Inherited Property Real Estate Agent in Irvine, CA
Paula Aragone works with heirs who have been left an Irvine house and now have to decide what to do with it, starting with the three assessments a parent paid without comment for twenty years and the architectural file nobody in the family has ever seen.
Inheriting an Irvine house means three decisions in sequence. First, which procedure the estate is on, because that is set by the date of death and the size of the estate, not by what the family would prefer. Second, what the house was worth on that date, because IRC section 1014 resets the basis there. Third, whether anybody is going to live in it, because Proposition 19 rewards only that. The assessments come with the house either way.
| Which route applies | Set by the date of death, not by the filing date |
|---|---|
| Personal property affidavit | 208,850 dollars, deaths on or after 1 April 2025 |
| Succession to real property | 750,000 dollars, California primary residence only |
| Low value real property affidavit | 69,625 dollars, Probate Code 13200 |
| The document that protects you | A qualified date of death appraisal, IRC 1014 |
| Irvine specific | Master dues, sub association dues and a CFD special tax |
Three Lines on the Tax Bill and a Rulebook Nobody in the Family Has Read
A parent paid these for twenty years without comment. An heir has to explain them to a buyer, and to a buyer's lender, in the first fortnight of a listing.
Most Irvine parcels sit under a master association, and a large number sit under a sub association as well. The city confirms the two tier model: the master typically maintains landscaped medians and the private parks serving the wider subdivision, the sub handles smaller landscape areas and the exterior of attached buildings. Both are governed under the Davis Stirling Common Interest Development Act, and both produce a resale packet that has to be ordered rather than assumed.
On top of that, in the villages built after 1988, comes a Community Facilities District special tax. The pre 1988 core, University Park, Turtle Rock, El Camino Real, most of Northwood and most of Woodbridge, was largely built before the practice and generally carries little or none. Portola Springs, Orchard Hills, Stonegate, portions of Woodbury, Cypress Village, Laguna Altura and the Great Park neighbourhoods do carry it. Those are leads, not answers, and the city expressly puts the burden on the owner to determine what a parcel is subject to.
The reason this matters more to an heir than to an ordinary seller is arithmetic. A master assessment, a sub assessment and a special tax move together with the mortgage in a lender's debt to income calculation. An inherited Great Park house can appraise cleanly and still lose its buyer at qualification, and the heir who priced the estate on the appraisal alone is the one who has to explain the delay to a sibling.
The Great Park charge is the one that gets misdescribed most often. The City of Irvine states that the CFD No. 2013-3 charge can rise by up to two percent a year, and that once the original bonds are repaid, typically about forty years, the charge drops by roughly 65 to 82 percent, with the remainder continuing for maintenance. It falls. It does not fully sunset. A buyer will ask, and an heir who repeats a neighbour's version of it will be corrected in writing.
Then there is the architectural file. Irvine architectural control is real, and an owner who changed a front elevation, a driveway, a fence or a window without association approval will be asked to unwind it. A parent who lived in the house for two decades made those changes gradually and told nobody. The heir finds out when the resale documents arrive, which is why they get ordered at the start of the listing rather than after acceptance.
The build era decides the rest. The 1966 to 1979 villages carry the classic set: aluminium branch wiring in anything permitted from 1965 into the mid 1970s, Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels, galvanised supply lines, cast iron drains, original aluminium sliders and asbestos era flooring and ceiling texture. The 1980s and 1990s villages sit inside the polybutylene window that ran from 1978 to the middle of 1995. Post tension slabs appear from the 1970s onward, and one must never be cut for a plumbing repair without a scan.
What to Do With an Inherited Irvine House, in Order
An heir inherits a house and a stack of obligations at the same moment. This is the order that keeps the two from colliding, and the two steps most families take last are the two that should come first.
Find out which procedure the estate is on
The thresholds run from the date of death, not the filing date. For a death on or after 1 April 2025, the Probate Code 13100 personal property affidavit reaches 208,850 dollars, the 13151 petition to determine succession to real property reaches 750,000 dollars for a California primary residence only, and the 13200 low value real property affidavit reaches 69,625 dollars. Above those it is a full probate, or a trust.
