How to Fill Out the PCOR: California Preliminary Change of Ownership Report

To fill out the PCOR — California’s Preliminary Change of Ownership Report, form BOE-502-A — enter the property and party information in the header, check any exclusion boxes in Part 1 that fit your transfer, answer the transaction questions in Part 2, disclose the price and financing terms in Part 3, and file the completed one-page form with the County Recorder at the same time you record the deed. The transferee (the person or entity receiving the property) is the one who signs and files it.¹

Filing the PCOR is technically optional, but skipping it costs an extra $20 recording fee and almost always brings a longer follow-up questionnaire from the County Assessor. Fill it out thoroughly the first time and you avoid both.

What to Gather Before You Start

Have these in front of you before opening the form:

The Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN), which appears on prior tax bills, on the recorded deed, or through the county assessor’s online parcel search.
Full legal names and addresses of the transferor (seller or grantor) and transferee (buyer or grantee), exactly as written on the deed.
Financial details: total purchase price, down payment, new loans, assumed loans, seller carryback financing. For a gift or inheritance, the date of the gift or the date of death.
The type of transfer: sale, inheritance, interspousal, parent-to-child, transfer into or out of a trust, and so on. This determines which exclusion boxes you check.
The deed or other conveyance document you are recording.

A blank BOE-502-A is available on your county recorder’s or assessor’s website, and the Board of Equalization publishes a sample.²

Header Section

The top of the form asks for the property’s street address or physical location, the APN, and the names of buyer and seller. Two checkboxes here matter more than they appear. The first asks whether the property will be your principal residence; answering yes begins the process for the homeowners’ exemption. The second asks whether you are a 100-percent-disabled veteran compensated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which flags you for a separate property tax exemption.

There is also a field for the mailing address where property tax bills should be sent. If you leave this blank or wrong, your first supplemental tax bill can end up at the previous owner’s address.

Part 1: Transfer Information and Exclusions

Part 1 is a checklist of transfer types that may be excluded from reassessment.³ Check every box that fits your situation. Leave them all unchecked if none apply. Don’t check a box hoping for the best — the Assessor verifies each claim against the actual facts, and an unsupported claim just delays the process.

The boxes most PCOR filers use:

Box A, interspousal transfer. Adding or removing a spouse, death of a spouse, or a divorce settlement. Fully excluded from reassessment under Revenue and Taxation Code Section 63.⁴
Box B, registered domestic partner transfer. Same treatment as interspousal transfers.
Box C, parent-child or grandparent-grandchild transfer. Since Proposition 19 took effect on February 16, 2021, this exclusion requires the property to have been the transferor’s principal residence and to become the transferee’s principal residence within one year. It is capped at the property’s current taxable value plus $1,044,586 (for transfers between February 16, 2025 and February 15, 2027); any excess is added to the factored base year value. Rental properties and vacation homes no longer qualify. The transferee must file for the homeowners’ exemption within one year and submit an exclusion claim within three years.⁵
Boxes E and F, base year value transfer for homeowners 55 or older or severely disabled. Under Proposition 19, eligible homeowners can transfer their existing tax base to a replacement home anywhere in California, up to three times.⁶
Box H, name correction. Correcting a name on title, such as after marriage, without changing ownership.
Boxes I, J, and K, lender or security interest changes. Refinances, adding a cosigner for financing, or substituting a trustee on a deed of trust.
Box L, revocable trust transfers. Transferring property into or out of a revocable living trust where the transferor is the beneficiary.

Even if you believe your transfer qualifies for an exclusion, you still file the PCOR. The Assessor needs the form to evaluate the claim.

Part 2: Other Transfer Information

Part 2 covers the nature of the transaction. Indicate whether the transfer resulted from a foreclosure, a court order, or a deed in lieu of foreclosure. If the property was acquired through a trade or exchange, describe the other property involved. This section also asks whether the property is subject to a lease with a remaining term of 35 years or more, which triggers separate reassessment rules.

