If your home in Calabasas is worth substantially more than what you paid for it — and most Calabasas homes are — the estate plan you set up years ago may no longer do what you think it does. Proposition 19 changed the rules. Long-term care costs are climbing. The window to fix these things is open while you have time and capacity. It does not stay open forever.
Calabasas sits in a particular position on the map of California estate planning. The homes off Mulholland, the older single-family neighborhoods south of the 101, and the gated communities in the hills were largely purchased before 2000 — many in the 1970s and 1980s. The Proposition 13 base on those homes is decades old. The current market value is, in many cases, two to four times higher. That gap is exactly what Proposition 19 now exposes when a property passes to the next generation.
I have spent 35 years working with West Valley families on exactly this question — how to pass property, protect assets from long-term care costs, and avoid the probate process that comes for families who never quite finish the planning they started. Calabasas families are a meaningful portion of that practice. Many come in through referrals from neighbors and friends. Almost all of them have the same three concerns: the house, the kids, and what happens if something goes wrong.
The year a typical Calabasas homeowner bought in
Typical appreciation gap on a longtime-owned home
From Calabasas to Richard's Woodland Hills office
Most Calabasas families I meet have a home with a Prop 13 base from decades ago and current market value well into seven figures. Under the rules that existed before October 17, 2021, a child could inherit that home and keep the parent's low tax basis. Under Proposition 19, that protection now requires the child to move in within one year and establish the home as their primary residence — and even then, the assessed value can only increase by up to $1,000,000 above the prior base before reassessment applies.
For a Calabasas home that has appreciated by $1.5 million or $2 million above its Prop 13 base, the math is not always in the family's favor. And for Calabasas homeowners with rental properties — which is more common than people realize — there is no parent-child exclusion at all for non-primary-residence property. Those rentals are reassessed at current market value upon transfer.
There are planning strategies — coordinated structures involving LLCs and trusts — that take advantage of a different set of California change-in-ownership rules to preserve the low Prop 13 basis across generations. The mechanics are precise. The window to implement them is now, not later. covers this in detail.
Calabasas is not exempt from the long-term care problem. Skilled nursing care in Los Angeles County currently runs between $10,000 and $14,000 per month. Medicare does not cover it beyond a limited rehabilitation period. Private long-term care insurance, where it exists, is often limited or excluded for cognitive conditions. Most families end up paying out of pocket — until they don't have any pocket left to pay from.
Medi-Cal is California's program for covering long-term skilled nursing care once a person meets the eligibility requirements. The rules are strict, but they are also accompanied by a set of planning tools that, used correctly, allow families to protect far more than most people realize. The single most important factor is timing. Families who come in before a crisis — while a parent is still managing day to day — almost always protect everything. Families who come in during a crisis do the best they can with the time they have.
One warning we give Calabasas homeowners more than any other: do not transfer your home to your children to qualify for Medi-Cal. The home is an exempt asset for Medi-Cal eligibility purposes. Transferring it does nothing for Medi-Cal. What it does do, in Calabasas, is trigger a Prop 19 reassessment that your children will live with for as long as they own the property. explains how this is actually done correctly.
Many Calabasas families already have a trust. What they often don't have is a fully funded trust — one where the deed to the house has actually been transferred into the trust's name, where the financial accounts have been retitled, where the LLC interests are properly assigned. A trust that exists on paper but was never used to retitle assets provides no probate protection. The family still ends up in court.
This is the single most common estate planning failure I see — and it is the reason I practice the way I do. Every plan we create at this firm is fully implemented before the engagement is considered complete. Documents drafted, assets retitled, accounts coordinated. Not a stack of paper handed across the desk with a handshake. A plan that will actually work when the day comes.
When something does go wrong — when an asset is left out of the trust, when timing makes a transfer impossible — there are tools available, like the Heggstad Petition under California law, that can sometimes still bring those assets into the trust without a full probate proceeding. The walks through how this works.
“I had a client sign his trust documents on May 2nd. He died the next day. The reason his family is not in probate today is that the documents were drafted correctly — and we were able to use them when it mattered most.”