Get the authority to sign
Nobody can list the house until one person holds signing power. In a probate that is letters from the court, and whether they carry full or limited authority under Probate Code 10402 and 10403 decides whether a sale needs court confirmation. In a trust it is the successor trustee and a Certification of Trust. Under a succession petition it is the court order itself.
Secure it and tell the insurer it is empty
Change the locks, forward the mail, keep the water and power on, and call the insurance carrier before anything else lapses. A homeowners policy is written around an occupied house, so a vacancy is something the carrier has to be told about. In Irvine, also tell the master association who to contact, because architectural and landscape notices keep arriving addressed to someone who has died.
Get a date of death appraisal, and get it early
Under IRC section 1014 the basis resets to fair market value on the date of death, so that number decides the tax on any later sale. In a probate the referee appointed under Probate Code 8920 supplies a value. In a trust there is no referee and the trustee must commission the appraisal. Order it before the house is cleared and painted.
Clear the contents, and settle anyone still living there
Personal property goes before the house does, and the estate should record what left and where it went, because contents are the thing heirs argue about afterwards. If somebody is living in the property, a relative, a caretaker or a tenant, their status has to be established in writing before a listing goes up, not during escrow.
Decide as is or prepare, with the packet in hand
An Irvine buyer inspects either way, so the question is not whether the condition is discovered but who prices it. Order the master and sub association resale documents first. They show the reserve position, any developer control, and whether the patio cover, the window change or the driveway a parent installed over twenty years was ever approved.
Disclose from the record, not from memory
An heir who never lived in the house cannot answer a disclosure form from personal knowledge, and should not try. Build the answers from documents: the permit file at Building and Safety, the association records, the Notice of Special Tax obtained from the City of Irvine under Civil Code 1102.6b, and an inspection ordered by the estate rather than by the buyer.
Market it inside the village, not across the city
Irvine was planned as villages separated by six lane arterials, each with its own schools, retail and assessment profile. A number drawn across the city is not a number. Broad exposure matters for a second reason too: where several heirs share the proceeds, an open market sale is the only version of the price that all of them can check.
Close, clear the assessments, then divide
Escrow pays the association and any special tax current at closing, and Orange County documentary transfer tax is charged at 0.55 dollars for each 500 dollars of net consideration over 100 dollars, which is 1.10 dollars per 1,000 dollars. Proceeds go to the estate or the trust, not to the heirs individually. The division happens after that.
The Village Decides What You Inherited
Two Irvine houses that sold on the same street plan can carry entirely different assessments, schools and disclosure obligations. These are the villages that come up most often in inherited files.
University Park
The first village, 1966. Greenbelts, low density, walkable to UCI, generally no special tax. Often still owned by the original buyers, which is why an inherited file here arrives with sixty years of undocumented changes.
Turtle Rock
First hillside village, 1967, homes arranged to hold the ridgelines. Generally no special tax, but now inside the 2025 fire hazard zone expansion, so an heir inherits a disclosure the parent never had to make.
Northwood
1970, defined by the century old eucalyptus windrows, with the Hicks Canyon and Venta Spur trails. Most of it free of special tax. This is the classic long held Irvine family home and the most common inherited listing in the city.
El Camino Real
1970, Heritage Park with the duck pond and the Irvine Fine Arts Center. Older stock, generally no special tax, and a high proportion of original purchasers, which means original panels, original supply lines and original glazing.
Rancho San Joaquin
1972, the only active adult village, with an eighteen hole course beside Mason Regional Park. An heir who wants to move in has to meet the community's age rules first, and those rules run with the community, not with the deed.
Woodbridge
1975, four quadrants around two lakes with a large village association. The deepest buyer pool in the city, which makes it the one village where the as is question can genuinely be tested rather than guessed.
Westpark
1987, the first Mediterranean themed village, coral stucco and terra cotta tile. It sits at the front of the polybutylene window, so the supply piping question is asked before the condition question.
West Irvine
1997, holding twenty four historic buildings from the 1897 Irvine Ranch. Served by Tustin Unified with Myford Elementary and Beckman High, not by Irvine Unified, which an out of state heir will not know.
