Los Angeles County holds an unusual concentration of families whose assessed property values date from the 1970s and 1980s and whose market values do not. That gap is the county’s defining planning problem: it drives what happens on transfer, whether an inherited house can be kept, and whether a rental still works as a rental. This page is about that, about the enclaves where it concentrates, and about how far we are from them.
Where high-net-worth families are in Los Angeles County
The old-money map of this county is a set of separate enclaves rather than one district. San Marino, around the Huntington Library and one of the state’s most sought-after school districts, where houses have passed within families for two and three generations. La Cañada Flintridge, up against the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Angeles National Forest. The four cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula — Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, and gated Rolling Hills, which has essentially no commercial zoning at all. Manhattan Beach and the beach cities to the north of it, where a meaningful share of household wealth arrives as restricted stock from the aerospace and technology employers of the South Bay rather than as salary.
West and north, the pattern changes. Brentwood and the Westside, where entertainment and professional income often flows through loan-out companies and partnership interests rather than a W-2. Calabasas and gated Hidden Hills, under two thousand residents and almost entirely residential, at the western end of the San Fernando Valley. Westlake Village on the Ventura County line. Malibu, where the planning conversation now includes wildfire risk, insurance availability and what a coastal property is actually worth to an heir who does not want to live in it. And two small ones closer to us: Bradbury, a gated city of fewer than a thousand people above Duarte, and La Habra Heights, large-lot and horse-zoned on the Orange County line.
Now the honest part. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Avenue in Norwalk, in the southeast of the county. La Habra Heights is about eight miles away and Bradbury a little over twenty. San Marino, Manhattan Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula are roughly twenty to twenty-five miles. Brentwood is about thirty. Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Westlake Village and Malibu are forty-five to fifty-plus, which on a weekday afternoon is a real journey in either direction. We are not on Wilshire and not in Century City, and we would rather say so than imply a presence we do not have. In practice this works by video for most meetings, in Norwalk when you want to see where the firm actually is, and at your kitchen table when the conversation warrants the drive — which, for a family meeting about a trust, it usually does.
What changes locally
Here is why this county is different, in one mechanism. Proposition 13 caps the annual increase in a property’s assessed value at 2% while it is held, so a house bought in San Marino in 1979 or on the Peninsula in 1984 carries a tax bill from that era, sometimes a small fraction of what a neighbour who bought last year pays for an identical lot. Los Angeles County has more of those long-held, high-appreciation properties than anywhere else in the state, and Proposition 19 changed what happens to them. The family home exclusion now generally requires the inheriting child to make the property their own principal residence, with filing requirements and a deadline, and it is limited by a value allowance where market value at transfer exceeds the existing assessed value. The exclusion that used to cover other property was eliminated outright — so the duplex in Long Beach, the strip centre in Whittier and the land in the Antelope Valley are generally reassessed to market value on transfer. The failure we see most often is not exotic: three siblings inherit the house, one intends to live in it and two do not, nobody files in time, and the reassessed bill arrives before the estate is settled. It is administered by the Los Angeles County Assessor under State Board of Equalization guidance, the value allowance moves with inflation, and it is legal territory — but the planning has a lead time measured in years and there is very little to be done afterwards. The full explanation · en español.
Two more county-specific facts worth having. First: within the City of Los Angeles — which includes Brentwood, the Palisades, Venice and Hollywood, but not San Marino, Manhattan Beach or the Peninsula cities — Measure ULA adds a transfer tax on high-value conveyances, currently 4% above roughly $5.4 million and 5.5% above roughly $10.9 million, on top of the ordinary documentary transfer tax. The thresholds are adjusted annually and the ordinance has been amended more than once, so confirm the current figures with the City of Los Angeles Office of Finance before any transaction; the point for planning is simply that a city line can change the cost of a sale by several hundred thousand dollars. Second, in the other direction: California imposes no estate or inheritance tax of its own, and there is no California gift tax — the state’s old pick-up tax has been zero since the federal credit it depended on was repealed. Families here routinely worry about a state estate tax that does not exist while missing the property tax event that does.
