Trusts and estates in San Bernardino
Long-held family homes in San Bernardino often carry a very low Proposition 13 base, and families frequently plan to keep them as rentals.
What this looks like in San Bernardino
Those two facts sit badly together. Under current California law, the base carries forward only where the child occupies the home as a principal residence — so the moment the plan is to rent it out, reassessment at market value follows.
The reassessed property tax then has to be carried by the rent. That arithmetic is worth doing before the decision to keep the property is made, because it sometimes reverses it.
What gets examined
- Reassessed property tax modelled against realistic rent before deciding to keep
- Whether any heir will actually occupy the home as a principal residence
- Basis adjustment at death against the gain if the property is instead sold
Common questions
- We want to keep my mother’s San Bernardino house and rent it out. What changes?
- Renting it means no heir occupies it as a principal residence, so the parent-to-child exclusion does not apply and the property is reassessed at current market value. The new property tax bill is often several times the old one. Against that, the property receives a basis adjustment at death, which can make selling less costly than families expect. The comparison is worth running before committing.
- Do you serve clients in San Bernardino County as well as Riverside County?
- Yes. The office is in Riverside and serves both counties. The practical difference between them is administrative — each county has its own assessor, and transfer and exclusion filings go to the county where the property sits.
How trusts and estates works in full|Everything in San Bernardino
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