Oak Creek
1998, historic oaks next to the Spectrum medical corridor. Late 1990s districts apply here, so the Notice of Special Tax is a live item and has to come from the levying agency rather than off the tax bill.
Northpark and Northpark Square
1999 and 2001, gated, on a pathway network with Tuscan and Provencal styling. Tustin Unified serves both, with Hicks Canyon Elementary, and that single fact cancels escrows when a buyer assumed otherwise.
Shady Canyon
2001, roughly four hundred custom homes behind a guarded gate with a private golf club. The only true custom village, so an inherited valuation here has to be built property by property, never from a village average.
Quail Hill
2003, beside the seven hundred acre Quail Hill Preserve with its own retail centre. Inside the 2025 fire zone expansion, which brings defensible space documentation into an estate sale that would not have needed it before.
Turtle Ridge
2003, on the San Joaquin Hills with a coastal microclimate and ocean to mountain views. Modern systems, so the friction is not defects. It is the assessment stack and whatever the parent changed without approval.
Woodbury and Portola Springs
2004 and 2006. Woodbury is built around a thirty acre Commons, Portola Springs around five enclaves framed by native habitat. Both carry special tax and both sit inside the expanded fire map, so the disclosure stack is full.
Stonegate, Cypress Village, Eastwood
2011 to 2016. Modern construction on compact lots with layered assessments and architectural control tight enough that any change a parent made without a submittal will be raised in the resale documents.
Orchard Hills
2014, the highest point in the city among roughly nine hundred acres of working avocado orchards, with a gated Groves enclave. Special tax, ocean views, and inside the 2025 fire zone expansion.
Great Park Neighborhoods
Pavilion Park, Beacon Park, Parasol Park, Cadence Park, Novel Park, Rise, Solis Park and Luna Park, on the former MCAS El Toro annexed in 2003. Financed through CFD No. 2013-3, which falls sharply when the bonds are repaid but does not fully sunset.
University Hills
Not conventional ownership. The University of California owns the land and homeowners hold a leasehold through the Irvine Campus Housing Authority, with buyer eligibility restricted to University employees and a Maximum Resale Price calculated by ICHA.
Six Things About an Inherited Irvine House That Surface After the Funeral
Irvine, California
None of these are market problems. Every one of them is a record that existed all along and that nobody in the family had a reason to look at.
The parent's improvements were never approved
Architectural control in Irvine is enforced, and it reaches the front elevation, driveways, fences, windows, patio covers and paint. A parent who lived in the house for twenty years made changes gradually, usually with a good contractor and often with a city permit, and simply never submitted them to the association.
The heir discovers it when the resale packet arrives. The association can require the work to be brought into compliance, and a buyer can require the same thing in a repair request. Ordering the documents in the first week of the listing turns this into a negotiation. Ordering them after acceptance turns it into a cancellation.
The assessments break the buyer's loan, not the appraisal
A master assessment, a sub association assessment and a Community Facilities District special tax are three separate obligations, and they sit in a lender's debt to income calculation alongside the mortgage. The house can appraise perfectly and the buyer can still fail to qualify.
An heir who has never paid an Irvine assessment usually does not know the total until the packet arrives. Get the current figures for all three before pricing, and put them in the marketing rather than letting a buyer's lender find them in week three.
The Great Park charge was described as temporary
It is not. The City of Irvine states that the CFD No. 2013-3 charge can increase by up to two percent per year, and that once the original bonds are repaid, typically about forty years, the charge drops by roughly 65 to 82 percent, with the remainder continuing for maintenance in perpetuity.
That is a materially different statement from the one families repeat to each other. Use the city's own figures. A buyer who is told the charge disappears and later reads the city page has a reason to distrust everything else on the disclosure.
The tax bill was treated as the disclosure
Civil Code 1102.6b requires the seller to make a good faith effort to obtain a disclosure notice from each agency levying a Mello Roos special tax or a 1915 Act assessment, and to deliver that notice to the buyer. The line item on the Orange County tax bill is not that notice.
