Senior Downsizing Real Estate Agent in Huntington Beach, CA
Paula Aragone represents Huntington Beach owners aged 55 and over who are leaving a house that has stood in salt air since before 1980, on ground that has been drilled since 1920, and who want the move to cost what they think it costs.
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.
A Huntington Beach downsizer is usually leaving a house built before 1980 within reach of the ocean. Two rules decide the money. Proposition 19 moves the factored base year value to a replacement anywhere in California, up to three times, where the replacement is bought within two years of the sale. IRC section 121 stops at 250,000 dollars single and 500,000 dollars joint. What is local is the ground underneath, and the records that describe it.
- Transfers at 55 or overUp to three, to a replacement anywhere in California
- Methane districtBarrier under City Specification 429 where a well is within 100 feet
- Soil standardCity Specification 431-92, before grading or building permits
- The well recordCalGEM Well Finder, plus the Fire Department parcel file
- Coastal permitsMunicipal Code Chapter 245, with ten percent thresholds
- Huntington Beach specificNo single master association across the Harbour islands
Stairs, Salt and a Century of Drilling Under the Slab
Sixty one percent of this city was built before 1970, most of it over a producing oil field, within reach of the ocean. All three facts turn up in a downsizing move.
The Housing Element reports 61 percent of the total stock built before 1970, and 76 percent of owner occupied and 74 percent of rental units built before 1980, with most development falling in the 1960s and 1970s. A 2007 survey identified about 4,773 units rated fair to poor, roughly nine percent of properties surveyed, and four Special CDBG Code Enforcement areas concentrate that condition: Bolsa Chica Heil, East Central, South Central and Southeast.
What that means for a long held house is a familiar list with a coastal multiplier on it. Slab on grade, galvanised supply lines at or past end of life, cast iron drains, original aluminium sliders, Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels squarely in range, and aluminium branch wiring live in anything permitted from 1965 through the mid 1970s. Salt air then accelerates corrosion of panels, service entrances, condensers, garage door hardware and metal window frames. A fifty year old panel two blocks from the sand is not the same condition as the same panel inland.
The single level question deserves an honest answer rather than a reassuring one. Downtown lots are twenty five feet wide and the modern infill on them runs to three storeys. Surfcrest is 115 gated tri level condominiums built between 1995 and 1997. A great deal of the compact product near the beach is vertical by design, so a requirement for one level narrows the search sharply and has to be checked plan by plan rather than assumed from a neighbourhood name.
The Huntington Beach Oil Field has produced since 1920, when the Huntington A-1 well came in on 24 May, and by October 1921 the field had fifty nine producing wells. Cumulative production passed one billion barrels of oil and 845 billion cubic feet of gas by 2000. A century of drilling, much of it long before modern abandonment standards, sits under a city that was subsequently built on top of it.
The Fire Department administers a Methane Mitigation District. The controlling requirement is that where abandoned oil wells sit within one hundred feet of the footprint of a structure, any new structure must be equipped with a methane barrier under City Specification 429. The parallel requirement is City Specification 431-92 for soil clean up standards: before a grading or building permit issues, sampling and laboratory analysis must show compliance, a qualified consultant must submit a Soil Sampling Work Plan for Fire Department approval before sampling begins, and all imported soil must meet the standard with approved sourcing documentation.
Then the coastal layer and the Harbour layer. Under Municipal Code Chapter 245 a Coastal Development Permit is required for development in the coastal zone, with maintenance or additions that do not increase floor area or height by ten percent or more exempt in appealable areas, and development appealable to the Coastal Commission where it lies between the sea and the first public road or within three hundred feet inland. In the Harbour there is no single master association across the five islands: there is a Huntington Harbour Property Owners Association, separate tract level associations, and gated sub communities such as Coral Cay with associations of their own.
Leaving a Long Held Huntington Beach House for a Smaller One
Two escrows, one claim form, three separate city files and fifty years of salt air. This is the order that stops a two year purchase window and a three year filing deadline from arriving together.
Check the age test and the count of claims
The claimant must be at least 55 on the date the original primary residence sells, or severely and permanently disabled at any age. Up to three transfers are available, against one under Propositions 60 and 90. Ask the Orange County Assessor what has already been used before any plan depends on the answer.
