Just declare ALL of California a disaster area.
![]()
Just declare ALL of California a disaster area.
![]()
not so; certainly not in Ga, nor can i imagine it would be in any state, though there are always some minor differences b/n states.
Taxes are owed on the value of the property, including any house thereon. In the vast majority of cases the house will be worth far more than the land. if the house is destroyed by fire, the tax assessor is supposed to reassess, or the landowner can demand a reassessment, and the new value of just the land in that case will be what is taxed. the taxing agency will lose out. the fix is to either raise the ad valorem rate or reduce spending.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Ronald Reagan
Your mansion in Pacific Palisades miraculously escaped fire but the rest of the neighborhood looks like Gaza or Ukraine. What’s the assessment 2024 vs 2025? The same or lower?
The inane solution to this question and all the others is gonna be incomprehensible to the rest of America.
The state funded insurance solution will no doubt have some San Bernardino plumber’s taxes subsidizing a Malibu beach front palace’s rate.
This message brought to you by the California Board of Tourism and the LA Olympic Committee 2028
There are a lot of factors going into property tax that make zero sense, including some voted on by taxpayers ie schools and services.
Last house I flipped had a ridiculously high property tax for a relatively shitty area.
Now I sold that house for more than double and they then reassessed value so person who bought house saw a tax more than double of the ridiculous high I was paying. Unsustainable.
Tax in new place I am rehabbing started out less than half of old place but has been creeping up. With all rehab done and sold will be outrageous but at least in a neighborhood more worthy than last.
My final stand will be land and small living structure with nominal tax.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Ronald Reagan
I was wondering about the tax implications of rebuilding a home in the Palisades. Property taxes in CA are based on land value and improvements at the time of purchase. If you tear down and build something new on the land, it's reassessed at the market value. New construction additions are reassessed for the new square footage only, not the entire property.
Prop 13 locks in valuation increases at a max of 2% annually. Taxes are 1.2% I believe. So if you purchased your home in say 1950 for 50k and never sold or improved with new construction (ie tear down or addition) your taxes are based on a valuation of around 200k. (I know Prop 13 didn't go into effect in 1950 but let's just say for arguments sake this is the case.)
Obviously the homes in the Palisades are worth exponentially more than that now. So if all of the houses are rebuilt and the valuations are reset, that's an enormous windfall for the county assessor assuming the reassess all new construction at current value. I'm wondering if there will be any exemptions here.
Helpful tip- I’m in Laughlin, NV right now and listening to KNX 1070’s 24 hour fire coverage. They are pretty detailed and offering lots of info and updates.
The concept of “Prayers For Druff” is funny. Nobody wants to pray for Druff.
I respect his intelligence and radio ability but (I believe) Druff hasn’t had a real job for 25 years and is living off a lucky 1-2 million he won in 2002 during the salad days of online poker(?). Good for him, I guess. Right place, right time. But is he the laziest, most-often-sick human alive?
(I don’t believe he currently makes a living wage playing limit poker against crasians at Commerce/The Bike.)
I have to imagine there is a mechanism to deal with this. For example, let's say an entire city didn't burn down. Let's just say it's one house.
That person might take awhile to rebuild, at which point the taxable value of the property is less. Then, when they rebuild, it would be reassessed. However, for prop 13 purposes, I'd have to imagine that it goes back to the old cap (the last time taxes were paid pre-fire, with 2% added per year). As Jayjami said, the only exception would likely be if the rebuilt house substantially changed in size.
It would be really bad optics for the county to dodge prop 13 restrictions through this technicality. They'll probably be fairly lax regarding this matter, even if there's no legal mechanism guaranteeing protection.
Power came on at about 1:25am today. It went out on Monday at around 11am -- about a 62.5 hour shutoff.
I have now spent 32% of 2025 with no power.
The 116.5 hours with no power in January 2025 is more than the total number of ours I've had in outage in my entire lifetime prior to November 2024.
Tons of food has been ruined, even with my efforts to fill 4 coolers with ice.
One refrigerator was also ruined, but a Russian is coming today to fix it for free. Fortunately the power came on just in time for that, or otherwise I'd have to reschedule again.
Here is a question for the power block experts here...
I am very happy with my new Anker Solix F1200 power block.... EXCEPT... it seems to be running at half capacity.
It says it provides 1229 watt hours of power. However, even its own display indicates I get half that. For example, if I am running 30w worth of devices, it will tell me I have a little over 20 hours of power (and this seems to be accurate). It should be 40.
Has anyone seen anything like this, or do I just have a defective unit? I put in a question to the manufacturer about it. This half capacity forced me to spend more time in Starbucks recharging it than I cared to do.
The setup he's showing is $4699: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Batteri...0DFPHLL3N?th=1
And it's $2099 for every additional backup battery you expand it with (up to 6 total, meaning 5 more).
I am going to do something, because this is getting outrageous. Obviously I can't spend 1/3 of every late fall and early winter in power outages.
However, I don't want to lay out 5 figures for what is only a partial solution. I am going to see if my house is able to have a Powerwall (there are certain requirements, which it may or may not meet). If not, I'll see if there's something similar I can get. The goal is to have some kind of whole home solution.
Sadly, a whole home solution lasting 1-2 days won't even be enough, as these recent outages have lasted 2-3 days, and one as long as 5 days isn't out of the question.
So ideally, I'll be getting a Powerwall with solar, which will cost me a lot of money, but it's important. Also, it's not throwing the money down a rathole, as it will save me on electricity during normal times, plus will increase the value of the house.
The recent power block I bought was around $700. That's only a temporary solution, as it's mainly good for powering internet and phone/computer devices, as well as quick high wattage ones like coffee makers. But I still sit with no heat and no appliances, which sucks.
Another one of these is possible for next week, though it probably won't be as long. It also may not happen at all, as the winds aren't forecasted to be as high.
After that, I might be good for awhile. The peak Santa Ana winds months are November-January. As I showed earlier, they're also possible in February and March, so I could easily have a few more outages before we get into spring.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)