Two houses in the same 90210 zip code, similar size, similar finish level, similar list price, can close escrow with tax bills that differ by six figures. The gap has nothing to do with the view, the school assignment, or the age of the roof. It comes down to a boundary the post office drew in the 1920s, decades before either house was built, and that boundary still decides who owes Los Angeles's transfer tax at closing.
Beverly Hills the city is exempt from Measure ULA, the transfer tax Los Angeles voters approved in November 2022 to fund affordable housing and tenant protections. It's its own incorporated municipality, separate from the City of Los Angeles, and the tax only reaches property inside LA's city limits. But a wide swath of the 90210 zip code was never annexed into that city. It's known as Beverly Hills Post Office, or BHPO, and it sits legally within Los Angeles. A home there that sells above the current thresholds owes the tax in full, the same as a listing in Los Feliz or Silver Lake, regardless of what the mailing address says.
How a mail route became a tax boundary
Beverly Hills incorporated in 1914 with a northern edge that ran roughly a mile north of Sunset Boulevard. The hillside land stretching further north toward Mulholland Drive stayed unincorporated Los Angeles for decades. In the 1920s, the federal government routed mail for that hillside area through the Beverly Hills post office, a practical fix for delivery on winding canyon roads that didn't follow a city grid. When ZIP codes rolled out nationally in 1963, the routing carried forward. The homes kept a Beverly Hills address and the 90210 code. They never joined the city.
That's why BHPO residents call the police and the fire department is the Los Angeles Fire Department, not Beverly Hills Police or Fire, and why public school assignment runs through the Los Angeles Unified School District rather than Beverly Hills Unified, though some parcels have petitioned into the Beverly Hills district over the years. The area is generally bounded by Mulholland Drive to the north, Sunset Boulevard to the south, Coldwater Canyon Drive to the east, and Beverly Glen Boulevard to the west, and it holds some of the most recognizable addresses on the Westside: Benedict Canyon, Coldwater Canyon, Beverly Crest, Franklin Canyon, and the gated enclaves of North and South Beverly Park, Mulholland Estates, The Summit, Beverly Ridge Estates, and Bowmont Estates. Every one of them carries the Beverly Hills name. None of them carry the city's tax exemption.
What Measure ULA actually charges, and where
For transactions closing after June 30, 2026, Measure ULA adds a 4 percent tax on sales between $5,400,000 and $10,900,000, and 5.5 percent on sales at or above $10,900,000, according to the Los Angeles Office of Finance. That's layered on top of the standard documentary transfer tax the city and county already collect on every deed. The thresholds move each July based on the Chained Consumer Price Index, which is why they've shifted twice since the original $5 million and $10 million figures took effect in April 2023.
The mechanic that catches people off guard is the cliff. The tax applies to the entire sale price once a transaction crosses the line, not just the amount above it. A property selling for exactly $5,400,000 owes $216,000. One that closes at $10,900,000 owes $599,500. A $20 million estate owes $1.1 million. None of that applies if the property sits inside the City of Beverly Hills. All of it applies if the same price tag closes on a home in BHPO.
| Sale price | ULA owed if in BHPO / City of LA | ULA owed if in City of Beverly Hills |
|---|---|---|
| $5,400,000 | $216,000 | $0 |
| $7,000,000 | $280,000 | $0 |
| $10,900,000 | $599,500 | $0 |
| $20,000,000 | $1,100,000 | $0 |
Trousdale and the Flats play by different rules too, just not this one
The hills north of Sunset split into two very different jurisdictions, and the split isn't always where people expect. Trousdale Estates, subdivided beginning in 1955 on the former Doheny Ranch, was added to the City of Beverly Hills at its developer's request and sits inside city limits to this day. Push further north and west into Benedict Canyon or Coldwater Canyon, and the boundary changes without any visible marker. Those neighborhoods are Beverly Hills Post Office, not the City of Beverly Hills, and that means Los Angeles jurisdiction and full ULA exposure.
Trousdale's status inside the city comes with its own constraints that BHPO doesn't share. After renovations began blocking view corridors in the 1980s, the Trousdale Estates Homeowners Association worked with the city to pass the 1987 Trousdale Ordinance, which caps most structures at fourteen feet, bars raising a building pad, and requires hillside fencing to stay open rather than solid. It's one of the earliest neighborhood-specific view-protection measures in the region, and it still shapes what gets built there.
Price data from the same period shows why treating "Beverly Hills" as one market flattens real differences even inside the exempt zone. As of May 2026, the citywide single-family median sold price sat near $5.62 million per CRMLS transaction data, with Trousdale running 25 to 30 percent above that figure through the first quarter of the year, putting its typical sale in the $7 million to $7.3 million range. The Flats, generally the streets between Sunset and Olympic, clustered between $3.8 million and $4.6 million in that same window. A buyer comparing a Flats listing to a Trousdale listing on price per square foot alone is already comparing two different markets before the ULA question ever comes up.
The ballot measure that isn't happening this November
Anyone who read about Measure ULA earlier this year may have come across a claim that a statewide vote could repeal it in November. That's no longer accurate. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association had gathered enough signatures by spring 2026 to qualify a measure capping transfer taxes statewide at a fraction of a percent, which would have gutted ULA along with similar taxes in cities like Santa Monica and Culver City. In late June 2026, the campaign withdrew that measure in a deal with Governor Newsom's office, trading it for a separate constitutional amendment that raises the vote threshold for future local special taxes without touching existing ones retroactively.
Los Angeles considered its own reform around the same time, a proposal that would have exempted new multifamily construction and given relief to sellers affected by the Palisades Fire. The City Council voted in July 2026 to pull that proposal from the ballot as well. The practical result is that nothing on the November 2026 ballot changes Measure ULA. The tax has no expiration date, and the jurisdictional line drawn through 90210 isn't going anywhere before year end.
What this means when you're pricing a 90210 comparison
Confirming which side of the line a property sits on before running the numbers matters more than it sounds like it should. A sold comp published under a Beverly Hills address may or may not carry the tax in the seller's net proceeds, and two listings at the same price can leave sellers with very different amounts at the closing table.
Agents working a BHPO listing near a threshold sometimes set the asking price just under it, since crossing the line by even a dollar triggers the tax on the full sale price rather than the overage. That strategy doesn't hold if a bidding war pushes the final contract price past the threshold, so sellers and their agents are better served planning for both outcomes rather than assuming the list price will be the closing price. For buyers, the same math cuts the other way. A BHPO estate quoted at a lower price than a comparable Beverly Hills Flats home can still cost its seller more to deliver, and that gap tends to surface during negotiation rather than on the listing sheet.
FAQ
Does Measure ULA apply to Trousdale Estates? No. Trousdale was annexed into the City of Beverly Hills when it was subdivided in the 1950s, so it falls under the same exemption as the rest of the city.
Is Beverly Park part of the City of Beverly Hills? No. Beverly Park sits within Beverly Hills Post Office, north of the city limits, and is part of Los Angeles for tax and municipal service purposes despite its Beverly Hills mailing address.
Will Measure ULA change before the end of 2026? No measure addressing it appears on the November 2026 ballot. The statewide Howard Jarvis initiative was withdrawn in June 2026, and the Los Angeles City Council pulled its own proposed reform the following month.
If you're comparing properties across this line, whether you're pricing a BHPO listing near a threshold or trying to net out what a Flats or Trousdale sale actually clears, Smith & Berg Property Group can walk through the jurisdiction and the math before you write an offer or set a list price.