Assessment board to deliberate on whether 2005 deed triggered tax reassessment for Oxnard home

Ventura County Assessment Appeals Board No. 2 on March 17, 2025, heard competing evidence in an appeal by Jose G. Reveles that a grant deed recorded April 8, 2005, should not have been treated as a change in ownership for a house in Oxnard. After presentations from the applicant and the Ventura County Assessor's Office, the board closed the public portion of the hearing and sent the case to closed-session deliberations; the clerk will notify the parties of the board’s written decision.

The question before the board was whether the recorded deed created a legally cognizable change in ownership that would reset the property's base-year value for property-tax purposes, or whether the names removed and added on recorded deeds between 1989 and 2005 should be treated as “bare legal title” with no beneficial ownership change. The outcome will determine whether the 2021 lien date value under appeal stands or must be adjusted.

The applicant, Jose G. Reveles, represented in person by attorney Dionacio Costales, presented a packet of documents he said supported his claim that other family members listed on earlier deeds did not hold beneficial ownership. Costales and Reveles provided…