How do things work in the Assessor’s Office, how do they know when to re-assess?

There are primarily two triggers for re-assessment: change in ownership and new construction. A change in ownership this is happens when deeds are filed at the county Recorder’s Office, the Recorder’s Office will forward the deeds to the Assessor’s Office for assessment purposes. The Assessor’s Office will then review the change in ownership to determine if it is a re-assessable event at all. If it isn’t re-assessable then the process stops there, however if it is an assessable transfer it is forwarded to the appropriate personnel to determine or review a market value and adjust the base value accordingly. A change in ownership that would not be assessable would need to fall within one of the various exemptions allowed by the State such as the transfer into a revocable trust or an inter-spousal transfer. The way these transfers are noted are with forms or documentation that is recorded along with the deed or later requested by the Assessor’s Office to confirm an exempt transfer. So when there is no exemption, the transfer is considered assessable per Prop 13.

New construction comes from a totally different department. The cities and county building and safety departments send information on the permits issued to the Assessor for assessment purposes. The permits then get forwarded to the appraisers for several reasons: for a building record update and a valuation change if one applies. Generally it takes the Assessor some time to process these because often field work is required to find out what construction was done and then the valuation procedure follows. If there is a demolition the taxable value will most likely be reduced and if there is an addition the taxable base value will likely go up. However, new construction varies from property to property and it will be evaluated based on the value that was created or taken away. Similar to new construction there will also be re-assessment of a property if the use of it has changed, for example if a complex of own-your-owns is converted into condominiums the assessor will review and reassess the value of each unit since the use change affects the market value of the property. Generally speaking though there are two events for re-assessment: change in ownership or new construction.