Frequently Asked Questions About Estate Planning in California

For most Los Angeles homeowners and families, yes. Here’s why.

California’s probate process applies to estates with gross assets over $184,500 (as of 2024). That threshold is lower than most people realize — and in Los Angeles, where a modest condominium alone can be worth $600,000 or more, almost every homeowner’s estate will exceed it.

When an estate goes through probate, the process is handled through Los Angeles County Superior Court. It is public, time-consuming — typically 12 to 24 months in LA County — and expensive. California law (Probate Code §§ 10800, 10810) allows attorneys and executors to charge statutory fees calculated as a percentage of the gross estate value, not the net value. On a $1 million gross estate, attorney fees alone are approximately $23,000 — and the executor is entitled to the same amount. Combined minimum: $46,000.

During this entire period, assets titled in your name are frozen. Your family cannot access bank accounts, sell real property, or receive inheritances without court authorization.

A properly drafted and funded revocable living trust avoids all of this. When you transfer ownership of your assets into a trust during your lifetime, those assets pass to your beneficiaries directly through the trust — no court required, and no waiting period measured in months.

The estate tax exemption (currently approximately $13.61 million per person under federal law) is irrelevant to the California probate question. You do not need to be wealthy to need a trust. You need to own real property in California.

A will is a set of instructions the probate court reads after your death; it does not avoid probate — it guides it. A living trust is a container you create and fund during your lifetime; assets inside it pass directly to your beneficiaries without any court involvement. In a complete California estate plan, the two work together: the trust holds your major assets and avoids probate, while a pour-over will names guardians for minor children and catches anything left outside the trust.

It varies by firm and by complexity. At Trust Advisor, estate plans are offered at a flat fee for estates below the federal estate tax exemption — the same fee whether your estate is $600,000 or $6 million. You know the full cost before any work begins, and it does not change as your home appreciates or your accounts grow. Contact us for a quote. For perspective on the alternative: California probate fees on a $1 million estate run approximately $46,000, combined, by statute.

Review it every three to five years, and immediately after major life events: marriage, divorce, a birth or death in the family, a significant purchase or sale of property, a move into or out of California, or a meaningful change in the law. Most updates are amendments — far simpler and less expensive than starting over. An outdated plan can be worse than none at all, because it executes yesterday’s wishes with today’s authority.

You can, and some people do it successfully. The risks are the ones you can’t see: a document that doesn’t say what you think it says, a trust that was never funded (the most common failure), and provisions that don’t anticipate California-specific issues like property tax reassessment. Having litigated disputes that began with self-prepared documents, I can tell you the savings are real and so are the failure modes. If you have real property in Los Angeles, the stakes generally justify professional drafting — and if you already have an online trust, I will review it and tell you honestly whether it needs work.

A legal entity you create during your lifetime to hold your assets. You typically serve as your own trustee — keeping complete control — and you can amend or revoke the trust at any time while you’re alive and competent. At your death, the successor trustee you named distributes the assets to your beneficiaries under the trust’s terms, privately and without probate. At incapacity, the same successor trustee can manage trust assets without a court-appointed conservator.

Funding means transferring ownership of assets into the trust: recording a deed moving your home into it, retitling bank and brokerage accounts, and assigning business interests. Retirement accounts and life insurance are coordinated through beneficiary designations rather than retitling. Funding is the step most estate plans fail at — a trust that owns nothing avoids nothing. At Trust Advisor, funding guidance is part of every engagement, not an item left on your to-do list.

Your pour-over will directs that asset into the trust — but getting it there may require probate if its value is significant. For modest assets, a small estate procedure or a Heggstad petition (asking the court to confirm the asset was intended for the trust) can sometimes avoid full probate. The better answer is prevention: fund completely at signing, and revisit titling whenever you acquire new property.

Yes — that is what “revocable” means. While you are alive and competent you can amend specific provisions, restate the entire trust, or revoke it. Changes should be made formally, in writing, with the same care as the original document; handwritten margin notes and informal letters are how disputes start. After death (or, for some joint trusts, after the first spouse’s death) parts of the trust may become irrevocable.

No — and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. A revocable trust is tax-neutral during your lifetime: income is reported on your personal return, and the trust does not avoid income tax, property tax, or by itself estate tax. What it avoids is probate — the court process and its statutory fees. Tax planning is a separate dimension of estate planning, and one the CPA background lets me address directly: basis step-up at death, property tax reassessment exclusions, and estate tax exposure for larger estates are all considered in a properly built plan.

Generally, when a person dies owning assets titled in their individual name — without a trust, joint title, or beneficiary designation — and those assets exceed $184,500 in gross value (Probate Code § 13100). Real property is the most common trigger: in Los Angeles, the home alone almost always exceeds the threshold. The measure is gross value, not equity — a mortgaged home counts at its full market value.

Nine months is the practical minimum. Twelve to eighteen months is typical in LA County Superior Court; estates with real property sales, creditor disputes, or family conflict regularly run 24 months or longer. During the entire process, estate assets are frozen — your family cannot sell the home, access accounts, or receive distributions without court authorization.

Potentially tens of thousands of dollars — and the gap widens as your estate grows.

California’s statutory probate fee schedule (Probate Code §§ 10800, 10810) is a sliding scale: the larger your estate, the larger the fees. Both the probate attorney and the executor are each entitled to fees based on the gross value of the estate — not your equity, the full market value. Here is what that looks like for estates common in Los Angeles:

• $500,000 gross estate: ~$13,000 each = ~$26,000 combined
• $750,000 gross estate: ~$18,000 each = ~$36,000 combined
• $1,000,000 gross estate: ~$23,000 each = ~$46,000 combined
• $1,500,000 gross estate: ~$28,000 each = ~$56,000 combined

These fees come directly out of the estate — out of what your family would otherwise inherit. They are paid before any distributions are made.