Model the gain on a house bought decades ago
Section 121 excludes 250,000 dollars single and 500,000 dollars on a joint return and has not moved since 1997. Rebuild adjusted basis from original cost, purchase costs and every documented capital improvement. On a house held since the 1960s that number, not the sale price, is what decides what the next house can be.
Sequence the sale and the purchase
The replacement must be bought or newly built within two years of the sale, in either direction. Selling first keeps a 105 or 110 percent value factor. Buying first drops it to 100 percent and taxes the replacement at full market value until the original sells, with no refund for that period.
Clear the contents and the garage
Downtown and Oak View garages were often converted decades ago, and elsewhere in the city they simply filled up. Empty everything before the inspections, because a garage is where an unpermitted conversion, a parking question and fifty years of storage all sit in the same room waiting for a buyer to open the door.
Decide what salt air has actually cost
Publication 523 adds room additions, a new roof and HVAC systems to basis and refuses painting, fixing leaks and filling cracks. Near the sand the items that move an inspection are the panel, the service entrance, the condenser, the garage door hardware and the metal window frames, all of which corrode faster than the same components inland.
Pull the three files and disclose from them
The Building Division permit jacket and approved plans through Accela Citizen Access. The Fire Department parcel file, which holds the methane barrier record, soil sampling work plan, laboratory results and any Remediation Action Plan. The Planning Division coastal file. Then run the parcel through CalGEM Well Finder independently, because a well can exist with nothing in the city file.
Market the house, and the ground under it
A known well within three hundred feet is a material fact under Civil Code 1102 whether or not any bill requiring notice has passed. Say what the records show, say what they do not show, and let the buyer's insurer and lender ask their questions early rather than in week three of an escrow you have timed against a purchase.
Close and settle the state withholding
The Franchise Tax Board default is 3 1/3 percent of sales price withheld at closing, with an exemption for a principal residence qualifying under IRC section 121, claimed on Form 593. Orange County documentary transfer tax runs at 0.55 dollars for each 500 dollars of net consideration over 100 dollars, or 1.10 dollars per 1,000 dollars.
File the claim in the county where the replacement is
Form BOE-19-B goes to the assessor of the county in which the replacement primary residence is located, within three years of purchase or completion of new construction. BOE-19-D covers the severely and permanently disabled. File late and relief starts with the calendar year of filing, and the earlier years are never refunded.
What Is Being Sold Here, and What Is Realistic to Move Into
The widest housing range of any city nearby, from narrow Downtown lots to waterfront on five man made islands, and each one answers the downsizing question differently.
Downtown Huntington Beach
The pier district, Main Street and Pacific City, on twenty five foot wide lots. Mixed vintage from historic cottages to three storey infill, and the most tourist exposed residential area for miles. Rarely the answer for anyone avoiding stairs.
Huntington Harbour
680 acres in the northwest, begun in 1963 by dredging and filling the Sunset Bay estuary. Waterways run fifteen to twenty feet deep under a five mile per hour no wake limit. Most homes date from the 1960s to the late 1970s.
Admiralty Island
About ninety to ninety five custom residences, nearly all waterfront, on Channel Lane and Easter Circle. Not gated. Waterfront ownership brings seawalls, bulkheads, dock piles and gangways into an inspection that has nothing to do with the house.
Davenport Island
Roughly 227 to 237 home sites, about half of them waterfront, on quiet canals with spacious lots. Not gated. A long held house here is usually being sold with fifty years of marine structure history behind it.
Gilbert Island
About ninety five to one hundred home sites, roughly two thirds waterfront, on Mariana Circle and Somerset Lane. Not gated. Association exposure has to be established from the title report rather than from the island name.
Humboldt Island
The largest of the islands at about 335 homes, two thirds waterfront, looking out over Christiana Bay, on Ardsley Circle and Mistral Drive. Not gated, and covered by tract level associations rather than one master body.
Trinidad Island
About 218 residences on Aquarius Drive and Ragtime Circle, the most consistently high end of the five, with private boat slips standard. A slip is a permit question before it is an amenity.
Coral Cay
A gated non island waterfront community of about 125 units inside Huntington Harbour, in Belvedere and Eastcastle models, with its own association. One of the few Harbour addresses where the association question has a single clear answer.
Seacliff and Holly Seacliff
About 1.2 square miles of planned neighbourhoods on the bluff, lower Seacliff from the 1970s and upper Seacliff from the 1980s onward. Predominantly guarded gate enclaves anchored by The Huntington Club golf course.
