Liz Weston

Dear Liz: I read your column with some interest since I just had a client who received a life estate from his long-term partner. They neither married nor formed a registered domestic partnership, either of which might have saved my client some bucks.

The Los Angeles County assessor reassessed the property at its full value even though the remainder will go to my client’s partner’s children on my client’s death. The property was originally purchased in the 1970s. I’d like to think that I or any other estate planning lawyer could fashion a satisfactory work-around for this potential problem faced by folks who wish to give a life estate to someone without Proposition 13 protection and the remainder to someone with that protection.

Of course, one must always bear in mind that the tax tail should not wag the business dog, so a weighing of burdens and benefits is always in order in any plan.

Answer: Here’s another case where stinting on an estate planning attorney’s fee probably cost the heirs vastly more.

For those of you who don’t live in California, Proposition 13 limits property taxes to 1% of the assessed value, and assessments typically can’t increase more than 2% a year until the home changes hands. The lower “Prop. 13” value of a home can be inherited by the children, which means their tax bill would be a fraction of that owed by someone who purchased a similar property more recently.

Instead, the property in question lost its Proposition 13 protection and its tax bill more than tripled.