Board holds informational hearing on LA County wildfires; assessor requests statutory flexibility for disaster claims

The Board of Equalization held an informational hearing Feb. 19 focusing on wildfire damage in Los Angeles County, property‑tax relief available under current law, and proposed statutory fixes to help homeowners, businesses, schools and nonprofits rebuild.

Assessor presentation and scope of damage

Jerry House, speaking for Los Angeles County Assessor Jeff Prang, told the board the assessor’s office is treating affected properties as a high priority and has deployed forms, resource‑center staffing and automated review tools to speed reassessments. House gave these figures: the assessor’s damage identification and inspection activity covers roughly 21,000 parcels in fire perimeters; the assessor estimates about $22,500,000,000 in land value plus roughly $11,000,000,000 of improvement value for an approximate total assessed value affected of $33,000,000,000.

Current programs and proposed statutory changes

- Misfortune and Calamity claims: Under current law homeowners with at least $10,000 of damage must file within 12 months to seek reassessment. The assessor’s office said it can remove improvement value and, in many cases, reduce land value while owners rebuild. House asked for legislative flexibility — for example extending the filing deadline from 12 months to 24 months and extending the allowed rebuilding window (the period during which a homeowner may reconstruct and retain a transfer base) from five to eight years.

- Decline-in-value reviews: House said the office will accept decline-in-value claims where market value falls below assessed value, but noted that statutory lien-date rules (Jan. 1) limit application timing; fire damage that occurred after the lien date can require legislative relief to be valued on the date of loss.

- Welfare-exemption / nonprofit properties: House told the board that religious, charitable and hospital properties damaged or destroyed remain difficult under current law because an exemption applies only while the property is used for the qualifying purpose. He asked for temporary extensions of those exemptions while a facility is rebuilt.

- Outreach and logistics: The assessor’s office said it has set up online misfortune-and-calamity filing, staffed local disaster-recovery resource centers, worked with FEMA local assistance centers and has begun an automated valuation batch process that could handle substantial portions of cases (the office estimated automated reviews would allow completion of an initial tranche of thousands of parcels starting in April).

Legislative participants and local government input

- Sen. Benjamin Allen (D) described elements of a senate package to expand disaster relief available through statutory changes: extending misfortune-and-calamity claim windows, lengthening base‑year transfer periods, temporarily preserving property‑tax exemptions for certain damaged nonprofit properties, and other measures. Allen said the senate package currently contains a set of bills and invited BOE engagement on tax‑policy items.

- Sen. Sasha Renee Perez (D) said she is working with the assessor and other legislators on bills to waive back taxes and penalties for multigenerational homeowners who had not recorded changes of ownership prior to the fires (a problem the assessor identified in some Altadena neighborhoods) and to extend protections such as commercial insurance moratoria.

- Santa Monica Mayor (identified in the record as Mayor Negret) described local economic harms: traffic and road closures affecting businesses, beach closures caused by ash and sediment runoff, hotel cancellations and the need for federal and state outreach to support small businesses and displaced students. She urged quick access to grants, SBA and FEMA resources and asked that state and federal programs adapt to local business and resident realities.

Board discussion and requests

Board members pressed assessors and staff on outreach strategies, timelines for automation, coordination with county treasurers on tax‑payment deferrals and the need for statutory changes to address the Jan. 1 lien‑date issue when a disaster occurs very close to the lien date. The board asked staff to work with assessors and legislators to identify specific statutory language for requests such as extending filing windows and clarifying valuation dates.

Numbers and next steps

- Assessor estimate: roughly 21,000 parcels in fire perimeters; combined assessed value approximately $33 billion (representing land and improvements).

- Filing windows requested for change: extend misfortune-and-calamity claims from 12 to 24 months; extend rebuilding/transfer window from five to eight years; allow assessor discretion to set the appropriate damage date when events unfold across multiple days.

- The board asked staff to help draft clarifying guidance and to coordinate with legislators and county assessors on statutory fixes.

Provenance: The presentation and subsequent questions are recorded in the BOE transcript. (Representative quote from Jerry House: “The number of structures identified in the burn area consists of 21,000 parcels... The assessed value of those properties consists of $22,500,000,000 of land value... and improvement value for a total assessed value of approximately $33,000,000,000.”)