Love’s Labor Costs: load-bearing advice for your love-hate relationship with your home.
Dear Dylan,
My neighbor says if we add a bedroom, the county will reassess our whole house and our property tax will triple. Should I just live with three kids in two bedrooms forever?
Signed, Prop 13 and Proud in Sunnyvale
Dear Proud,
Tell your neighbor to put down the pitchfork. In California, only the new construction gets added to your assessed value. The rest of your house keeps its original Prop 13 base. So yes, your bill goes up, but only for the part you built.
Normal repairs and like-for-like replacements, like a new roof or new cabinets, usually don’t get reassessed at all. Solar, qualifying seismic retrofits and some accessibility upgrades are excluded by law.
Your kids deserve doors. Your county assessor can answer questions about your exact project.
— Your friendly neighborhood contractor (a builder, not a tax advisor)
Read more: Will my property taxes go up? in our Home Additions FAQ.
Love’s Labor Costs is written by Dylan Bertet, owner of Build Better Properties, a Bay Area design-build contractor (CSLB #1077286). Letters are made up for fun; the answers are real. Got a question? Send it in, and it might end up in the column.