What we do about it
For families in these communities the work starts with an inventory, because the assets are usually scattered: a house held since before the children were born, one or two income properties, a brokerage account with decades of unrecorded basis, a retirement account whose beneficiary form was signed at a job left in 1998, and a trust in a binder nobody has opened. We read the trust, invest the accounts to what it says rather than to a house model, and check every beneficiary designation against the document — that last step is unglamorous and it is where we most often find something genuinely wrong. How we manage trust and estate accounts.
Then the property question, early. Which properties would qualify for the family home exclusion and which plainly would not; whether an heir actually intends to live in the house or is being assumed into it; what the carrying cost looks like at a reassessed value; and whether the answer is to keep it, sell it, or restructure it during life. We do not answer those questions alone — the transfer mechanics belong to an estate attorney and the return belongs to a CPA, and a family with a rental portfolio should have both. What we contribute is the money side: what the estate would look like liquid, what the reassessment costs annually, and which assets are the right ones to sell if cash is needed.
For South Bay households whose wealth arrived as restricted stock, the work is the concentration problem instead: establish basis lot by lot, plan the sales across tax years against California’s treatment of gains as ordinary income, use the lowest-basis shares for charitable gifts rather than selling them, and harvest losses elsewhere in the portfolio to absorb what you do realise. What harvesting can and cannot do.
The structures that apply: Trust & estate accounts, Cash balance, Donor-advised funds, QCDs, Prop 19 planning. The full guide for high-net-worth families goes through each one, and here is the same audience in Orange County.
Fifteen minutes, no charge
We are in Norwalk, which is inside Los Angeles County and minutes from the Orange County line. Come to us, we come to you, or we do it by video — evenings by video.
Your city
Los Angeles County has 88 incorporated cities and about 9.7 million residents. These are the ones where high-net-worth families concentrate, each with its own page:
- Financial advisor in Bradbury
- Financial advisor in Hidden Hills
- Financial advisor in Rolling Hills
- Financial advisor in Calabasas
- Financial advisor in Malibu
- Financial advisor in Brentwood
- Financial advisor in Westlake Village
- Financial advisor in La Habra Heights
All 89 cities we publish a page for →
Our fees, published
No competing advisor page in this area publishes its fees. Here are ours.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Investment management | 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year; Advisers may set a rate below the standard schedule, as low as 0%, at their discretion — and whatever rate applies to you is disclosed in writing before you engage. Our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5, states the fee as up to 2.00% of assets per year, subject to negotiation; the firm may waive all or part of it. Generally billed quarterly in arrears |
| Account minimum | No minimum account balance |
| Commissions and product fees | None — we are fee-only |
| Solicitor compensation | May be received or paid under disclosed arrangements |
| Initial conversation | Free, 15 minutes, no obligation |
Complete fee details in our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.
Questions
Our trust was drafted in 2009 and we have not looked at it since. Is that a problem?
It is at least a question. Between then and now the federal exclusion has changed more than once, California’s parent-child property tax rules were rewritten by Proposition 19, and the rules for inherited retirement accounts changed substantially. Beyond the law, the family has changed — marriages, births, a divorce, a house sold, a business started, an executor who has moved out of state. Old A/B trust formulas drafted for a much lower exclusion can now produce results nobody intends. We are not the ones to amend it; that is your attorney. What we do is read it against what you actually own today and flag the mismatches worth a call.
We hold a large position from one employer. Can you tell us whether to sell?
We can tell you what we would do and, because we are paid the same either way, you can discount our answer by nothing. What that looks like in practice is a written schedule rather than a verdict: basis established lot by lot, a target for how much of the household’s net worth should sit in one company, sales spread across tax years, the lowest-basis shares routed to charitable gifts instead of the market, and losses elsewhere used deliberately. If you are an officer, a director or otherwise subject to trading windows, the sequencing question gains a legal layer and belongs with counsel first.