Part 3: Purchase Price and Terms of Sale

Part 3 asks for the money side of the deal. Enter the total purchase price, the down payment, any new first and second trust deeds, assumed existing loans, and any seller carryback financing. If personal property was included in the sale (appliances, furniture, business equipment), list its value separately so the Assessor doesn’t fold it into the real property valuation.

One question here regularly trips people up: whether the property was purchased through a broker, in a direct sale, or in a transaction with a family member. If you bought from a relative, below market value, or in any arrangement that isn’t an open-market sale, disclose the relationship. The Assessor compares your reported price against comparable sales to determine market value. Hiding a below-market family deal doesn’t save taxes — the Assessor will reassess at market value regardless, and the non-disclosure just invites scrutiny.

Do not leave Part 3 blank because your transfer was a gift or inheritance rather than a sale. The Assessor still needs to know whether any consideration changed hands, whether there was an outstanding loan balance, and what the property was worth at the time of transfer. A blank Part 3 essentially guarantees a follow-up questionnaire.

Filing the Form

File the completed PCOR at the County Recorder’s office in the county where the property is located, at the same time you present the deed for recording.² In most transactions, escrow or title handles this: the PCOR is stapled to the deed package and submitted together. There is no separate filing fee for the PCOR itself.

If the deed is recorded without a PCOR, the Recorder may charge an additional $20 fee.¹ That is a one-time charge at recording. The bigger consequence is that the Assessor will almost certainly mail you a Change in Ownership Statement (form BOE-502-AH) demanding the same information and more.

Common Mistakes

Most PCOR problems come from the same handful of errors.

Leaving the principal residence question blank in the header is the most frequent one. It costs you the homeowners’ exemption until you separately file for it, and it can affect which penalty cap applies if anything goes wrong later.

Entering the wrong APN — easy when a parcel has been subdivided or merged — sends your form to the wrong property file.

Checking Box C without meeting the Proposition 19 requirements is another common problem. A child who inherits a parent’s rental property and checks the parent-child exclusion box will see the exclusion denied and may face a supplemental bill reflecting full market value reassessment. Exclusions are not applied automatically because a box is checked; each is verified against the transfer’s actual facts.

What Happens After You File

The Recorder forwards the deed and PCOR to the County Assessor. The Assessor reviews your form to decide whether the transfer triggers reassessment. For most arms-length sales it does, and the Assessor sets a new base year value roughly equal to the purchase price or current market value. From there, annual increases are capped at 2 percent under Proposition 13.

A reassessment generates a supplemental tax bill covering the difference between the old and new assessed values, prorated from the first day of the month after the transfer through the end of the fiscal year on June 30.⁷ A close between January and May can produce two supplemental bills, one for the current fiscal year and one for the next. These arrive separately from the regular annual bill, and a lender escrow account typically doesn’t cover them.

If the Assessor finds your PCOR incomplete, unclear, or missing, you’ll receive a Change in Ownership Statement (BOE-502-AH) in the mail.⁸ You have 90 days from the mailing date to return the completed statement. Miss the deadline and the penalty is $100 or 10 percent of the taxes on the new base year value, whichever is greater. The penalty caps at $5,000 for properties eligible for the homeowners’ exemption and $20,000 for those that are not.⁹ On a $1.5 million reassessment at a roughly 1.1 percent effective rate, 10 percent of the tax comes to about $1,650, well above the $100 floor. A thorough PCOR is the simplest way to never see the BOE-502-AH.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code RTC 480.3 – Change in Ownership Reporting
2
California State Board of Equalization. BOE-502-A Preliminary Change of Ownership Report
3
San Diego County Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk. BOE-502-A Preliminary Change of Ownership Report
4
California State Board of Equalization. Legal Entity Ownership Program – Exclusions
5
California State Board of Equalization. Proposition 19
6
California State Board of Equalization. Proposition 19 Base Year Value Transfer Guidance
7
California State Board of Equalization. Supplemental Assessment
8
California State Board of Equalization. BOE-502-AH Change in Ownership Statement
9
California Legislative Information. California Code Revenue and Taxation Code RTC 482