If your Woodland Hills home is worth substantially more than what you paid for it — and if you bought before 2000, it almost certainly is — the estate plan sitting in your filing cabinet may no longer do what you think it does. Proposition 19 changed the property tax rules. Long-term care costs are rising. And the window to address these things is open right now, while you have time and capacity. It does not stay open forever.
Woodland Hills is where I practice — and where I have practiced for thirty-five years. My office is on Victory Boulevard. My clients are your neighbors: longtime homeowners who bought in the 1970s and 1980s, raised families in the Warner Center corridor and the neighborhoods south of the 101, and now find themselves sitting on homes worth many times what they paid. They have adult children, aging parents, rental properties, and estate plans they haven't looked at since the second Bush administration.
The Prop 13 base on a Woodland Hills home purchased in 1985 might be $80,000. The current market value might be $900,000 or $1.2 million. Under the rules that existed before October 17, 2021, a child could inherit that home and keep the parent's property tax base. Under Proposition 19, that protection is now conditional — it requires the inheriting child to move in within one year and establish primary residence — and even then, appreciation above $1,000,000 over the prior Prop 13 base is still subject to reassessment.
That gap is the conversation I have with Woodland Hills families every week. Add a rental property or two, factor in the cost of skilled nursing care if something goes wrong, and the plan that made sense in 2008 may be significantly inadequate today.
Serving West Valley families from Woodland Hills
Combined probate fees on a $1M estate — without a funded trust
From Richard's office to most of Woodland Hills
Most Woodland Hills homeowners I meet have a home with a Prop 13 base from the 1970s or 1980s and a current market value well into the seven figures. The difference between what they paid and what the home is worth today — often $700,000 to $1 million or more — is exactly what Proposition 19 now exposes at death.
Under the current rules, the parent-child exclusion for the primary residence requires the inheriting child to move into the home within one year and make it their primary residence. Even then, the assessed value can only increase by up to $1,000,000 above the prior Prop 13 base. For a Woodland Hills home with more than $1 million in appreciation, part of the property will still be reassessed.
For homeowners with rental property — and Woodland Hills has a significant number of longtime rental owners — there is no parent-child exclusion at all. Rental properties are subject to full reassessment at current market value upon transfer to a child.
There are planning structures — coordinated LLCs and trusts — that work under a different set of California change-in-ownership provisions and can preserve the low Prop 13 basis across generations. The window to put these structures in place is before a transfer occurs, not after.
Skilled nursing care in Los Angeles County currently runs between $10,000 and $14,000 per month. Medicare covers rehabilitation, not custodial care. Private long-term care insurance, where it exists, often excludes or limits coverage for cognitive conditions. Most Woodland Hills families end up paying out of pocket — until the savings are gone.
Medi-Cal is California's program for covering long-term skilled nursing care once a person meets eligibility requirements. The rules are strict, but they are accompanied by a set of planning tools that, used correctly, can protect far more than most families realize. The single most important factor is timing.
One warning I give Woodland Hills homeowners more often 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 is trigger a Prop 19 reassessment that your children will carry for as long as they own the property. This is one of the most common planning mistakes I see, and it costs families in both directions.
Many Woodland Hills families already have a trust. What they often don't have is a funded trust — one where the deed to the house has been recorded into the trust's name, where financial accounts have been retitled, where 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 in thirty-five years of practice — and it is the reason I learned to practice the way I do.
California's probate threshold is $184,500 in gross assets — including real property at full market value, before any mortgage deduction. In Woodland Hills, where even modest homes regularly exceed $800,000, probate is a near-certainty without a properly funded trust. Combined statutory fees on a $1 million estate run to approximately $46,000.
When an asset does fall outside the trust — when timing makes a transfer impossible, or when an account was simply overlooked — there are tools available under California law, including the Heggstad Petition, that can sometimes bring those assets into the trust after death without a full probate proceeding. The documents have to be drafted correctly for this to work.
During my second year of law school, my grandfather passed away. He had a properly drafted trust. His estate still went through probate — because the assets had never been transferred into the trust. The documents existed. The plan had failed. That is the reason every plan I create is fully implemented before I consider the engagement complete.
— Richard M. Seff
Our Woodland Hills clients share a profile, though no two families are identical:
My firm does not operate on a traditional billable-hour model. Estate planning is a relationship, not a transaction, and it needs to keep pace with your life, your family, and the law.
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 with a clearer picture of where you stand.
A plan designed for your specific situation. Not a template. Woodland Hills families with rental properties need different planning than families with a single primary residence. Families with aging parents face different timelines than families planning for their own future.
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 it 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.
If your trust was drafted before October 17, 2021, and you own real property — particularly a home with significant appreciation above its Prop 13 base, or any rental property — a review is worth doing. Proposition 19 changed the rules for the specific and common scenario of a parent leaving a home or rental property to a child. You deserve to know whether your existing plan still accomplishes what you intend.
Possibly two separate problems. First, if the trust was drafted before October 2021, it was designed under different property tax rules. Second, many older California trusts used an A/B structure when federal estate tax thresholds were far lower than they are today. When the first spouse dies, the Decedent’s Trust in an A/B structure becomes irrevocable — the surviving spouse cannot change beneficiaries regardless of what has changed in the family. For many Woodland Hills couples, this structure no longer serves the purpose it was built for and may create complications it was meant to avoid.
Rental and investment property is treated differently from a primary residence under Proposition 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 Woodland Hills owners with rental properties, there are coordinated planning structures involving LLCs and trusts that can preserve the property’s tax basis using a different set of California change-in-ownership provisions. The structure needs to be in place before any transfer occurs.
Not necessarily — but the window narrows quickly, and capacity matters. A person needs 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 nursing home placement, there are still planning tools — they are more limited and require precise execution, but they exist. The honest answer is: come in soon. The cost of waiting is almost always higher than the cost of acting now.
Yes, meaningfully. 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 — 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 your plan now makes a material difference.
Estate planning is not priced like litigation. A foundational plan, a Prop 19 strategy, or a Medi-Cal planning engagement has a known cost established upfront. The cost of doing nothing — paying probate fees on a Woodland Hills home, watching a rental property 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 and gives you a clear picture of where you stand.
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.
