How much does probate cost in California?

The fees are set by a public formula, calculated on the gross value of the estate rather than on your equity in it.

California is unusual in setting attorney and personal representative compensation for an ordinary probate by statute, as a sliding percentage of the value of the estate. Because the formula is public, you can work the number out in advance rather than being told it afterwards.

The part that surprises nearly everyone is the base it is applied to. The statutory fee is calculated on the gross value of the estate, not the net. Debt secured against an asset does not reduce the figure.

What that means in practice

Take a house appraised at one and a half million with four hundred thousand still owing on it. The family's equity is one point one million. The statutory fee is calculated on the full one and a half. The same formula runs twice over, once for the attorney and once for the representative, though a family member acting as representative frequently waives their share.

On top of the statutory fee sit costs the formula does not cover: the filing fee, publication, the probate referee who appraises the assets, bond where the court requires it, and any extraordinary services the court approves separately.

What actually reduces it

Three things, in order of how much they matter.

• A funded trust. Property held in a trust is not part of the probate estate and the formula never touches it.
• A smaller estate. California has affidavit procedures for estates under a statutory threshold, and a surviving spouse can often use a single petition instead of a full administration.
• Clean title. Most of what makes a probate expensive beyond the statutory fee is a defect nobody found until the file was already open.

The first question we ask is not how to get through a probate cheaply. It is whether you need one at all.