Seacliff on the Greens
One of the first gated communities in Seacliff, with twenty four hour guard and golf course frontage. Association dues and a gate are the trade a downsizer makes here for not maintaining a large lot.
Surfcrest
115 gated tri level condominiums built between 1995 and 1997, one block from the sand, each with a two car garage and private patio. Compact and close to everything, and emphatically not a single level product.
Edwards Hill
Inland luxury on the largest private lots in the city, in quiet cul de sacs with equestrian adjacency. Sub areas include The Bluffs, Triple Crown Estates, Heritage, Central Park Estates, Country View Estates and The Hamptons.
Brightwater
About 356 homes on the northeast corner of the Bolsa Chica Mesa, bordering the ecological reserve, in sub communities including Capri, Seaglass, Azurene, The Trails, The Sands, The Breakers and Sandover. Its specific plan is not certified.
Bolsa Chica area
Beside the roughly 1,300 acre Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. Ranch style homes, condominiums, and 55 plus mobile home communities including Skandia Mobile Country Club, which is a different kind of transaction entirely.
Pacific Ranch
Guard gated, 558 units on over forty acres, in Cape Cod villas and Mission and Spanish townhomes. Attached product at scale, which brings reserve studies and building envelope questions a detached seller has never had to read.
Beachwalk
A 1973 planned unit development of attached single family residences about half a mile from the pier. Built inside the era when galvanised supply, original panels and aluminium glazing were standard, so the age questions still apply.
Sunset Beach
Formerly unincorporated and annexed by Huntington Beach, with a wide beach and high end single family stock. Its specific plan and Local Coastal Program are not certified, so confirm the permitting path with the Planning Division rather than assuming.
Southeast Huntington Beach
Primarily 1950s to 1970s single family with real yards, plus newer condominiums, and the city's most active resale inventory. Also one of the four Special CDBG Code Enforcement areas, which is worth knowing before pricing.
Six Huntington Beach Findings That Change the Cost of Moving
Huntington Beach, California
None of these has anything to do with what a house is worth. Each is a record, a permit path or a physical condition that was assumed instead of checked.
The methane requirement attaches to the new structure, not to the old house
Where abandoned oil wells sit within one hundred feet of the footprint of a structure, any new structure must be equipped with a methane barrier in accordance with City Specification 429, and the Methane Mitigation District is administered by the Fire Department. An existing house built before the requirement has no barrier and no vent system, and nothing obliges the owner to install one retroactively.
That becomes a downsizing problem in two ways. A buyer who learns about the well after opening escrow will ask why nobody mentioned it. And an owner planning to build smaller on a Huntington Beach lot, or to add to a smaller replacement, discovers that the barrier, the soil sampling under City Specification 431-92 and possibly re abandonment of a well to current CalGEM standards all land before a permit issues, at their expense.
The well search came back with nothing
The CalGEM Well Finder maps California oil and gas wells and facilities, is searchable by address, coordinates, API number, section and field name, interfaces with the WellSTAR database and updates nightly. It is the right first step and it is not the last one. CalGEM states plainly that its data is provided for informational purposes without warranty of accuracy or completeness.
The oldest wells have the least accurate location records, and the oldest wells here date to 1920. A clean Well Finder result is a starting point rather than a clearance, which is why the parcel is also run past the Fire Department, whose file holds the methane barrier records, the soil sampling work plan and any laboratory results the state database will never show.
Salt air was treated as cosmetic
Corrosion near the coast reaches the panel, the service entrance, the condenser, the garage door hardware and the metal window frames, and it works faster on all of them than it does inland. On a house owned since the 1960s or 1970s, that sits on top of galvanised supply lines at end of life, cast iron drains and original aluminium sliders.
The tax side compounds it. Publication 523 is explicit that painting inside or out, fixing leaks and filling holes or cracks are repairs and add nothing to basis, while a new roof, an HVAC system or a room addition does. Decades of conscientious upkeep near the ocean can therefore be expensive and still leave the basis exactly where it started.
The single level requirement was assumed to be easy
The reason most people downsize in this city is not square footage, it is stairs. Yet Downtown lots are twenty five feet wide and their infill runs to three storeys, Surfcrest is 115 tri level condominiums, and a large share of the compact product near the sand is built upward because the lots are narrow.
