Keep Your Family Out of Probate. Keep the Tax Bill Out of Their Inheritance.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

What does California probate actually cost?

California sets the fees for the attorney and the executor by statute (Prob. Code §§ 10800 and 10810), as a percentage of the gross value of the estate, before debts and mortgages are subtracted. Each of them gets the full fee. A house with a mortgage is valued at its full market value. The numbers below are per person; double them for the combined cost.

What goes into a California living trust package?

A complete plan is a revocable living trust, a pour-over will that catches anything left outside the trust, a durable power of attorney for finances, an advance health care directive, HIPAA authorizations, and the deed and assignment documents that fund the trust. For married couples we address community property treatment, which gives both halves of community property a full basis step-up at the first death under I.R.C. § 1014(b)(6), and whether an A-B trust structure still makes sense given today’s federal estate tax exemption.

The trust itself is drafted for your family, not from a form. Blended families, a child who should not receive money outright, a beneficiary with a disability or a creditor problem, a family business, and out-of-state property each change the drafting. Every plan is reviewed with you before it is signed, and we keep the plan current with amendments or a restatement when the law or your circumstances change. Read more →

Do I still need a will if I have a trust?

Yes. The pour-over will is the safety net: anything titled in your individual name at death, whether by oversight or because it was acquired after the trust was signed, passes under the will into the trust. For parents of minor children, the will is also where guardians are nominated. Without a nomination, the probate court chooses.

A will-only plan can still be right for some people: a renter with modest accounts, or someone whose assets pass by beneficiary designation. California’s small estate procedures under Prob. Code § 13100 allow personal property below the statutory threshold (adjusted every three years) to pass by affidavit, and since 2025 a primary residence up to $750,000 can pass by a simplified petition. We tell you which plan fits rather than selling a trust to everyone. Read more →

I’m the successor trustee. What do I actually have to do?

More than most people expect, and on a schedule. Within 60 days of the death, California requires the trustee to send a formal notice to every beneficiary and heir under Prob. Code § 16061.7; that notice starts the 120-day clock for a trust contest. The trustee then inventories and values the assets, obtains a tax ID for the now-irrevocable trust, files the decedent’s final income tax returns and the trust’s fiduciary returns, pays debts and expenses, keeps records sufficient to account to the beneficiaries under Prob. Code § 16062, and distributes according to the trust terms.

Every step carries a fiduciary duty, and a trustee who guesses can be personally liable to the beneficiaries. We guide family trustees through the process step by step or handle the administration for them, including the real property transfers, the Proposition 19 filings with the assessor, and all of the tax filings. This is the work Trusted was written about, and the work Phillip teaches in his continuing legal education series for other attorneys. Read more →

How do I provide for a family member with a disability without costing them their benefits?

With a special needs trust. Supplemental Security Income and Medi-Cal are needs-based; an inheritance received outright can disqualify the beneficiary until it is spent down. A third-party special needs trust, funded by parents or grandparents, holds the inheritance for the beneficiary’s supplemental needs without counting as their resource, and it is not subject to Medi-Cal recovery at their death. A first-party trust, funded with the beneficiary’s own assets, works differently and does carry a payback requirement.

ABLE accounts under I.R.C. § 529A complement the trust for smaller amounts and day-to-day expenses. We draft the trust, coordinate it with the rest of the family’s plan, and counsel the trustee on distributions that do not jeopardize eligibility. For older clients, we also address Medi-Cal long-term care planning, including the timing rules and the estate recovery rules that changed in 2017 for assets held in a living trust. Read more →

What tax returns does a trust or estate have to file?

After a death, there is the decedent’s final Form 1040 and California Form 540; the trust’s or estate’s fiduciary income tax returns, federal Form 1041 and California Form 541, for each year until the assets are distributed; and, for larger estates, the federal estate tax return, Form 706, due nine months after death. California has no estate or inheritance tax, but it does tax trust income, and its rules for when a trust is a California resident trust are their own trap.

Fiduciary income tax has rules of its own: distributable net income, the 65-day election, the choice between distributing income and retaining it at compressed trust brackets, and the basis step-up on inherited assets that has to be documented before anything is sold. As a CPA-led firm we prepare these returns in-house as part of the administration rather than sending the trustee to find a preparer who has never seen a Form 1041. Read more →