§ 1268.440.Refund of Taxes Paid On Exempt Property

When property becomes tax-exempt because of an eminent domain acquisition, taxes paid on it before the exemption kicked in need a path back to whoever paid them. This section supplies that path by treating the situation as an ordinary erroneous-collection refund under the Revenue and Taxation Code.

If taxes were paid on property that qualifies as exempt property, and those taxes would have been subject to cancellation had they gone unpaid, the law deems them erroneously collected and refundable under the Revenue and Taxation Code's refund procedure, payable to whoever paid them.

The wrinkle here involves reimbursement. If the public entity reimbursed the defendant for those taxes through a cost bill filed in the eminent domain case under § 1268.430, the public entity -- not the original owner -- is treated as the person who paid the taxes, and it's the one entitled to the refund claim. To support that claim, the public entity has to attach a copy of the cost bill showing the reimbursement, or a declaration under penalty of perjury confirming reimbursement occurred. Refunds under this section aren't limited to the secured roll; taxes paid on either the secured or unsecured roll qualify.