The city publishes no inventory of single level homes, so this is checked plan by plan and address by address. It is worth deciding early whether one level is a firm requirement or a preference, because the honest answer changes which neighbourhoods are in the search at all, and therefore what the sale of the old house actually has to fund.
The dock was assumed to come with the house
Dock permits are regulated by the California State Lands Commission and by the City of Huntington Beach. A buyer has to verify that the existing permit is current and transferable, and some properties carry dock rights with no dock built at all, which means new construction and a new permitting process rather than an amenity already in place.
For a seller leaving the Harbour, that means the dock is inspected, minor repairs are made and the current permit and transfer requirements are assembled before the listing. Channel depth also varies by location and matters to anyone buying with a larger vessel in mind. None of this is answered by the phrase waterfront in an advertisement.
The 55 and over park is a different transaction
There are 55 plus mobile home communities in the Bolsa Chica area, including Skandia Mobile Country Club. Any community holding itself out as housing for older persons relies on a federal exemption: 24 CFR 100.305 requires at least 80 percent of occupied units to be occupied by at least one person aged 55 or over, and 24 CFR 100.307 requires age verification to be updated at least every two years.
Ask for those verification records and read the park's own documents. Note too that the State Controller's Property Tax Postponement programme covers manufactured homes constructed on or after 15 June 1976, affixed or unaffixed, but not where property taxes are delinquent or defaulted. That programme is open to homeowners at least 62 years of age, or blind, or disabled, who own and occupy the home as their principal residence, with household income of 55,181 dollars or less, at least 40 percent equity and no reverse mortgage, at 5 percent interest with a lien recorded, on current year taxes only, applied for between 1 October and 10 February. Confirm the current income limit on (800) 952-5661. Whichever route the household takes, the homeowners' exemption on form BOE-266 still has to be claimed with the county assessor, because eligibility for it is a precondition of the Proposition 19 transfer. A move into a park is not a smaller version of a house purchase, it is a different one.
Sell the Huntington Beach House First, or Land the Replacement First
Proposition 19 accepts either order. The difference is a percentage factor, an interim tax bill nobody refunds, and how much time the coastal and environmental files are given to come back.
Sell first, then buy
The value factor is the arithmetic argument. Where the replacement is bought or newly built within the first year after the sale, the original's full cash value is taken at 105 percent, and at 110 percent within the second year. Buy before the sale and the factor is 100 percent. That cushion is what absorbs a more expensive replacement before any excess is added permanently to the transferred value.
There is no interim tax on this side either. You never own two properties while one of them is assessed at full market value, and no lender is being asked to underwrite a household carrying both. The section 121 position is settled, the Form 593 withholding question is resolved at closing, and the replacement is chosen against proceeds that are already counted.
In this city the sale side is also the side with the long files. The Building Division permit jacket, the Fire Department methane and soil record, the Planning Division coastal file and an independent CalGEM Well Finder search all take time to assemble, and a buyer's insurer will ask about the fire hazard severity zone position now that the city carries Moderate and High zones under the March 2025 maps. Doing that work without a purchase deadline sitting on it is worth real money.
The honest cost is that you sell the house you live in before you know where you are going. A rent back is measured in weeks. The two year window runs from the closing date, and if the requirement is a single level home near the beach, that inventory does not appear because a clock started. Naming that pressure early is the only defence against it.
Buy first, then sell
It qualifies, without argument. The Board of Equalization states that as long as one transaction occurs on or after 1 April 2021 and the original home is sold within two years of the purchase of the replacement, the base year value of the original can be transferred. Buying first has never been the weaker claim. It is the more expensive one.
The interim tax is the first cost and it is stated plainly by the Board: property tax on the replacement is charged at full fair market value for the period between the purchase and the sale of the original, with no refund for that period. The corrected value applies going forward from the date the original sells. Every extra month spent assembling a coastal or environmental file on the house you are selling is a month billed at the higher rate.
The lost factor is the second cost. Buying first sets the adjusted full cash value of the original at 100 percent rather than 105 or 110 percent, so more of any excess is added to the transferred value and stays there. Where the replacement is genuinely cheaper than the house being sold, this costs nothing at all, which is worth working out rather than assuming in either direction.
What buying first buys is one move and a clean sale. The old house can be emptied, prepared and shown without a household living in it, which matters on a fifty year old property where the inspection list is long. It also buys time to satisfy a buyer's questions about a well, a dock permit or a coastal file without a closing date pressing on the answers. Price that convenience honestly and then decide.
