Articles
What probate actually costs in California
California sets probate attorney and executor compensation by statute, as a percentage of the gross value of the estate. Gross, not net — the mortgage on the house does not reduce it.
For a home worth one and a half million with four hundred thousand still owed, the fee is calculated on the full one and a half. That surprises nearly everyone who hears it for the first time.
A funded revocable trust avoids the process entirely for the assets held in it. The word doing the work in that sentence is funded. A trust signed but never retitled leaves the property exactly where it was, and the estate goes through probate anyway.
We check funding at every review, because it is the single most common gap we find in documents drafted elsewhere.