Prop TE and the Palisades Lot Sale: What Changes After Nov. 3, and When

In July 2026, the lot at 15300 Antioch Street sold for $5.9 million. A few months earlier, 906 Glenhaven Drive traded for $6.6 million in February, and 14948 Camarosa Drive sold for more than $7 million in March. According to The Real Deal, L.A. County's Palisades Fire damage map lists all three homes as completely destroyed. All three sales were large enough to fall under Measure ULA, the City of Los Angeles transfer tax often called the "mansion tax."

Proposition TE is on the ballot this coming Tuesday, Nov. 3. Most of the coverage treats it as a switch that flips on Election Day. Under the measure's text, the exemption runs from Jan. 7, 2025 through Jan. 6, 2030, and ULA paid before the measure takes effect can be refunded. If TE passes, a sale that closed last spring has the same chance at relief as one that closes next spring. What sets the outcome is who owned the property on the morning of the fire and what the Department of Building and Safety has on record about it.

The exemption stays with the original owner

ULA currently adds 4% to transfers above $5.4 million and below $10.9 million, and 5.5% to transfers of $10.9 million or more, for deals closing after June 30, 2026. That's on top of the city's 0.45% base transfer tax, according to the L.A. Office of Finance. Prop TE would remove the ULA portion for a sale only when every one of these conditions in the proposed Section 21.9.17 is met:

1. The property is residential and was damaged or destroyed by the Palisades Fire in January 2025.
2. The Department of Building and Safety has verified the damage or destruction.
3. The seller owns the property.
4. The seller also owned it on Jan. 7, 2025.
5. The property has not already received this exemption.
6. The property isn't already exempt from the base transfer tax for some other reason.

Conditions four and five matter most for buyers. If an investor buys a burned lot from the family that owned it on fire day and resells it in 2028, the investor wasn't the owner on Jan. 7, 2025, and the property may already have used its one exemption on the first sale. Under the text, that second sale owes ULA like any other sale above the threshold. Prop TE relieves the households living through the fire. It does not make Palisades land exempt from the tax.

The scope is also narrower than "the Palisades." A standing home with no damage verified by Building and Safety doesn't meet condition two, whoever owns it.

What the ballot text leaves open

The measure says "damaged" has the same meaning it has in Section 16.03 of the Municipal Code. It doesn't define "destroyed." It requires the seller to have been the owner on Jan. 7, 2025, but it doesn't address property held in a trust, an LLC, or an estate passing to heirs.

Many Westside properties are held in one of those forms. If title has changed hands since the fire through a death in the family, a transfer into a trust, or a reorganized entity, the plain text doesn't settle whether the seller of record still counts as the fire-day owner. Some of the debate before the vote turned on this point. LAist reported that one council member opposed placing the measure on the ballot and argued the exemption should not apply to "LLCs, investors or people with a portfolio of properties," and that the council chose not to write that limit into the ordinance.

Sales that already closed are covered

The refund clause is why the calendar matters less than it seems. If TE passes, the Director of Finance may refund ULA paid before the measure takes effect, "in the manner provided in Section 21.9.10." The text says that any time limits in that section "shall not start to run until the effective date of this section."

Section 21.9.10 is short. It sends documentary transfer tax refund claims to Chapter 5 of the California Revenue and Taxation Code, starting at Section 5096. Under Section 5097, the claim has to be verified by the person who paid the tax or by that person's guardian, executor, trustee or administrator. The general filing deadline is four years from payment, with some later-of alternatives and exceptions written into the statute. The measure doesn't name a specific form or filing office for TE refunds beyond those cross-references.

The person who pays ULA isn't always the person TE was written for. If a purchase contract shifted the tax or other seller costs to the buyer, the refund claim belongs to the party that actually paid. That makes the escrow paperwork on every 2025 and 2026 lot sale above the threshold worth pulling out now.

The weeks between the vote and the law

TE passes with a simple majority. A majority on election night still doesn't put it in effect that night. The County's revised election calendar for the Nov. 3 election sets out these dates:

For a consolidated municipal election, City Charter Section 404 has the City Council declare the result after the County canvasses and certifies the city's measures. The measure refers to an "effective date" but doesn't set one, and no Council date for declaring this result has been published. The best estimate for the earliest effective date is sometime after late November, and it stays an estimate until the Council acts.

That gap matters less than it would under an ordinary tax change. A qualifying seller who closes in November and pays ULA at closing would, under the text, look to the refund route instead of the exemption at closing.

Why the threshold has shaped Palisades prices

Since ULA took effect, sales near the line have bunched below it. One Westside brokerage's MLS analysis of single-family sales in Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and Venice, through Oct. 1, 2026, found that none of 97 post-ULA sales near the lower threshold closed just above it. Forty-six percent closed within $50,000 below it, and 13 within $1,000. That analysis pools three neighborhoods and spans several years, so it describes the Westside pattern, not burned lots specifically.

The Palisades has paid a lot of this tax. The Real Deal reported that since ULA began in April 2023, ZIP code 90272 had 147 single-family sales generate $68.2 million in tax, based on city data through June 2026. Only Brentwood's 90049 and the 90077 ZIP covering Bel Air, Holmby Hills and Beverly Glen contributed more. A separate compilation of the same city records counted 47 taxed single-family transfers in 90272 from January 2025 through May 2026, totaling about $24.7 million. It also found that monthly taxed transfers fell from about 4.7 before the fire to about 2.9 after.

For a qualifying seller, Prop TE removes the reason to price a lot at $5.39 million. For everyone else in 90272, that incentive is unchanged. This includes resales by post-fire buyers, standing homes without verified damage, and sellers who can't show fire-day ownership. If TE passes, the comps for a burned lot and an intact home on the same street could start following different rules about where the price lands.

Mayor Karen Bass has described the problem from the other side. The Palisadian-Post reported in October 2025 that she said buyers were building ULA into below-market offers, which sellers could reject, leaving lots and homes unsold. City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo puts the cost of TE at $35 million to $66 million in lost ULA revenue through January 2030. That range is based on the average ULA paid per eligible Palisades transaction, rebuilt homes listed for sale as of July 2026, and vacant-parcel sales since the fire. The high end assumes the number of transactions doubles. By comparison, LAist reported that ULA raised close to $548 million in the last fiscal year.

The measure's supporters include Mayor Bass, Councilmember Traci Park, the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building & Construction Trades Council and the Pacific Palisades Community Council. LAist reported that no official argument against it was submitted. When the council advanced TE in July, Park said her constituents are not selling "because they want to," according to the same LAist guide.

Quick answers

Does Prop TE apply to the City of L.A.'s base transfer tax? No. The text applies only to the Homelessness and Housing Solutions Tax, which is ULA.

If I bought a burned lot in 2025, can I use the exemption when I sell? Under the text, the seller must have owned the property on Jan. 7, 2025, and the property can't have been exempted before. A post-fire buyer doesn't meet the first condition.

What if TE fails? ULA continues to apply at the rates the Office of Finance publishes, now $5.4 million and $10.9 million for closings after June 30, 2026, with no fire-related exemption.

This post is general information about a ballot measure and the laws it references. It isn't legal, tax or financial advice. If you own or are considering a fire-affected Palisades property, confirm your situation with a tax professional or real estate attorney.

If you owned a Palisades home on Jan. 7, 2025 and are deciding whether to sell, rebuild or wait for the vote count, Team Stacy White can help you collect the ownership and Building and Safety records that TE eligibility depends on. We can also show you how burned-lot comps compare to intact-home sales on your street.