— RICHARD M. SEFF
Our clients in Calabasas typically share a similar profile, though no two families are identical:
My firm does not operate on the traditional billable-hour model. Estate planning is not a single transaction — it is a relationship that continues as your life, your family, and the law change. Here is what to expect:
A first conversation, with no obligation. We talk through your situation — what you own, how it's titled, what you've already done, what concerns you most. You leave that meeting with a clearer picture of where you stand.
A plan designed for your specific situation. Not a template. Calabasas families with rental properties need different planning than Calabasas families with a single primary residence. Families with aging parents face different timelines than families planning for their own future. The plan reflects the actual facts.
Full implementation before we consider the engagement complete. Documents drafted, deeds recorded, accounts retitled, beneficiary designations coordinated. The plan is not finished when you sign the documents — it is finished when the plan can actually work.
An ongoing relationship. I still work with families I first met thirty years ago. Laws change, family circumstances change, real estate portfolios change. The plan needs to keep up.
Estate planning is not priced like litigation. The cost of a foundational plan or a Prop 19 strategy is known up front. The cost of doing nothing — paying probate fees on a million-dollar Calabasas home, watching a rental portfolio get reassessed because no plan was in place, depleting a lifetime of savings on long-term care that better planning would have protected — is harder to predict but generally much higher.
A first conversation costs nothing. Most Calabasas families who come in leave with a clearer picture of what they have, what is exposed, and what the path forward looks like. Some decide to engage. Some decide to wait. Either is a valid outcome — but you should know where you stand.
If your trust was drafted before October 17, 2021 and you own real property — especially a home that has appreciated significantly above its Prop 13 base, or rental property of any kind — a review is worth doing. The law changed in ways that affect a specific and common planning scenario, and you deserve to know whether your existing plan still accomplishes what you intend.
The Prop 19 parent-child exclusion for a primary residence requires the inheriting child to move into the home and establish it as their primary residence within one year. If your children are settled elsewhere and not planning to relocate, the standard exclusion does not apply to the home, and the property will be reassessed at current market value upon transfer. There are other planning structures that may help, but they require advance work. This is exactly the kind of situation where reviewing the plan now matters.
Rental and investment property is treated differently from a primary residence under Prop 19. The parent-child exclusion does not apply — rental property is subject to full reassessment at current market value when it transfers to a child. For Calabasas owners with one or more rental properties, there are coordinated planning structures involving LLCs and trusts that can take advantage of a different set of California change-in-ownership provisions to preserve the property’s tax basis. The structure needs to be in place before a transfer occurs, not after.
Not necessarily — but the window narrows quickly. Capacity matters: a person needs to be able to understand what they are signing for an estate plan to be valid. The earlier in the cognitive decline, the more options are available. Even in a crisis, where a parent is already in rehabilitation or facing imminent nursing home placement, there are still planning strategies — they are more limited and require precise execution, but they exist. The covers this in detail. The honest answer is: come in soon. The cost of waiting is almost always higher than the cost of acting.
Our office is in Woodland Hills, about fifteen minutes from most parts of Calabasas via the 101. The majority of our Calabasas clients come to us. Where circumstances require it — particularly when a client has mobility limitations or is helping an aging parent who cannot travel easily — we make arrangements. The first conversation can happen by phone or video before any in-person meeting, so you can decide whether it makes sense to come in.
A CPA’s expertise is in income taxes and current-year filings. Estate planning involves a different body of law — California property tax under Prop 13 and Prop 19, Medi-Cal eligibility under the Welfare and Institutions Code, trust and probate procedure, beneficiary protection structures, the SECURE Act’s treatment of inherited retirement accounts. There is meaningful overlap, and a good CPA and a good estate planning attorney work well together. But the planning itself — the trust drafting, the LLC formation, the asset retitling, the Heggstad petitions — is legal work that requires an attorney who practices in this area.
A first conversation is straightforward. We review what you own, how it’s titled, and whether your existing plan still does what you think it does — for the property you have, in the city you live in, under the law as it is today. No obligation. Just clarity.