An heir has the tax bill, because it arrives in the post, and often has nothing else. The notice comes from the City of Irvine as the levying agency. Confirm the district parcel by parcel by APN against the Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector record first, because village level generalisations are leads, not disclosures.
Nobody valued the house while it still looked the way it did
IRC section 1014 sets the basis at fair market value on the date of death. That number is what stands between the family and a taxable gain on a later sale, and it is easiest to support with an appraisal ordered close to the date, before the contents leave and before anything is repainted.
In a full probate a referee appointed from the State Controller's list under Probate Code 8920 provides a value, and Orange County states the referee should return the appraisal within sixty days. In a trust there is no referee at all, and an heir who assumed one existed is often eighteen months late.
The house is in University Hills
This is not ordinary fee ownership and it cannot be listed as such. The University of California owns the land, homeowners hold a leasehold through the Irvine Campus Housing Authority, purchase eligibility is restricted to full time University employees in a defined priority order, and ICHA calculates a Maximum Resale Price.
For an heir the consequence is direct: keeping it is not simply a matter of wanting to, and selling it is not an open market transaction. Establish the ICHA position before anything else, including before an appraisal is ordered, because the resale price mechanism is not the market.
Sell the Irvine House, or Someone Moves In
Two federal and state rules pull in opposite directions here, and the answer turns on the gap between the parent's assessed value and today's value, and on how long anyone would genuinely stay.
Sell it
The basis rule is what makes an early sale efficient. Under IRC section 1014 the basis resets to fair market value at the date of death, so a lifetime of appreciation disappears for income tax purposes and gain is measured only from that date forward. A sale soon after death often produces close to no gain, and sometimes a small loss once costs are counted.
Where the Irvine house was held as community property by a married couple, IRC 1014(b)(6) steps up both halves at the first death, not only the decedent's half. That is a California advantage that does not exist in most states, and it is the single reason many surviving spouses sell rather than hold. Holding period is not a trap either: IRC 1223(9) treats property that takes its basis under 1014 as long term even if it sells within a year.
The practical Irvine argument is that an empty house keeps costing money. Master dues, sub association dues, a special tax, insurance on a vacant property and utilities that have to stay on all continue while the family decides. None of that is recoverable, and none of it improves the eventual price.
The honest downside is timing and tax character. Gain recognised inside an unadministered estate or an irrevocable trust runs into badly compressed brackets, where the zero rate ceiling is 3,300 dollars and the 15 percent ceiling is 16,250 dollars, against 545,500 dollars for a single individual. The same gain in the beneficiaries' own hands is taxed far more gently, so who recognises the gain is a question for the estate's accountant before escrow opens, not after.
Keep it, or one heir buys the others out
Proposition 19 is the rule that rewards keeping, and it is narrower than families expect. For transfers on or after 16 February 2021 the parent to child exclusion applies only to a family home that was the parent's principal residence and becomes the child's principal residence, or to a family farm. A rental or a second home is fully reassessed. If nobody moves in, there is no exclusion at all.
The deadlines are short and they are unforgiving. The transferee has to claim the homeowners' exemption within one year of the transfer or the date of death, and form BOE-19-P is due within three years of death or transfer, or before any transfer to a third party, whichever comes first. Missing either one gives away the entire benefit.
The cap is the parent's factored base year value plus 1,044,586 dollars for transfers between 16 February 2025 and 15 February 2027. Where market value exceeds that sum, the new taxable value is market value minus 1,044,586 dollars, not the parent's old figure. In Irvine, where the assessment stack already includes association dues and a special tax, the property tax saving is only part of the monthly picture and should be modelled against the whole of it.
A buyout between siblings is the version of keeping it that works most often, and the mechanics are ordinary: an agreed value supported by the same date of death appraisal, a loan in the buying heir's name, and the others paid out through escrow. The honest downside is the one nobody says out loud. The child who moves in only to hold the tax base and sells at month twenty gets neither the section 121 exclusion, which needs two years of ownership and two years of use, nor the clean early sale the basis rule offered at the start.
An Heir Is Deciding About a House They Have Never Owned
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. That combination is the reason estate and family law attorneys send inherited property files here instead of to a general listing agent.
