cushion. The adjusted full cash value of the original is computed at 100 percent when the replacement is bought first, 105 percent inside the first year after the sale, and 110 percent inside the second. Where the replacement is the more expensive of the two, buying first permanently raises the transferred taxable value.
The second cost is not refunded at all. The assessor reassesses the replacement at full market value on purchase, and the owner pays at that value for the entire period between the purchase and the sale of the original. The corrected base year value then applies going forward from the sale date, not backwards.
BOE-19-B was still in the folder in year four
The claim is due within three years of the purchase of the replacement or of completion of new construction. Filed later, relief begins with the calendar year in which the claim is filed, with the base year value adjusted for inflation from the original transfer date. The companion forms in the series are BOE-19-D where the claimant is severely and permanently disabled and BOE-19-V for wildfire and governor declared disaster victims, which is the one case not subject to the three use cap.
Nothing here is discretionary and nothing is refunded. Every year of delay past the deadline is a full year of tax at market value that a single form would have avoided. If adult children are handling the paperwork, this is the item to diarise the day the replacement closes.
The stairs were the reason, and the house still took nine months to empty
This is the honest difficulty on this page. A hillside house is harder to clear than a flat one. The contents are distributed over levels, the storage is often cut into the slope, and a good deal of it has to come up a flight of steps to reach a truck. The people doing it are frequently the same people who found the stairs difficult in the first place.
Two years sounds generous until a family starts on a lower level, a garage and forty years of paper. Book the packing help before the listing appointment rather than after the offer, and treat the improvement receipts as a separate search, because they are worth real money at the return and they are always the first thing thrown out.
Two Ways to Order This, and the Hill Makes One of Them Harder
Both routes qualify under Proposition 19, because the two year window runs in either direction. They price differently, they finance differently, and on a hillside property they fail differently.
Sell first, then buy
This is the route the statute rewards. Sell the Anaheim Hills house, buy the replacement inside the first year, and the adjusted full cash value of the original is computed at 105 percent, or 110 percent if the purchase falls in the second year. Where the replacement costs more than the original, that cushion is the whole difference between adding to the transferred value and not adding to it.
The formula is what matters, not the label. If the replacement's full cash value is equal to or less than the adjusted full cash value of the original, the factored base year value transfers intact. If it is greater, the new taxable value is the factored base year value plus the difference. The Board of Equalization's own example: an original with a full cash value of 400,000 dollars and a factored base year value of 100,000 dollars, sold, with a replacement bought in the first year after for 600,000 dollars. The adjusted figure is 420,000 dollars, the excess is 180,000 dollars, and the replacement is assessed at 280,000 dollars rather than 600,000.
It is also the cleaner route financially. The proceeds are in hand, there is no bridge borrowing, no second mortgage payment and no period of carrying two properties, one of which sits on a hillside and needs its defensible space maintained whether or not anybody is living in it. On a fixed income that is not a small point.
The honest downside is that you have to live somewhere. Selling first without an identified replacement means a rental, a spare room, or an offer written under time pressure with the two year clock already running. Two moves rather than one is real work at any age, and it is harder at 78 than at 58.
Buy first, then sell
This qualifies too. The Board of Equalization is explicit that as long as one transaction occurs on or after 1 April 2021 and the original is sold within two years of the purchase of the replacement, the base year value transfers. Nobody has to move into a rental to keep the benefit, and for an owner who wants to be off the stairs before winter that matters.
It costs two separate things. The value factor drops to 100 percent, so on a 1,000,000 dollar original the gap between a 100 percent factor and a 105 percent factor is 50,000 dollars of assessed value carried for as long as the replacement is owned, roughly 500 to 600 dollars a year at a typical Orange County rate. And the replacement is taxed at full fair market value from purchase until the original sells, with no refund for that period.
The worked case: an original with a full cash value of 1,200,000 dollars and a factored base year value of 180,000 dollars, with a replacement bought before the sale for 1,400,000 dollars. The factor is 100 percent, so the adjusted full cash value stays at 1,200,000 dollars, the excess is 200,000 dollars, and the new taxable value is 380,000 dollars rather than 1,400,000.
The honest downside is financing and nerve, and on a hillside property there is a third element. Buying first usually means qualifying while still carrying the Anaheim Hills house. The original must actually sell and be reassessed to market for the transfer to happen, and vacating it is not enough. If a geotechnical finding or a carrier problem stretches the marketing period past two years from the purchase, the relief is gone rather than reduced.
The Question That Decides This Sale Gets Asked by an Underwriter, Not a Buyer
Paula Aragone has worked Orange County transactions for 23 years, across 900+ transactions and $900M+ sold, and she came to it after four years of law school. She holds the CPRES and SRES designations. SRES stands for Seniors Real Estate Specialist, the National Association of Realtors credential for agents working with clients aged 50 and over, and it exists because this transaction is not the same shape as an ordinary listing.
It is not the same because the decisions that carry the most money are made before anyone signs a listing agreement. Filing BOE-19-B on time rather than in year four, taking a 105 percent factor rather than a 100 percent factor, holding a documented improvement history rather than a box that went into a skip: on a house held since the Texaco era, each of those is worth more than anything that happens during the marketing period. Most agents are not in the conversation at that point.
