Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron
I love the fact that my house value dropped about $4000 but my property taxes went up  |
One of the few good things in California was "Prop 13" that passed into law many years ago. Basically, it says that the assessed value of your home is fixed at the time of purchase, and can only be completely reassessed if sold to a new owner. If you do a major addition or something to increase the value, they can only reassess for the increased of the addition, not the whole "current value" of the property.
That does create some disparity in how much people pay in taxes. I have been in my house about 10 years, and my next door neighbor moved in about two years ago (right at the peak of value). He pays about three times the property tax that I do, but he also paid about three times the price for the house than I did.
There are many people, both liberal and conservative, that want to do away with Prop 13 as it clearly cost the government a lot of tax revenue. That won't happen.