The work in an inherited file is mostly retrieval. The permit jacket, the approved plans and the inspection log from Irvine Building and Safety at 1 Civic Center Plaza. The master and sub association resale documents, budgets, reserve studies and minutes. The Notice of Special Tax from the City of Irvine as the levying agency. The parcel record by APN from the Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector. An heir cannot answer for a house from memory, so the answers have to come from paper.
The valuation has to be built inside the correct village and the correct school attendance area, because Irvine was designed as separate villages and a comparison drawn across them produces a figure no sibling should be asked to accept. Where several heirs share the proceeds, the open market is also the only version of the price that all of them can independently check, which is why quiet off market disposals cause more family litigation than low prices do.
None of this is tax advice or legal advice, and the office does not give either. What it does is produce the documents the estate's attorney and accountant need, in the order they need them, and hold the sale together while the family makes decisions that are genuinely theirs to make.
Inherited Irvine Property, Answered
The questions heirs actually ask in the first month, answered for California law and for Irvine specifically.
My mother left me her Irvine house. What is the first thing I actually have to establish?
Which procedure the estate is on, because everything else follows from it. If the house was in a revocable trust, a successor trustee administers it without a court. If it was not, the size of the estate at the date of death decides whether a small estate affidavit, a petition to determine succession to real property, or a full probate applies. Nobody can sign a listing, order an appraisal or pay a bill from estate funds until that is settled.
What is the difference between the 208,850 dollar affidavit and the 750,000 dollar petition?
They cover different property. The affidavit under Probate Code 13100 and 13101 collects personal property where the gross estate is at or under 208,850 dollars for a death on or after 1 April 2025. The petition to determine succession to real property under Probate Code 13151 and 13152 reaches 750,000 dollars, but that figure comes from AB 2016 and applies only to the decedent's California primary residence. It is not a general real estate threshold and it is not a CPI adjustment.
The house is small in value. Is there a shorter route than a petition?
Possibly. Probate Code 13200 provides an affidavit for real property of small value where the value is at or under 69,625 dollars for a death on or after 1 April 2025. In Irvine that will rarely reach a house, but it can reach a fractional interest, a manufactured home interest or a leftover parcel. All of these thresholds are fixed by the date of death, not by when the paperwork is filed, and the current figures hold through 31 March 2028.
Why does everyone tell me to get an appraisal when we already know roughly what it is worth?
Because the appraisal is a tax document, not a pricing document. IRC section 1014 sets your basis at fair market value on the date of death, and that number is what stands between the family and a taxable gain. A rough figure cannot be defended later. IRC 1223(9) then treats the sale as long term regardless of how briefly you held it, and where the house was community property, IRC 1014(b)(6) steps up both halves at the first death.
How much tax will the family actually pay on the gain?
Usually very little, because gain is measured only from the date of death value forward. What changes the answer is who recognises the gain. Inside an unadministered estate or an irrevocable trust the brackets are compressed, with the zero rate ceiling at 3,300 dollars and the 15 percent ceiling at 16,250 dollars, against 545,500 dollars for a single individual. California has no preferential capital gains rate at all. Ask the estate's accountant before escrow opens. This is general information, not tax advice.
Can I use the 250,000 dollar home sale exclusion on my parent's house?
No, not if you never lived there. The IRC section 121 exclusion, 250,000 dollars single and 500,000 dollars married filing jointly, requires ownership for at least 24 months and use as a residence for at least 24 months out of the five years before the sale. An heir who inherits and sells has neither. The stepped up basis under IRC 1014 is the relief that applies to you instead, and in most cases it is worth considerably more.
Can I keep my parent's low property tax bill on the Irvine house?
Only under narrow conditions. Proposition 19 excludes reassessment where a family home that was the parent's principal residence becomes the child's principal residence. You must claim the homeowners' exemption within one year of the transfer or the date of death, and file form BOE-19-P within three years or before any transfer to a third party. The exclusion is capped at the parent's factored base year value plus 1,044,586 dollars for transfers from 16 February 2025 through 15 February 2027.
My parent's tax bill has three separate charges on it. What are they?
