Read Past the Title

Photo provided by The Associated Press. A voter submits her ballot in a drop-off box.

Just reading the title of laws and news may cost many Californians their family homes, and it’s a lesson pertinent to this election. In 2020, a dramatic change to the tax code was voted in—likely because most voters weren’t paying attention to anything past its title.

Proposition 19, formally known as “The Home Protection for Seniors, Severely Disabled, Families, and Victims of Wildfire or Natural Disasters Act” narrowly passed on the 2020 California Ballot. The act’s title is true. The act offers property tax protections for seniors, family farms, victims of natural disasters and the disabled—it even creates a wildfire fund.

However, the act also repealed a well-established protection that prevented the reassessment of inherited property for property tax purposes when a parent transfers property between parent and child. Nowhere in the title of this act is the revocation of this protection mentioned.

Due to rapid home price inflation in California, property reassessment can amount to tens of thousands of dollars a year in additional property taxes the moment a parent dies, leading many heirs to have to sell their childhood homes.

Very few people knew this due to misleading advertising. To those who just watched the ads, read the title of the act and skimmed the news headlines, understanding the implications of this bill would be futile.

Interestingly, according to the California Secretary of State’s website, the California Association Of REALTORS gave over $40 million to support Proposition 19. To no one's surprise, the people who make commissions on the sale of homes proposed a bill that increases the sale and purchase of property. 

Political advertising is nothing new nor is money in politics nor is, arguably, misnaming legislative bills and proposals.

During this election, read past the titles and headlines. It may just save your family home.