On Jan. 1, Sen. Carole Migden's bill, SB 565, went into effect, extending some property tax benefits--currently enjoyed by married couples--to registered domestic partners. The new law allows the property owner to avoid reassessment for taxing purposes when a partner is added or removed from a property title, whether through legal means or death.

"Domestic partners split up the same way married couples do," county assessor Larry Stone said.

While the move is being praised as a step towards equal treatment for homosexual couples, Stone said that the change will also benefit the large number of heterosexual senior couples who join as domestic partners rather than get married.

"An increasingly large number of domestic partnerships are formed by heterosexual couples for financial and tax reasons," he said.

But those benefits--which include power of attorney for medical cases--did not extend to property taxes.

If a married couple owns a home and one spouse dies or the couple splits up, the remaining homeowner does not face a tax increase on the property.

But before Jan. 1, if the home was owned by domestic partners, and the partnership ended, the half of the property belonging to the departing or deceased partner was reassessed at current market value, which Stone said could increase the property taxes 10 or 12 times.

With the new law, however, domestic partners are exempt from reassessment and the property is treated as it is for married couples.

"It's obviously a sensitive and hot political issue, but I see it as an issue of fairness and equality," Stone said.

Sunnyvale resident Leslie Bulbuk and her partner have been registered partners since 2001, and have owned a home for 3¹/2 years.

"This has absolutely been a concern of ours," Bulbuk said. "We took out a second life insurance policy to pay for the hike should anything happen."

Bulbuk said she and her partner were fortunate to have the financial means to prepare for the possibility of reassessment, and because they have only owned their home for a short time, the increase wouldn't have been as drastic.

"I can only imagine what would have happened to someone who had owned their home for 40 years," Bulbuk said.

She said she's also happy to see the new law because it's another step towards equality for domestic partners.

"I'm really happy that this finally got through and that the governor saw fit to sign it into law," Bulbuk said.