The Anaheim Hills variable is that two technical files sit on top of it. The parcel's 2025 fire hazard severity zone class, adopted by the City of Anaheim on 17 June 2025, drives the disclosure package and the carrier conversation. The engineered slope drives the geotechnical one. A seller who arrives at the listing appointment with the zone class confirmed, the defensible space documentation obtained, the completed retrofits listed and a clear statement of their own carrier position is in a different position from one who does not, and that is the honest reason to do that work first.
The reader of this page is often not the owner. Adult children arrive with a spreadsheet and a date, and the owner arrives with forty years of context the spreadsheet does not hold. Both are right about different things. The work is to put the real constraints on the table and let the family decide. Nothing here is tax or legal advice: confirm the Proposition 19 figures with the Orange County Assessor, the section 121 position with a CPA, and anything touching Medi-Cal with a California elder law attorney.
Leaving an Anaheim Hills House After 55, Answered
What owners over 55 ask here, and what their children ask, answered for California law and for this particular hillside.
Is Anaheim Hills its own city for the paperwork?
No, and it matters on every document. Anaheim Hills is a planned community within the eastern portion of the City of Anaheim. It has no city hall, no separate council, no separate zoning code and no separate permit counter. Permits, zoning and code enforcement run through the City of Anaheim under the Anaheim Municipal Code, fire protection is Anaheim Fire and Rescue rather than the Orange County Fire Authority, and the ZIP codes are 92807 and 92808. On a listing, an MLS entry or a disclosure, the city is Anaheim.
When did Anaheim adopt the new fire hazard severity zone map?
By Ordinance 6612, section 2, on 17 June 2025, into Anaheim Municipal Code Chapter 16.40, which had previously been amended by ordinance in October 1995 and April 2012. That June 2025 ordinance is the city's adoption action following the CAL FIRE map release earlier in the year. The map itself is filed with the Anaheim Fire Department and the Office of the City Clerk. Because Senate Bill 63 requires all three classes to be adopted locally, a parcel carrying no designation in 2024 can carry Moderate or High now.
We think our parcel is classified wrongly. Is there any route to challenge it?
There is a defined one, and it is the city's rather than CAL FIRE's. Chapter 16.40 carries section 16.40.040 on procedures for recommending exclusion or inclusion, 16.40.050 on conditions for exclusion, 16.40.060 on additions of areas, 16.40.070 on amendments to the zone map and 16.40.080 on enforcement. Understand the limit before starting: under Government Code 51179 a local agency may increase a zone's severity relative to the State Fire Marshal's recommendation but may not decrease it, and the changes it makes are final and not rebuttable.
Our street was affected by the 1993 landslide. Do we have to bring that up?
The mapped hazard position is disclosed through the Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement under Civil Code 1103.2, which covers earthquake induced landslide and liquefaction seismic hazard zones alongside fire and flood. The documented events are a matter of record: a January 1993 landslide destroyed over 30 homes and affected more than 200, and a twenty day rain event in winter 2005 produced a slide along Ramsgate Drive that destroyed three homes and a private street. Check the California Geological Survey landslide inventory and Map Sheet 58 as well, remembering the inventory is not updated in real time.
Did the January 2025 fires burn Anaheim Hills?
No. That event was Palisades and Eaton on 7 January, Hurst on 7 January, Kenneth on 9 January, Hughes on 22 January in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, and Border 2 on 23 January in San Diego County. CAL FIRE's 2025 incident archive lists no Orange County incident at all for the year. It repriced Anaheim Hills insurance anyway, through the FAIR Plan assessment approved after those fires and the statewide underwriting reset that followed. Do not let anyone conflate the two, and do not let anyone claim it was irrelevant.
Will a buyer be able to insure a house up here?
That is the question to answer before listing rather than during escrow. The California FAIR Plan, established in 1968 as the insurer of last resort, covers fire, lightning and smoke only, does not cover water damage, theft or liability, and caps residential policies at three million dollars, so a Difference in Conditions companion is normally needed to approximate a full homeowners package. FAIR Plan policies grew from 124,000 in 2019 to more than 645,000 by December 2025. Establish whether the current policy is admitted or FAIR Plan, and what a buyer would realistically be quoted.
Which school district actually serves the house?
Do not answer that from the tract name. Anaheim Hills sits in Orange Unified, which states that its highest performing schools are in the Anaheim Hills area, but a portion of Anaheim Hills is in Placentia Yorba Linda Unified. Canyon High School, Orange Unified, is at 220 South Imperial Highway. Yorba Linda High School takes a small portion of Anaheim Hills with houses north of Yorba Regional Park, and Esperanza High School is physically located in Anaheim at 1830 North Kellogg Drive but is a PYLUSD school. Verify by address with the district.
The pool sits near the top of a slope. Is that going to be a problem?
