I'm not following. Postponing those taxes doesn't mean they don't need to get paid. I quickly googled it and saw "The deferment of property taxes is secured by a lien against the property which must eventually be repaid."
Which sounds like a recipe for... grandpa dies, grandma can't pay property taxes so defers it for 10 years. Grandma dies and whoever inherits the home needs to be pay a massive deferment (unaffordable?) or give up the home.
Not sure where this bizarre idea came about that people whose houses dramatically increase in value should:1) be able to avoid paying taxes on that value and 2) pass the house down, in whole, to their heirs without paying increased taxes.
The idea doesn't sound that bizarre to me. I'm not an expert or anything but as people grow older their earning potential slows down too. What if the neighborhood grows in value even though the retired homeowner hasn't made any changes to their home?
It sounds reasonable to me that a retiree with a conservative investment portfolio that is barely over/under inflation should be able to live out their remaining life in that home.
This is a bad situation if you want long-term neighborhood and cultural cohesion, though, because it encourages turnover (particularly among less affluent groups).
Yes, that's the point of postponing the taxes. The retiree can live out their remaining life in the home, and the taxes are due when their heirs inherit it.
Yea I guess that makes sense. Although inheritance is a change of ownership and the new owner would see the home re-assessed, no?
The other issue I see is that the deferment program is limited to very low income seniors (< $35k year or something like that). That's pretty low for a lot of places in the Bay Area which means not being able to go on road trips and do whatever it is seniors do in their twilight years.
because property tax is based on the value of the property, and your property is worth more too?
a different way of phrasing the question: is it fair that your new neighbor pays twice as much as you to support city services, just because they bought their place more recently?
