And now the property and stress is off your plate.

If you using that HELOC to buy a rental it does effect your DTI and as long as the payment is good along with all other payments that you have on your plate right now are good within the normal limits of the conventional standards of the loan then you are good to go. 

I seriously doubt Gavin Newsome is spending his time reading this thread and counting California license plates. 

So, like you said with a car accident where nobody saw the color, make, model or license plate it would get tossed out because they didn't see it was "your" can.