Three Departments Hold the File, and None of Them Talk to Each Other
Paula Aragone has worked Orange County transactions for 23 years, across 900+ transactions and $900M+ sold, and she came to real estate after four years of law school. She holds the CPRES and SRES designations. SRES is the Seniors Real Estate Specialist designation, and in a downsizing file it means the transaction is arranged around the client's records, the client's timeline and the client's household rather than around a marketing calendar.
The tax work comes first and it is unglamorous. Establish with the Orange County Assessor how many Proposition 19 transfers remain. Rebuild adjusted basis from documents rather than recollection. Decide which escrow leads and put a number on the interim tax if it is the purchase. Set a real date for the contents, because in a house held since the 1960s the contents, not the condition, are what usually move the closing.
The Huntington Beach work is three files and an independent search. The Building Division permit jacket and approved plans through Accela Citizen Access, or through the public records portal where the record predates it. The Fire Department parcel file, which holds the methane barrier record, the Soil Sampling Work Plan, the laboratory results and any Remediation Action Plan. The Planning Division coastal file, to establish whether a Coastal Development Permit was issued or the work was claimed as exempt. Then CalGEM Well Finder run separately, because a well can sit under a house with nothing in any city file. The parcel record by APN from the Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector belongs in the same batch: the dominant stock here predates the Mello Roos Act, but where any special tax applies, Civil Code 1102.6b requires the notice from the levying agency rather than the line on the bill.
This office does not give tax or legal advice and says so on the page. Base year value questions go to the Assessor, the gain calculation to the client's accountant, and anything touching Medi-Cal eligibility, estate recovery or trust planning to a California elder law attorney. What the office produces is the record those advisers need, in the order they need it, and a sale that does not force a decision the household is not ready to make.
Downsizing Out of a Huntington Beach House, Answered
The questions long time owners and their adult children ask, answered for California law and for Huntington Beach specifically.
There is an abandoned oil well near our house. Does that stop the sale?
It does not stop it, and it is common here. A house on or near a former well site is not itself a defect. What creates friction is that many wells were abandoned to standards long since superseded, that a house built before the rule has no methane barrier, and that a known well within three hundred feet is a material fact under Civil Code 1102 regardless of any pending legislation. Disclose what the records show and what they do not.
What is the Methane Mitigation District and does it apply to us?
It is administered by the Fire Department, and the controlling requirement is that where abandoned oil wells sit within one hundred feet of the footprint of a structure, any new structure must be equipped with a methane barrier in accordance with City Specification 429, which was reissued in October 2022. The regulations are codified through the city building code amendments. It bites on new construction and on additions rather than on an existing house that predates the rule.
We are told the soil has to be tested. Is that right?
Before a grading or building permit issues, City Specification 431-92 requires soil sampling and laboratory analysis showing compliance. A qualified environmental consultant prepares a Soil Sampling Work Plan and submits it to the Fire Department for approval before sampling begins, a Remediation Action Plan is required if contamination is found, all imported soil must meet the standard with approved sourcing documentation, and any contamination or pipelines discovered during work must be reported immediately.
We want a single level house near the beach. How realistic is that?
Less realistic than most people expect, and it is worth deciding early whether it is a requirement or a preference. Downtown lots are twenty five feet wide and their infill runs to three storeys. Surfcrest is 115 tri level condominiums built between 1995 and 1997. Much of the compact product close to the sand is vertical because the lots are narrow. There is no published inventory of single level homes, so it is checked plan by plan.
Does the dock come with a Huntington Harbour house?
Not automatically. Dock permits are regulated by the California State Lands Commission and by the city, and a buyer must verify that the existing permit is current and transferable. Some properties carry dock rights with no dock built, which means new construction and a new permitting process. Channel depth also varies by location. A seller should have the dock inspected, make minor repairs and assemble the permit and transfer requirements before listing.
Which association does a Huntington Harbour house belong to?
There is no single master association covering all five islands, which surprises almost everyone. There is a Huntington Harbour Property Owners Association, there are separate tract level associations such as the association for Tract 5775, Huntington Harbour Unit No. 16, and there are gated sub communities like Coral Cay with associations of their own. Establish the exposure parcel by parcel from the preliminary title report and the recorded CC and Rs, never from the neighbourhood name.
Do we need a coastal permit to add on before we sell?