Should we set up a donor-advised fund?
Possibly, and the case is strongest in a year with an unusually large income event. A donor-advised fund lets you make one irrevocable gift now — ideally of appreciated shares rather than cash, so the built-in gain is never realised — take the deduction in that year subject to the AGI limits, and recommend grants to charities over the years that follow. The bunching logic exists because the 2026 standard deduction is $32,200 for a married couple filing jointly: below that, itemised giving buys nothing, so several years of gifts concentrated into one can be worth more than the same total spread out. Two cautions. The gift is irrevocable — it is no longer your money and grants are recommendations, not instructions. And if you are over 70½ a qualified charitable distribution from an IRA is often the better tool, though it cannot be directed to a donor-advised fund. QCDs, explained.
Do we need to worry about federal estate tax?
Most families reading this do not, and the arithmetic is worth doing rather than assuming. The 2026 basic exclusion is $15,000,000 per person, and a surviving spouse can use a deceased spouse’s unused amount only if an estate tax return is filed to elect portability — which is the step families skip, sometimes because no return seemed necessary. Two things are worth remembering even well below the threshold. The exclusion is set by Congress and has changed direction repeatedly, so a plan built entirely around today’s number is fragile. And for most Los Angeles County families the transfer cost that actually shows up is the property tax reassessment, not the estate tax. The estate tax question itself belongs to your attorney and CPA.
Our house is on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and our children live out of state. What happens when we die?
On those facts, the family home exclusion is unlikely to be available, because it generally requires the inheriting child to occupy the property as their own principal residence within a filing window. If none of them moves in, the assessment is generally reset to market value on transfer, and for a Peninsula house carrying a base from the 1980s that can multiply the annual bill. It does not make the inheritance a bad thing — it makes it a decision that should be made in advance rather than discovered. The realistic options are to plan for a sale, plan for the higher carrying cost with liquidity available to pay it, or restructure during life with an attorney. The one option that does not work is assuming the old rules still apply.
We own a rental in Long Beach that has been in the family since the 1970s. Is it treated like the house?
No, and this is the change that surprises people most. Proposition 19 eliminated the separate parent-child exclusion that used to cover property other than the family home, so rentals, commercial buildings and land are generally reassessed to current market value when they transfer. A building bought in the 1970s and still assessed near that basis can become cash-flow negative overnight at the new assessment, which is precisely the moment heirs are least able to make a considered decision. Whether the answer is a sale, a refinance, an exchange or a lifetime restructuring is a question for your attorney and CPA — but run the reassessed carrying cost now, while there is still time to act on the number.
Is a firm in Norwalk really going to drive to Malibu?
When it matters, yes. For a first meeting, a family meeting with adult children, or a signing, we drive — and from Norwalk that is a genuine trip, which we plan around rather than pretend away. For ordinary quarterly work, video is better for everyone and is what most clients across the county actually use. What we will not do is claim a Westside or Valley presence we do not have. we maintain our principal office and it is on Rosecrans Avenue. If having your adviser twenty minutes away is a requirement, that is a legitimate reason to hire someone else, and we will say so on the first call rather than the fourth.
What does this cost, and is there a minimum?
There is no minimum to open an account. We ask for $50 a month of continuing deposits, because a plan you do not fund is not a plan. Investment management is 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year, billed quarterly, and it is published on the site — which is more than most firms in this market will tell you before a meeting.
Do I have to have a lot saved already?
No, and that is deliberate. Most firms set a minimum precisely to avoid people at the start of this. We built the opposite: $0 to open, and the same fiduciary standard whether the account is four figures or seven.
¿Atienden en español?
Sí. Atendemos en español, y buena parte de nuestro material existe en español, escrito originalmente, no traducido por máquina.