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California Tax Data
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Tel (949) 240-1520
Fax (949)240-1620
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| New disclosure
requirements usually create new problems and/or challenges;
For this one however, California Tax Data has the answers
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Senate Bill
1122,
was approved by the governor on October 9, 2000 |
| and basically amends the existing
Mello-Roos tax disclosure requirement to include additional
Assessment Districts that were formed under the 1915 Bond
Improvement Act that have levied assessments against the
subject property. |
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| These are over and above the standard county
tax that property owners pay on a yearly basis. The official
notices must contain, at a minimum, the current levy amounts,
start and ending dates for the assessment, and a list of all
facilities the monies are used for. |
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  Like
all disclosures, the buyer must review and sign the documents
prior to the close of escrow. The buyer does have a 3-5 day
right of rescission after receiving the information so its
suggested that the information be presented as soon as possible
after escrow has opened. What may be a problem for home sellers,
their representative agents, or other parties to the transaction
is the ability to locate, interpret, and present accurate
information to the homebuyer in a timely manner.
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Since the passage of proposition 13, many public agencies
have had to levy property taxes, without the benefit of an
administrative arm dedicated to property tax management. As
a result, public agencies like school and water districts
have their own tax levies, and yet are often poorly equipped
to handle disclosure requirements.
Similarly, in 1998, the Natural Hazard Disclosure Law was
passed, requiring sellers and/or their agents to provide location-based
hazardous condition information to the buyer.
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| The required information was
extremely difficult to locate and secure, much less interpret.
Luckily, the hazard disclosure industry was born and agents
were able to turn to third party vendors to provide this information
at an affordable cost. The 1915 Act Assessment District disclosure
is much the same. |
| Under the law,
the information is available, but terribly difficult to locate
and interpret. To comply with this new requirement, the seller
and/or their agents are responsible for: |
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obtaining current, correct tax data for
the subject property, |
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personally reviewing and interpreting the
data to determine if the property is located in one or more
of the special tax and/or assessment districts (some counties
have several hundred such districts), |
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locating the administering agencies, private
consultants, etc. that will provide an official "Notice
of Special of Tax or Assessment" on the subject property, |
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formally requesting the notice and paying
the up-front processing fees, and finally |
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returning to the same location in five
working days to pick up the official notice. This process will
need to be repeated for each separate district the subject property
lies in. |
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More than likely. It's almost a guarantee that the local
agencies will not in any way be equipped to handle the expected
several hundred requests per day to process this information
and have it ready for review within five working days, as
the law requires. And failing to comply with the new requirement
could easily lead to the obvious: Litigation filed against
the seller, his/her agent/broker, etc. for negligent or incomplete
disclosure when the buyer opens their first tax bill. This
new disclosure requirement could clearly be a headache.
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| Fortunately, you do. Several years ago,
Peter Placey began to take on the enormous task of compiling,
interpreting, and managing a database for every Mello-Roos and
Special Assessment district in California. He also developed
specialized expertise in complex bond funding and issuance through
an extensive background of work with local government agencies
and the public finance community. He soon founded the company
California Tax Data (CTD), a division of National Tax Data,
headquartered in Costa Mesa, CA. |
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| Home sellers and their agents can now
choose to avoid the hassle and potential futility of trying
to locate, secure and interpret the information from the vast
array of local and private agencies. By accessing CTD's online
reports, a home seller, agent, escrow officer, or any other
party to the transaction, can order and receive a completed
mandated tax disclosure report, including all official notices,
electronically in less than 24 hours to be printed out and ready
for the buyer's signature!
The report also includes helpful information
regarding the breakdown of tax rates, property tax descriptions,
information on the tax and/or assessment districts the property
is in, disclosure instructions, and more. The cost of the
report is $29.95, billable through escrow, which easily offsets
the associated costs of trying to track down and interpret
the information manually. The CTD website itself can answer
a lot of questions as it contains informative fact sheets,
important tax date reminders, a glossary of terms, and a list
of helpful links.
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