Proposition 13 prohibits property tax increases until property ownership is changed.

If either spouse is over age 55 (when the old home is sold), PROP 60 allows replacement of a primary residence with a new home of equal or lesser value (but see below) within the same county and transfer of the Prop 13 assessed valuation from the old home to the new property. This is allowed once in your lifetime, if a spouse has done it before then the other spouse is prohibited from transferring his or her base.

PROP 90 allows counties to elect to accept transfers of Prop 13 values for moves from other counties when a primary residence is replaced with a less expensive (but see below) home. If you are over 55 and move into a county which accepts Prop 90, you may take your old, lower Prop 13 value, regardless of from which county you move.

Using Prop 90, you can sell your $400,000 Alameda home [assessed value $80,000] and move to a new $300,000 home in Alameda and the new Alameda assessed value will be $80,000!

7 COUNTIES WHICH ACCEPT PROP 90 (Current as of 6/1/2005)
*Alameda, *Los Angeles, *Orange, *San Diego, *San Mateo, *Santa Clara, and *Ventura. accept Prop 90. Contra Costa, Inyo, Kern, Riverside, Modoc, Monterey, and Marin have dropped out of the Prop 90 program.
Props 60 and 90 apply if you purchase a home at an equal or lesser value than your old home.

If you purchase the New Home First then sell the Old Home, you must go down price.
If you sell the Old Home first then buy the New Home:

· In the first 365 days after the sale of Old Home, you may go up 5% in the purchase price of New Home.

· If you buy New Home more than 1 year from the sale of Old Home, but less than 2 years, you may go up 10%.