Williamson Act property owners will find a snapshot of their
home’s value in this year’s assessments
Gilroy – County residents will see an unusual number on property assessments arriving in the mail this week, one that could prove especially important for more than a third of beneficiaries of a tax break for agricultural preservation.
In past years, assessments sent to the 400,000-plus homes in unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County only contained the assessed value of a home. This year, the assessment notices will also contain the Factored Base Year Value – assessor’s jargon for a snapshot of a home’s value, adjusted for inflation, taken the last time it changed hands.
“Those people who purchased Williamson Act property in recent years will see a much greater increase than someone who purchased a long time ago,” Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone said. “If the original acquisition occurred a long time ago, the factor base year value would be when it was bought, plus up to 2 percent inflation for each year since.”
The figure serves as a starting point for calculating the greater tax load facing roughly 1,200 homes of the 3,000 beneficiaries of the Williamson Act, a state law that provides tax credits to people who preserve agricultural land.
Four years ago, an audit by the California Department of Conservation found the county had not been administering the law properly, allowing myriad subdivisions that made “farmers” out of rural homeowners who pocketed tax breaks – up to several thousand dollars a year – but didn’t engage in agriculture.
After a year of often raucous meetings overrun by aggrieved landowners, county supervisors adopted new guidelines to administer the act and are proceeding with “evictions”, or non-renewals of the contract granting the tax break.
Updated rules call for the eviction of all parcels that don’t meet the act’s minimum size requirements of 10 acres for prime land, which is suitable for most row crops and orchards, and 40 for non-prime land, which is typically used for ranching.
Homeowners can appeal their “non-renewal” with the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors between July 2 and Sept. 15. Such appeals trigger a four-year review period. If a home still does not qualify for a Williamson Act break at that point, the property owner must start paying taxes based on the factored year base value arriving in the mail this week.
For homeowners who do not appeal their Williamson Act non-renewal, the first tax bill reflecting the changed status will be due at the end of 2007.
Assistant Assessor Mary Solseng said the factored base year value is an important number for all homeowners, not just those getting kicked out of the Williamson Act. In many cases, family members transfer property without reporting that the transfer took place between a parent and child, or husband and wife.
Both transactions are protected from reevaluations that could dramatically increase tax bills, but the assessor has no way of determining which transactions qualify for the family exemptions. She said a quick glance at the latest notices will reveal major discrepancies between the assessed value and the factored year base value, allowing homeowners to alert the county to the need for adjustments.
The sooner a homeowner addresses the situation, the better, according to Solseng.
“If somebody had a change of ownership in 1996 and it’s 2006, we have to go back and recreate that (valuation),” Solseng said. “In the future, we’ll be providing this information on an annual basis so everyone can stay current.”
