Property Tax Bills for Absentee Owners

Property tax bills go to the mailing address the county assessor has on file, not to wherever the owner happens to live, so an absentee owner who never updated that address can miss a bill that is still due. Not receiving a bill does not excuse a late payment: the Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector says plainly that it neither relieves you of paying on time nor lets the office cancel late penalties. The fix is to change the mailing address with the county assessor, in writing, and to check the bill online each fall instead of waiting for the mail.

This page is part of the Out-of-State and Absentee Owners section. It covers the bill itself; whether to sell, and how, is in selling a Southern California house from out of state.

Who sends the bill, and to which address

Two county offices are involved, and absentee owners often call the wrong one.

OfficeWhat it doesWhat to ask it for

County assessor

Sets the assessed value and keeps the mailing address on file

A change of mailing address

County treasurer-tax collector

Mails the bills and takes the payments

A copy of the bill, the amount due, the delinquency dates, payment options

In Los Angeles County, the Treasurer and Tax Collector says it keeps mailing tax information to the address on file until you update it with the Office of the Assessor. In San Bernardino County, the Assessor says its mailing address information is passed to the Treasurer-Tax Collector for mailing property tax bills, and that the Assessor's Office itself does not send out tax bills. Same rule in both counties: the assessor's address is the one that counts.

Why the address is often wrong for an absentee owner

The address on file is usually whatever was given when the deed recorded. San Bernardino County's Assessor says it takes the mailing address first from the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report filed with the recorded document, and uses it until the owner signs a request to change it. That is how bills end up at:

• the house itself, after the owner moved away and nobody lives there to open the mail;
• a parent's address, after the parent died and the house passed to children in other states;
• an old rental address, after the owner moved twice;
• a former property manager who no longer handles the house.

A house that sits empty with mail piling up is also a house that looks empty, which is a separate problem; see copper theft and break-ins at vacant houses.

The same wrong address catches city mail too, which is how a code case can run for months before the owner hears of it; see code notices mailed to a distant owner. And if you are selling, the tax bill is one of the first papers to gather; see step 1 of the remote sale workflow.

Changing the mailing address in Los Angeles County

The Los Angeles County Assessor's Change of Mailing Address form is ASSR-451. It can be mailed to the Assessor or sent by email, and the county's property tax portal says a request can also be filed online. The form says:

• only requests from the owner whose name appears in the Assessor's records are accepted;
• the form must be signed by the authorized person making the request;
• if the owner of record is a company, a legal entity, an estate or a trust, or the request comes from an agent of the owner, more supporting documents are required, listed on the Assessor's website.

That last point matters for heirs and trustees. If the house is still in a parent's name or in a trust, expect to show the paperwork that gives you authority before the address can move to you. What a successor trustee needs on paper is in selling a house from a trust.

Changing the mailing address in San Bernardino County

The San Bernardino County Assessor says mailing address changes may only be made by the owner of record or a pre-designated agent, and must be in writing. The written request needs the parcel number or the property address, the new mailing address, the signature and printed name of the owner or agent, and the date. It can be mailed or faxed to the Assessor's address-change desk, and change-of-address cards are available at the Assessor's offices. The Assessor's page did not list an online option when we read it.

Which county you deal with depends on the house, not on you, and the county line runs right through this part of the valley. A house in Claremont or La Verne is a Los Angeles County parcel. A house a few minutes east in Upland or Ontario is a San Bernardino County parcel, with a different assessor, a different tax collector and a different form.

If the bill never arrived

California's Revenue and Taxation Code section 2610.5 has the tax collector mail or electronically send a bill for each secured parcel every year, and says that failing to receive it does not remove the tax lien or prevent penalties. There is one exception worth knowing: penalties are cancelled if the owner shows the late payment was caused by the tax collector's failure to send the bill to the address on the roll. That exception protects you only when the address on the roll is right. If it is the empty house, the bill went where the county was told to send it.