Possibly, and the thresholds are the practical test. Under Municipal Code Chapter 245 a Coastal Development Permit is required for development in the coastal zone unless exempted, with maintenance, alteration or addition to an existing structure exempt in appealable areas where it does not increase floor area or height by ten percent or more. Development is appealable to the Coastal Commission where it lies between the sea and the first public road, or within three hundred feet inland.
Our house is in Sunset Beach. Is the permitting the same as the rest of the city?
Do not assume so. The city has a certified Local Coastal Program, first certified in 1985 and last comprehensively updated in 2001, and the coastal zone contains eight specific plan areas of which six are certified. Two are not: Brightwater and Sunset Beach. Because certification status determines who issues the permit, confirm the current path with the Planning Division on 714 536-5271 rather than assuming the city handles it.
How many times can I move my property tax base, and where can I move it to?
Up to three times as a claimant at least 55 at the sale of the original primary residence, or severely and permanently disabled at any age, to a replacement primary residence anywhere in California. Propositions 60 and 90 allowed one transfer and confined it to the same county or to a county that had adopted an ordinance. Proposition 19 replaced that for sales on or after 1 April 2021 and removed the geographic restriction entirely.
What if the homeowner is under 55 but disabled, or lost the house to a disaster?
Both routes exist. A person who is severely and permanently disabled qualifies at any age and files BOE-19-D rather than BOE-19-B, subject to the same three transfer cap. A victim of a wildfire or governor declared disaster files BOE-19-V, and the three transfer cap does not apply to disaster victims at all. The other requirements, including the two year window and the principal residence tests, still apply.
The house we want costs more than ours will sell for. Is the claim lost?
No. Under Propositions 60 and 90 exceeding the equal or lesser value threshold disqualified the claim outright. Under Proposition 19 the same factors survive but only to compute an addition. The Board of Equalization example runs like this: an original with a 400,000 dollar full cash value and a 100,000 dollar factored base year value, multiplied by 105 percent, gives 420,000 dollars. On a 600,000 dollar replacement the 180,000 dollar difference is added, producing a taxable value of 280,000 dollars.
Will the section 121 exclusion cover a house we bought in the 1970s?
Often not. The exclusion is 250,000 dollars single and 500,000 dollars on a joint return, and neither figure has been indexed since 1997. You need 24 months of ownership and 24 months of use as your main home within the five years before the sale, the months need not be consecutive or the same months, and no other 121 exclusion may have been claimed in the previous two years. Gain above the exclusion is taxable federally and in California at ordinary rates.
My husband died eighteen months ago. Does that change what we can exclude?
It can, and the clock is unforgiving. A surviving spouse may use the 500,000 dollar limit where the sale occurs not later than two years after the date of death, the requirements were met immediately before that date, and the survivor has not remarried by the date of sale. Separately, where the house was community property, IRC 1014(b)(6) steps up both halves at the first death, which frequently matters more than the exclusion. Raise both with your accountant now.
We are selling the family house. What do we tell a buyer about schools?
Never state it from the address. Four elementary districts feed one high school district here, which is unusual and confuses buyers. Huntington Beach Union High School District serves parts of Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Westminster, with Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach City, Ocean View and Westminster as its feeder elementary districts. That means an address can pair an elementary school in one district with a high school in another. Run it through the district locator.
I am on Medi-Cal. What happens to eligibility when the house sells?
One home is exempt as an asset while the beneficiary lives in it. Cash is not, so the moment escrow closes an exempt asset becomes a countable one. California regulation exempts the proceeds of an exempt home sale for six months from receipt where they are applied to another principal residence, moving costs, furnishings or repairs, which is why the replacement is normally lined up before the sale closes. This is elder law work and belongs with a California elder law attorney.
Where does the claim form go, and what happens if we file late?
Form BOE-19-B is filed with the assessor of the county in which the replacement primary residence is located, not with the Board of Equalization and not with the county the original was in. The deadline is three years from the date the replacement is purchased or new construction on it is completed. File later and relief is granted beginning with the calendar year in which the claim is filed, so the earlier years are billed at full market value and never returned.
Related Pages
Other specialties in Huntington Beach
Senior downsizing nearby
Order the Records, Then Decide Which Escrow Leads
949-415-4784
If you are 55 or over and leaving a Huntington Beach house you have owned for decades, the first conversation is about the three city files, the basis and the count of transfers. Call or text, or have an adult child call for you.
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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.