Estate planning at Trust Advisor works differently: a flat fee for estates below the federal estate tax exemption, regardless of estate size. The fee does not increase because your home has appreciated or your accounts have grown. It is a one-time fixed cost that eliminates the much larger sliding-scale liability your estate would otherwise face.

Beyond the money, consider the time: probate in Los Angeles County typically takes 12 to 24 months. Assets in the probate estate are frozen during that period — unavailable to your surviving spouse, children, or beneficiaries without a court order. With a properly funded trust, your successor trustee can begin distributing assets within weeks of your passing, not after a year or more in court.

Contact us for estate plan pricing.

Partially, sometimes. Joint tenancy passes property to the surviving joint tenant; beneficiary designations (TOD/POD) pass accounts outside probate; California also offers a revocable transfer-on-death deed for certain residential property. Each tool has real limitations and trade-offs — joint tenancy creates exposure to a co-owner’s creditors and can produce unfavorable tax results, and none of these tools plans for incapacity. For an LA homeowner, a funded revocable trust remains the comprehensive answer; the others are point solutions.

For estates whose gross value is under $184,500 (Probate Code § 13100), heirs can often collect personal property — bank accounts, securities — by sworn affidavit, 40 days after death, without a probate proceeding. It is fast and inexpensive where it applies. It rarely applies to Los Angeles homeowners, because the threshold includes the gross value of real property, and almost no LA real estate sits below it.

After the settlor’s death, the successor trustee takes legal control of trust assets and administers them: sending the required statutory notices, inventorying and protecting assets, paying valid debts, handling the decedent’s final tax return and the trust’s tax filings, accounting to beneficiaries, and ultimately distributing under the trust’s terms. It is a fiduciary role with personal liability attached — see the Trust Administration page for the full picture.

A straightforward administration typically runs 12 to 18 months from death to final distribution — much of it consumed by the creditor period, tax filings, and property sales. That is still dramatically faster than probate in practice, and partial distributions can often be made earlier. Complex assets, tax issues, or disputes extend the timeline.

The law does not require one, but the notice deadlines, creditor rules, tax filings, and accounting requirements apply either way — and trustee mistakes carry personal liability. Most successor trustees benefit from at least an initial consultation to map the process; many engage counsel throughout, with fees ordinarily paid from the trust rather than personally. I will tell you honestly how much help your administration actually needs.

California Probate Code § 16061.7 requires the trustee to serve written notice on all heirs and beneficiaries within 60 days of the settlor’s death. The notice must contain specific statutory language — including the recipient’s right to request a copy of the trust — and it starts the 120-day period to contest the trust. Getting this notice right, and documenting service, is one of the trustee’s most important early tasks.

Yes. Under Probate Code § 17200, beneficiaries can petition the court to remove a trustee for breach of trust, unfitness, hostility that impairs administration, or other good cause. Courts treat removal as a serious remedy, but self-dealing, refusal to account, and chronic non-communication are recurring grounds on which it is granted. Surcharge — personal repayment of losses — often accompanies removal claims.

Yes, on recognized grounds: lack of capacity, undue influence, fraud, forgery, or improper execution. Standing matters — you generally must be a beneficiary, an heir, or someone whose interest the trust affects. So does timing: after the § 16061.7 notice, the contest window is generally 120 days. The honest first step is an evaluation of whether the facts support a claim worth pursuing; not every surprise in a trust is a legal wrong.

Under California law, undue influence means excessive persuasion that overcomes a person’s free will and causes them to act against their own interests — typically by someone in a position of power or trust over them. Courts look at the victim’s vulnerability, the influencer’s authority and tactics (isolation, control of information, involvement in the document’s preparation), and the fairness of the result. A caregiver or late-arriving “advisor” who ends up a major beneficiary of a deathbed amendment is the classic fact pattern.

Generally 120 days from service of the trustee’s § 16061.7 notice (or 60 days from receiving the trust document upon request during that period, if later). Missing the deadline can permanently bar the challenge regardless of its merits. If you have received this notice and have concerns, contact an attorney immediately — the clock is running whether or not you have decided what to do.

A no-contest clause threatens a beneficiary who challenges the document with forfeiting their inheritance. California enforces these clauses narrowly (Probate Code §§ 21310 et seq.) — principally against direct contests brought without probable cause. A challenge supported by probable cause does not trigger forfeiture. In short: a no-contest clause deserves respect and analysis, but it is not, by itself, a reason to stay silent about genuine concerns.

Start with a written request for information and an accounting — dated, specific, and polite. Trustees have legal duties to inform and account, and a written demand starts clocks that work in your favor. If silence continues, Probate Code § 17200 lets you petition the court to compel an accounting, order distributions, or remove the trustee. See Beneficiary Representation for how I evaluate these situations.

The firm is located at 15760 Ventura Blvd., 7th Floor, Encino, CA 91436, and serves clients throughout Los Angeles — the San Fernando Valley, the Westside, and the greater LA basin. Estate planning matters can typically be handled with a combination of phone, video, and in-person meetings, whichever suits you.

One conversation. Call (818) 995-9432 or send a message through the contact page. Tell me about your situation — your family, your home, what prompted the call — and I’ll explain what you need, what you don’t, and what it will cost. You will have a clear picture before you commit to anything.