Prop 19 Filing Guide for Sacramento County

To claim a Proposition 19 benefit on a Sacramento County property, you file with the Sacramento County Assessor’s Office at 3636 American River Drive, Suite 200, Sacramento, CA 95864. Sacramento is one of the few California counties that runs a dedicated Proposition 19 phone line at (916) 875-0750 and a dedicated email address at Prop19@saccounty.gov. Use BOE-19-B to carry your tax base to a replacement home if you are 55 or older, and BOE-19-P or BOE-19-G plus BOE-266 to claim an inherited family home.

If you are moving out of Sacramento County to another county, the assessor also issues a base year value certification for the receiving county. Start that request with the Property Transfer Section at Prop19@saccounty.gov, because the county’s separate certification mailbox takes requests from other assessors’ offices rather than from homeowners.

Which Form Do You File?

Proposition 19 provides two separate benefits, and Sacramento County lists the full form set on its Proposition 19 page.

You are moving to a new home. File BOE-19-B if you are 55 or older, BOE-19-D with BOE-19-DC if you are severely and permanently disabled, or BOE-19-V if a wildfire or Governor-declared disaster destroyed your home.

You inherited a home. File BOE-19-P for a parent-to-child transfer or BOE-19-G for a grandparent-to-grandchild transfer. File BOE-266 as well, or BOE-261-G if you qualify for the disabled veterans’ exemption instead.

Sacramento County routes its forms through the statewide California Assessors’ Association e-forms service, reachable from the assessor’s forms page. Online filing for the homeowners’ exemption is listed as coming soon, so plan on paper today.

Use the Dedicated Prop 19 Line

Most California counties give you a switchboard. Sacramento gives you a Proposition 19 line at (916) 875-0750 and a Proposition 19 mailbox at Prop19@saccounty.gov.

Use them. A five-minute call to a unit that handles nothing but Proposition 19 will settle a question that would take three transfers elsewhere.

Note the hours. The phones run 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., an hour shorter than the public counter, which stays open until 5:00 p.m.

If You Are Leaving Sacramento County

A base year value transfer is filed with the assessor of the county where your replacement home sits. If you sell in Sacramento and buy in Placer County, Placer gets your BOE-19-B.

Placer will need Sacramento to certify your base year value. Sacramento runs that request through its Property Transfer Section at Prop19@saccounty.gov. Start it early, because a certification traveling between two counties is one more thing that can sit in a queue while your three-year window runs.

If you are moving into Sacramento County from elsewhere, the claim comes here and Sacramento requests the certification from the county you left.

The Deadlines That Decide the Outcome

One year, for an inherited home. Occupy the home as your principal residence and file BOE-266 within one year of the date of death. Sacramento County probate regularly runs past a year, and the clock does not pause for it.

Three years, for the exclusion claim. File BOE-19-P or BOE-19-G within three years of the transfer, or before the home is sold outside the family, whichever comes first. File BOE-19-B within three years of buying or completing the replacement home.

Two years, for the move. Buy and sell within two years of each other, in either order.

Six months, if a supplemental notice arrives. A claim filed within six months of that notice still counts as timely.

Finding Your Factored Base Year Value

Sacramento County publishes one of the better lookup tools in the state. The Assessed Value Look-Up tool takes a parcel number and returns both the factored Proposition 13 value and the assessed value on the current tax bill.

That first number is the one every Proposition 19 calculation needs. It is not the price your parents paid. It is that price plus decades of adjustments capped at two percent a year, plus improvements.

View and pay bills at eproptax.saccounty.net.

Disaster and Calamity Relief

Sacramento County publishes a flood, fire, and disaster property tax relief page with a Calamity Application for a damaged property.

Two different remedies exist. A Calamity Application reduces the assessed value of a damaged property you are keeping. BOE-19-V moves your base year value to a replacement home somewhere else in California, with no age requirement. Pick the one that matches your plan.

If the Value Looks Too High

Sacramento County takes regular assessment appeals from July 2 through November 30, and takes an appeal of a supplemental or escape assessment within 60 days of the bill’s mailing.

Appeals go to the Assessment Appeals Board at 700 H Street, Room 2450, Sacramento, CA 95814, reachable at (916) 874-8174. The assessor also offers an informal decline in value review, which is faster when the disagreement is modest.

Neither replaces the Proposition 19 claim. File the claim regardless.

A Worked Example

A parent dies owning a home in Carmichael. The factored base year value is $155,000. The market value on the date of death is $620,000. A daughter inherits it and moves in within six months.

The value limit is $155,000 plus $1,044,586, which is $1,199,586. The home sits well below that, so nothing is reassessed.

• Taxable value with the exclusion: $155,000, or roughly $1,550 a year at one percent.
• Without it: $620,000, or roughly $6,200 a year.

The exclusion is worth about $4,650 every year, and the gap widens as the alternative base grows two percent annually. Over a decade of ownership that is roughly $50,000.

It rests on two acts inside twelve months: moving in, and filing the homeowners’ exemption. The exclusion claim then follows within three years.

Mistakes That Cost Sacramento Families the Exclusion

Calling after 4:00 p.m. The phones close an hour before the counter does.

Waiting for probate. The twelve-month clock starts at the date of death.

Forgetting the certification when you leave the county. Request it early through Prop19@saccounty.gov.

Looking for an online filing portal. The homeowners’ exemption online form is listed as coming soon, not live.

Assuming a rental qualifies. Proposition 19 covers a family home the heir occupies, and a family farm. Nothing else.

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Summary

• File Proposition 19 claims on Sacramento County property with the Assessor’s Office at 3636 American River Drive, Suite 200.
• Sacramento runs a dedicated Proposition 19 line at (916) 875-0750 and mailbox at Prop19@saccounty.gov.
• Phones are open 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., the counter until 5:00 p.m.
• A move out of the county needs a base year value certification, requested at Prop19@saccounty.gov.
• An heir has one year from the date of death to move in and file the homeowners’ exemption, and three years to file the exclusion claim.
• The Assessed Value Look-Up tool returns the factored Proposition 13 value every calculation starts with.
• Assessment appeals run July 2 through November 30, or 60 days from a supplemental bill.

Get Your Sacramento County Filing Right

Talk to Bart. Bart Hubbard works with buyers and sellers throughout the Sacramento area, and he can tell you what to file, when, and what a property will cost you to hold. Reach out at Prop19Hero.com.

Read the book. Prop 19 Hero covers the filing process, the deadlines, and the traps that void the exclusion before the arithmetic ever matters. Find it on Amazon.