In most of Irvine, a master association assessment, frequently a sub association assessment on top of it, and in the post 1988 villages a Community Facilities District special tax. The city confirms the two tier association model: the master maintains landscaped medians and the private parks serving the wider subdivision, the sub handles smaller landscape areas and the exteriors of attached buildings. All three continue while the house sits empty, and all three sit in a buyer's debt to income calculation.
We are in the Great Park neighbourhoods. Will that charge ever come off the bill?
It falls, but it does not disappear. The City of Irvine states that the CFD No. 2013-3 charge can rise by up to two percent a year, and that once the original bonds are repaid, typically about forty years, the charge drops by roughly 65 to 82 percent, with the remainder continuing for maintenance. It drops a long way and then stays there. Use the city's own figures in the marketing rather than a neighbour's version of them, because a buyer will check.
My father enclosed the patio and changed the front windows years ago and I have no paperwork. What now?
Two separate files, and both have to be pulled. The city file tells you whether the work was permitted: request the permit jacket, the approved plans, the inspection log and the final from Irvine Building and Safety by address and APN, and compare it against the Assessor's recorded square footage. The association file tells you whether it was approved architecturally, which is a different question with a different remedy. Answer the disclosure from those two records, not from what you remember being told.
Why does the association packet have to be ordered before we list?
Because it is the document most likely to change the deal. It carries the budget, the reserve study, the minutes, the assessment figures a lender will underwrite, and in the newer villages a disclosure of whether the developer still controls the board. It also surfaces any unapproved change a parent made. Ordering it at the start of the listing rather than after acceptance is usually worth two to three weeks of calendar and occasionally saves the escrow entirely.
Is my parent's Irvine house in a fire hazard severity zone now?
It may be, even if it never was before. Irvine adopted the updated CAL FIRE maps by ordinance in June 2025, effective 23 July 2025, replacing the 2012 map, and the update expanded zones into eight areas: Orchard Hills, Woodbury, Portola Springs, Quail Hill, Turtle Rock, Laguna Altura, Los Olivos and Irvine Spectrum. A High or Very High designation brings defensible space documentation under Civil Code 1102.19 and the fire hardening disclosure, and the buyer's insurer will ask first.
Which school district serves the house?
Do not answer that from the city name, and do not let a buyer assume it. Irvine Unified serves most of the city, but Tustin Unified serves Northpark and West Irvine, with Myford and Hicks Canyon elementaries, Pioneer Middle and Beckman High, and Santa Ana Unified serves several Irvine Business Complex towers including The Plaza, Central Park West, The Marquee and The Metropolitan. Boundaries move. Confirm by address with the district before anything goes into marketing.
My parent's house is in University Hills. Can I just keep it?
Almost certainly not on the terms you are imagining. The University of California owns the land and homeowners hold a leasehold through the Irvine Campus Housing Authority. Purchase eligibility is restricted to full time University employees in a defined priority order, and ICHA calculates a Maximum Resale Price for a current owner. Establish the ICHA position first, before an appraisal, before a valuation and before any conversation among the heirs about what it is worth.
My sister wants to keep the house and I want to sell. What actually happens?
In practice one of three things. She buys your share, using the date of death appraisal as the agreed value and her own financing to fund the payment through escrow. The property is sold and the proceeds divided through the estate. Or nobody agrees, and the disagreement moves to a court that can order the property divided or sold. The third route is slow and expensive for everyone, which is why the first two are worth exhausting first.
Do I have to complete a disclosure form if I never lived in the house?
Whether a particular estate or trust transfer is exempt from delivering the statutory Transfer Disclosure Statement is a question for the estate's attorney, and it varies by how title is held and how the sale is authorised. What is not in doubt is that a known material fact has to be disclosed either way. The workable approach is to disclose from records rather than memory, mark genuinely unknown items as unknown, and order the inspection yourself so the buyer is reading a report rather than guessing.
Related Pages
Other specialties in Irvine
Inherited property nearby
Before You Decide Anything, Find Out What You Have
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If you have inherited an Irvine property, the first conversation is about which route the estate is on and what documents exist, not about listing it. Call or text, or ask the estate's attorney to call on your behalf.
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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.