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Inheriting a Parent’s Home in California: The Prop 19 Deadlines That Run From the Date of Death
If your parent died on or after February 16, 2025 and left you the house they lived in, you can usually keep their low Proposition 13 assessment, with up to $1,044,586 of market value above it protected from reassessment. The condition is that you move in within one year of the death and file two claims on time.
Both of those clocks start on the date of death. Neither waits for the probate, or the trust administration, to finish.
What carries over, in figures
The rule is in Revenue and Taxation Code section 63.2, which implements Proposition 19. The assessor takes the parent’s taxable value on the day before the transfer and adds an allowance. If the home is worth less than that total, the parent’s taxable value carries over unchanged. If it is worth more, only the excess is added.
The allowance started at $1,000,000 and is adjusted every other year. Where the parent has died, the date of death is the date of transfer, so the date of death decides which figure applies.
| Date of death | Allowance |
|---|---|
| February 16, 2021 to February 15, 2023 | $1,000,000 |
| February 16, 2023 to February 15, 2025 | $1,022,600 |
| February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027 | $1,044,586 |
A worked example. A parent bought decades ago and the last tax bill shows a taxable value of $250,000. The house is worth $1,800,000 when they die in 2026.
| Step | Figure |
|---|---|
| Parent’s taxable value plus the allowance | $250,000 + $1,044,586 = $1,294,586 |
| Market value less that total | $1,800,000 less $1,294,586 = $505,414 |
| New taxable value for the child | $250,000 + $505,414 = $755,414 |
Without the exclusion the house would be reassessed at $1,800,000. The difference is $1,044,586 of taxable value, which at the 1 percent base rate is about $10,446 a year before local voter approved levies, for as long as the child owns it and lives there. Our Prop 19 calculator runs the same test on your own numbers.
The clocks, and why probate does not stop them
| What | Deadline | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Child makes the home their principal residence | Within one year of the death | § 63.2(a)(1)(A) |
| Homeowners’ exemption (BOE-266), or disabled veterans’ exemption (BOE-261-G) | Within one year of the death | § 63.2(a)(1)(B) |
| Exclusion claim to the county assessor (BOE-19-P) | Within three years of the death, or before a transfer to a third party, or before the child stops living there, whichever is earliest | § 63.2(f)(1)(A) |
| Certified claim after the assessor writes to you about eligibility | Within 45 days of the notice | § 63.2(g)(1) |
Missing the one year exemption filing is not fatal, but it costs money. The exclusion then applies only from the year the exemption claim is filed, not from the date of death. A late BOE-19-P claim works the same way, and only if the property has not already gone to a third party. Ignoring a second notice from the assessor can also bring a processing fee of up to $175.
The probate problem is one of timing. A California probate runs on its own schedule, and the estate can easily still be open on the first anniversary of the death. Being an heir of an open estate does not pause either one year clock. If a child intends to live in the house, they should move in and file for the homeowners’ exemption as soon as that plan is clear, not wait for the order for distribution. How the assessor will treat a long administration is unsettled, and the safer position is a claim on file early rather than an argument made late.
The same applies when the house was held in a living trust. Section 63.2 treats a transfer through a trust exactly like any other transfer from parent to child, and the parent’s date of death is still the date that counts.
One coincidence of dates helps. The probate inventory values the house as at the date of death under Probate Code section 8802, and the Prop 19 test looks at the same day. They are separate valuations by different people, but the work points at one date rather than two.
Who counts as a child
More people than families expect. Section 63.2(e) includes children adopted before 18, stepchildren, and sons and daughters in law. The step and in law relationships end on a divorce, or after a death when the surviving spouse remarries. A grandchild qualifies only if their own parent, the grandparent’s child, has died, and the claim form is BOE-19-G rather than BOE-19-P.
The honest limits of this
It covers one property, and only the one the parent lived in. The statute defines the family home as a dwelling that was eligible for the homeowners’ exemption because the parent owned it and lived in it. A rental, a second home, or a condominium the parent kept for the family is reassessed at full market value. The old exclusion for up to $1,000,000 of other property ended for transfers after February 15, 2021. If your parent had moved into care before they died, check the last tax bill. If the parent’s homeowners’ exemption was still on the house at the date of death, it qualifies.
The child has to live there. Inheriting the house to rent it out, or to hold it while deciding, earns nothing. And the exclusion is not permanent. When no eligible child lives in the home and holds the exemption, it is reassessed to its value as at the date of death, adjusted for inflation.
At coastal values it softens a reassessment rather than preventing one. Once the house is worth more than the parent’s taxable value plus the allowance, the most the exclusion can ever save is the allowance itself. In the example above the child still pays tax on $755,414, three times the parent’s figure. For much of coastal San Diego County, that is the realistic expectation.
Several children, one house. If at least one child who qualifies moves in, the whole house is covered, even when it is co owned with siblings who live elsewhere. It does depend on someone eligible living there: if that child moves out and a sibling moves in, a new claim has to be filed within one year of the move out. Our guide to keeping a parent’s house instead of selling it covers a buyout, if the family would rather one child own it outright.
If the house is worth $750,000 or less, it may not need a full probate at all. The primary residence succession petition can be faster, but it does not move the Prop 19 dates either.
If you are not sure
Whether the exclusion is available turns on how your parent used the home, who inherits it, and dates that are already running. A short call is usually enough to tell you whether it applies, what the numbers look like, and which deadlines you are working to. Book a free call and we will go through it with you.
This article states the law as at October 2026 and the allowance for deaths from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027. It is general information, not legal or tax advice for your situation.