It is one of the two conditions that most often ends a hillside sale here. The first is a pool that was never permitted. The second is a pool the geotechnical report will not clear, typically where it is sited on fill, close to a descending slope, or with equipment pads cut into one. Anaheim Municipal Code Chapter 17.06 governs grading, excavations and fills in hillside areas. Both problems are findable before listing, and both are far cheaper to find then.
What does defensible space actually require, and is Zone 0 in force?
Government Code 51182 and Public Resources Code 4291 both require 100 feet of clearance from each side and from the front and rear of the structure, not beyond the property line, with an ember resistant zone within 5 feet and more aggressive fuel reduction from 5 to 30 feet, plus removal of limbs within 10 feet of a chimney outlet. Neither obliges you to clear land you do not control. Zone 0 itself is not yet legally required: CAL FIRE says so on its own page. Treat it as coming rather than current.
Who is responsible for the engineered slope, us or the association?
Get that in writing before listing. Anaheim Hills carries a wide range of structures across its many named tracts, from full service master associations in the Summit and the gated pockets down to associations that exist only to maintain slope. The question is which entity owns and maintains the engineered slope, because the answer decides whether a slope failure is the owner's problem or the association's. Where there is a sub association as well as a master, both sets of documents need reading, and so does any pending special assessment.
Is there Mello Roos on an Anaheim Hills property?
It has to be checked parcel by parcel rather than assumed from the tract. Under Civil Code 1102.6b the seller makes a good faith effort to obtain a disclosure notice from each agency levying a Mello Roos special tax, an Improvement Bond Act of 1915 assessment or a contractual assessment, and delivers it to the buyer. That last category captures PACE liens, which turn up on older houses that financed solar or HVAC. The reliable per parcel answer is the direct assessment lines on the secured tax bill from the Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector.
Are there oil wells under Anaheim Hills?
Anaheim Hills is not over the Brea Olinda field, and the Anaheim Municipal Code does carry Chapter 17.12 on oil drilling and production regulations. Run CalGEM Well Finder by address regardless. It reads from the WellSTAR database, updates nightly, is searchable by address, latitude and longitude, API number, township and range or field name, and it takes two minutes. It is also the only defensible answer when a buyer asks, which is better than an opinion.
Can we really take the old tax bill with us?
You take the base year value, which is what the bill is calculated from. Proposition 19, effective 1 April 2021 and implemented by Revenue and Taxation Code 69.6, lets a claimant who is at least 55 at the time of sale transfer the factored base year value of the original primary residence to a replacement primary residence anywhere in California, up to three times. The replacement has to be bought or newly built within two years of the sale, and both properties must be primary residences eligible for the homeowners' exemption or the disabled veterans' exemption.
We used Proposition 60 in the 1990s. Is that the end of it?
No, and this is the change most people have not heard. Under Propositions 60 and 90, codified at Revenue and Taxation Code 69.5, the benefit was one time only for you and for a spouse residing with you, even on that spouse's death or a divorce. Proposition 19 replaced that with up to three transfers. It also removed the geographic problem: Proposition 60 worked only inside the same county and Proposition 90 only into a county that had adopted an authorising ordinance, of which there were ten as of November 2018. Proposition 19 works anywhere in California.
What happens if the replacement costs more than the Anaheim Hills house?
Nothing disqualifying, and this is the most commonly misreported point in published material. Proposition 19 did not abolish the equal or lesser value test. It kept the 100, 105 and 110 percent factors and changed only their consequence, from outright disqualification under Propositions 60 and 90 to a computed addition. The adjusted full cash value of the original is calculated with the applicable factor, and where the replacement's full cash value is higher, the new taxable value is the factored base year value plus the difference between the two.
How large is the capital gain likely to be on a house bought in the 1970s?
Larger than most people expect. The section 121 exclusion is 250,000 dollars single and 500,000 dollars joint and has not been indexed since 1997, so it covers a smaller share of the gain with every year of ownership. You need ownership and use as your principal residence for periods totalling 24 months inside the five years before the sale, and no other section 121 exclusion in the previous two years. Everything above the exclusion is taxable federally, taxable in California at ordinary rates, and potentially subject to the 3.8 percent Net Investment Income Tax. Have a CPA run it before you choose a listing date.
Related Pages
Other specialties in Anaheim Hills
Senior downsizing nearby
Get the Zone Class and the Carrier Position Before Anything Else
949-415-4784
If you are 55 or over and the slope, the stairs or the premium has started the conversation, the first meeting is about the parcel's 2025 classification, the insurance position and the two year window. Call or text, and bring whoever in the family is asking the questions.
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Paula Aragone, California DRE 01364746. Aragone & Associates is a team at First Team Real Estate, California DRE 01008773. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. This page is general information about California real estate practice and is not legal, tax or financial advice.
Aragone & Associates Real Estate Group, 4 Corporate Plaza Dr #100, Newport Beach, CA 92660. Paula Aragone, California DRE 01364746. Brokerage: First Team Real Estate, California DRE 01008773. Equal Housing Opportunity. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or financial advice, and no attorney client relationship is created by contacting this office. Consult your attorney, your accountant and your county assessor before acting on any statement here. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed and is subject to change without notice.