How TICs Are Assessed in San Francisco (and How to Appeal One)

Tenancy-in-common ownership is a San Francisco specialty, and its property tax treatment confuses nearly everyone who owns one — including owners who've held a share for years. The core mechanics are actually straightforward once you see them.

One parcel, one bill, many base year values

A TIC building remains a single parcel for assessment and tax purposes. The county issues one annual secured tax bill for the whole building, reflecting the total of all the shares' assessed values.

But Proposition 13 operates on each fractional interest independently. When one TIC share sells, only that percentage interest is reassessed to market value. Everyone else's assessed value is untouched.

The result: a six-unit TIC where shares sold in 1998, 2009, 2015, 2021, and twice in 2024 contains six different base year values inside one parcel, each factored up at its own 2% annual pace from its own starting point. Two neighbors in identical units can be paying wildly different amounts — and both are correct.

Which is why allocation is the perennial TIC fight

Because the bill arrives as one number, someone has to divide it. And dividing it equally, or by percentage interest, is usually wrong — it makes long-held owners subsidize recent buyers, or the reverse.

The defensible method is to allocate each owner's share of the bill according to their own assessed value as a proportion of the parcel's total assessed value, plus their share of any direct charges. Your TIC agreement should specify the method; if it doesn't, this is worth fixing before it becomes a dispute.

Getting the inputs is the practical obstacle, and there's a solution most TIC owners don't know about: the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder's office will, as a courtesy, provide TIC co-owners with a break-out of each share's portion of the regular assessed value. Only one parcel receives the Notice of Assessed Value in July, so absent that break-out you're guessing. Ask for it — then allocate from real numbers.

The supplemental bill lag

When you buy a TIC share, the Assessor reassesses your fractional interest and issues a supplemental bill for the difference between the prior owner's value and yours, prorated from your purchase date.

The wrinkle specific to TICs: the Assessor may take a considerable time — up to four years — to catch up with a fractional-interest purchase. Until the supplemental is processed, you're being taxed at the previous owner's value.

This traps buyers. The bill feels wrong when it finally arrives, sometimes years later, and by then the money is long spent. If you bought a TIC share and your assessed value still looks suspiciously like the seller's, a supplemental is probably coming. Set the money aside. Escrow didn't cover it and your lender's impound almost certainly doesn't either. (How supplemental bills work.)

Your appeal rights

You can appeal, and the same rules apply as for any residential property:

• Regular assessment: July 2 – September 15, $120 fee in San Francisco.
• Supplemental assessment: 60 days from the notice's mailing date.
• Base year value: during the first year of enrollment's filing period or any of the next three.

Practical points specific to TICs:

Appeal your interest, not the building. You're contesting the value assigned to your fractional interest. Bring documentation of what you own — your deed, your percentage, and which unit your interest carries occupancy rights to.

Coordinate, don't consolidate. Your neighbors' base year values are independent of yours, so their assessments aren't your business and can't help you. But if several owners believe the whole parcel is over-assessed, filing separately in the same window with a shared comp analysis is efficient.

Claim the homeowners' exemption. A TIC share that's your principal residence qualifies, and it's the gatekeeper for the §167 burden-of-proof presumption at your hearing. (Why that matters.)

Comps: use TIC sales

This is where TIC appeals are won and lost. A TIC share does not sell for what a comparable condo sells for. The discount is real and well understood in the SF market, driven by:

• Fractional financing — historically more expensive and less available than a conventional condo mortgage, though dedicated TIC lenders have narrowed the gap.
• Shared liability for the building and, in some structures, exposure to co-owners' defaults.
• Group decision-making on maintenance, capital work, and refinancing.
• Condo conversion prospects, which materially affect value and have been sharply constrained by SF policy.
• Occupancy rights defined by agreement rather than by a recorded separate parcel.

So the strongest comparable evidence is recent arms-length sales of TIC shares in comparable buildings — ideally similar unit count, since a 2-unit TIC trades differently from a 6-unit. If the Assessor valued your interest off condo comps, that's a specific, arguable error, and it's often the whole case. Bring TIC sales and say plainly that condo sales overstate value for this form of ownership.

Where TIC sales are genuinely scarce, condo comps with a documented, market-supported adjustment are the fallback — but lead with the adjustment rather than hoping nobody notices. (Choosing comps that hold up.)

CompFinder pulls San Francisco sales near the January 1 lien date and screens on property type and characteristics, which is the input this analysis needs.

Before you file

Get the Assessor's break-out of your share's assessed value, verify the unit characteristics on file, confirm your exemption, and gather TIC sales near the lien date. Then check your date: San Francisco closes September 15. (The full appeal process.)

The Assessor-Recorder also publishes a factsheet on purchasing a TIC that's worth reading before you buy into one.