· 2 min read · Yuan Escusa
It is one of the most common moves in this part of the Valley. A family in Chatsworth, West Hills or Northridge wants more house and more lot, looks over the hill, and finds that Simi Valley delivers both. The 118 makes it a short drive. Schools are a frequent driver. On paper it is a simple trade.
What surprises people is what happens at closing, because the two sides of that hill are in different tax jurisdictions and the difference is not small.
Chatsworth is in the City of Los Angeles. Simi Valley is not.
Chatsworth, West Hills, Northridge, Canoga Park and Winnetka all sit inside City of Los Angeles limits. Simi Valley is in Ventura County and outside the city entirely.
That matters because a sale inside city limits pays two documentary transfer taxes rather than one:
- Los Angeles County documentary transfer tax: $1.10 per $1,000 of sale price
- City of Los Angeles documentary transfer tax: $4.50 per $1,000
Together that is about 0.56% of the sale price. A sale in Simi Valley pays the county rate only, roughly 0.11%.
On an $1,100,000 sale, the Chatsworth seller pays about $6,160 in transfer taxes. The same price in Simi Valley costs about $1,210. A difference of just under $5,000, for a house fifteen minutes away.
Above $5.4 million, the gap becomes enormous
That is the routine version. The dramatic version involves Measure ULA, the tax often called the LA mansion tax.
ULA applies only inside City of Los Angeles limits. Above $5,400,000 it adds 4% of the entire gross sale price, and above $10,900,000 it adds 5.5%. It is assessed on the full price, not the gain, and your mortgage payoff and original purchase price do not reduce it.
A $6,000,000 sale in Chatsworth carries roughly $273,600 in combined transfer taxes. The identical price in Simi Valley carries about $6,600.
Most homes in Chatsworth and Simi Valley are nowhere near that threshold, so for the majority of this corridor the practical number is the $5,000 difference above. But if you are selling a larger property on the Santa Susana side, it is worth confirming exactly which jurisdiction the parcel sits in before you set a price.
What to actually do about it
Confirm the jurisdiction from assessor records rather than the mailing address. Mailing addresses in this part of the Valley are frequently misleading, and a Chatsworth address does not always mean what people assume.
Then build the transfer tax into your net sheet from the start. This cost is not negotiable and it is not a surprise anyone should be discovering in the final week of escrow. You can run your own numbers with the net proceeds calculator, which applies the correct taxes automatically once you pick the area.
And if you are 55 or older, the more consequential question is not the transfer tax at all. It is whether you can carry your existing property tax assessment across the county line, which under Prop 19 you generally can. That is worth reading about separately, because it is usually worth far more than the closing costs discussed here.
Run your own numbers
Seller net proceeds calculator →