What to do instead of waiting:

• Los Angeles County: the Treasurer and Tax Collector says annual bills are mailed through October and that you can view a copy online once it is available. The county's property tax portal adds that if the original does not arrive, you can contact the Tax Collector or the Assessor for a duplicate.
• San Bernardino County: use the Treasurer-Tax Collector's own site, sbcountyatc.gov, for the bill, the amounts and the payment options, and its office for anything you cannot find there.

Two installments, two delinquency dates

The Los Angeles County annual secured bill is paid in two installments, each with its own due date and delinquency date, and a penalty is added to each installment that is late, plus a cost on the second. The bill prints the dates, and the Treasurer and Tax Collector's site lists them. San Bernardino County's Treasurer-Tax Collector publishes its own dates; check them there. An absentee owner should put both delinquency dates in a calendar, not rely on the paper bill.

If the taxes stay unpaid past the end of the tax year, the Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector says they become defaulted and further penalties accrue, and the office auctions tax-defaulted properties that become subject to its power of sale. If you are behind, the tax collector can tell you exactly where the parcel stands. The selling side of that situation is on the unpaid property taxes page.

When your lender pays, and when it stops

If you have a mortgage with an impound account, the lender may be paying the taxes, and the Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector's FAQ points to a lender paying the taxes as the likely reason an owner gets an information-only statement instead of a bill. Look at your mortgage statement or ask the lender. If the loan has been paid off or the impound account closed, the bills are yours again, at whatever address the assessor has.

Supplemental bills come straight to the owner

A change of ownership or new construction can trigger a supplemental bill on top of the annual one. Both counties' pages say supplemental bills are mailed directly to the property owner and are the owner's responsibility. Heirs who just took title, and buyers of the house later, can both receive one. See supplemental property tax bills after a sale.

What happens to property taxes when you sell

Escrow sorts it out. Any installment that is due, and any unpaid taxes from earlier years, are paid from the sale proceeds at closing so the buyer receives clear title, and the tax collector gives the exact amounts. On both numbers in the written report, the as-is cash offer and the open-market read, unpaid taxes appear as their own line before the net, with every figure shown as a dash until the real amounts are known:

LineAs-is cash offerOpen-market read

Price

-

-

Unpaid property taxes and penalties

-

-

Current installment, as escrow prorates it

-

-

Net to you

-

-

Tax arrears alone rarely decide the route. If the house is in good condition and you have time and someone local to manage a listing, the open market often nets more, even with arrears paid at closing, and the written recommendation says so when it does. The open-market read is a preliminary estimate, not an appraisal. Questions about the tax amounts belong with the tax collector; questions about your own tax position belong with a tax professional.

What this looks like in practice

These are the kinds of files that come in, described without names or figures.

• A son in Arizona whose late mother's bills were still addressed to her at the house, with a delinquent installment nobody had seen.
• An owner in Nevada with an Ontario rental who paid off the loan, then missed the next bill because the impound account had been doing it for years.

Next step

Start with the out-of-state owner page or call (909) 498-3977. Send the address and your latest tax bill or the tax collector's statement if you have one. There is no cost and no obligation to get the two numbers and the written report.

Sources

• Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector, Secured Property Taxes Frequently Asked Questions (failure to receive a bill, mailing address, installments, penalties, impound accounts, defaulted taxes): ttc.lacounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• Los Angeles County Assessor, Change of Mailing Address form ASSR-451 (Rev. 5/26): assessor.lacounty.gov form, accessed November 6, 2026
• County of Los Angeles Property Tax Portal, General FAQ (address changes, duplicate bills, supplemental bills): propertytax.lacounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk, Change of Address Requests: arc.sbcounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk, FAQ: Why aren't you using my correct mailing address?: arc.sbcounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk, FAQs (tax bills, supplemental bills): arc.sbcounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Revenue and Taxation Code section 2610.5 (mailing the bill; failure to receive), copy read on california.public.law, accessed November 6, 2026

Mr. Cali Offers is not a tax adviser; the county treasurer-tax collector is the authority on amounts and deadlines. Cash offers come from independent buyers and investors who buy for their own account and may resell for profit; a cash offer is generally below what the open market would bring. Any value shown is a preliminary estimate, not an appraisal. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.