Summary of San Diego Property Taxes


Many people get caught up in the excitement of finding a new home in San Diego and totally forget about the added secondary costs when finalizing a purchase price. Property taxes have been known to bankrupt people and many of us have heard the stories in the news where a relative is left a big home by their deceased auntie only to find out they cannot afford the upkeep and taxes. It seems odd that property taxes could play such a pivotal role in purchasing a home but in reality the taxes must be one of the deciding factors when choosing a property in San Diego.

Property taxes are based on an area's overall appearance, type of public services installed such as city water, sewage or garbage collection and the size of both the property and the buildings on the property. Roughly speaking if you wanted to know in advance the San Diego property taxes in a particular neighborhood, the amount is about one percent of the assessed value of the home. So a home costing $250,000 would owe yearly property taxes of approximately $2500.

But property taxes can change and do change on an individual basis for various reasons. For example, National City, the second oldest city in San Diego County, agreed to increase their property taxes in order to fund the takeover of schools from another district. On the opposite side of the fence, some residents in San Diego County were given a property tax break due to the hardships caused by the wild fires late last year.

Further, some properties are given "historic property status" through The Mills Act, which may allow homeowners as much as seventy percent discounts on property taxes in San Diego City. Finding a home that is deemed to be of historic value or having a home declared historic would be a windfall for the owners. Their contract would be set for ten years and automatically renewed unless it was canceled in the interim.

Other property tax reductions that are available to homeowners in San Diego are the homeowner's exemption for owner-occupied residences, the Disabled Veteran's exemption, a reassessment of the property valuation and specialty California State programs for senior citizens.

Payments are due in two installments in November and February and late penalties continue to accrue until the outstanding debt is paid. For those that do not take their taxes seriously in San Diego, The San Diego County Treasurer-Tax Collector may at some point put up for auction the properties upon which taxes are in default. Technically, after the fifth year of non-payments, the county is legally able to auction the defaulted property. County employees do, however, look at each individual case and sometimes arrangements can be made to avoid the sale.