WrenfieldEstate Law
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Co-founder

Claire Osei

Trust administration and property transfers  ·  Santa Monica, California

A woman with dark hair swept back, in a navy blazer over a blue and white striped shirt, arms folded, looking toward the camera.
2011

Year of admission

California

Jurisdiction

Specialist

Certified in estate planning, trust and probate law, State Bar of California

C.D. Cal.

U.S. District Court, 2013

9th Cir.

U.S. Court of Appeals, 2016

3

Languages ยท English, Twi, French

02

What Claire does for the people who call her

The work

Most people who reach Claire have just been handed a job they did not apply for. A parent has died, they are named as successor trustee, and a bank is asking for documents they have never heard of.

She tells them what the law actually requires of them, in what order, and what happens if they get it wrong. Then she does the parts that need a lawyer.

Before the firm

Claire spent six years in probate litigation before she moved to administration. She has watched trusts fail from the inside of a courtroom, which is a useful thing to have read before drafting anything.

Most of what is fought over later is decided in the first ninety days after a death, by a trustee acting on no advice.

How she works

She sets out the sequence in writing at the start: notices, valuations, transfers, accounting. A trustee who knows the order is a trustee who does not get sued.

She answers her own phone during business hours and returns messages the same day when she cannot.

Away from the practice

Claire came to California for law school and stayed. She runs, badly and often, cooks for more people than her kitchen was designed for, and is slowly learning the cello in defiance of her neighbours.

03

Education, admissions, associations and recognition

Education
University of Southern California, Gould School of Law

Juris Doctor

2011
University of Ghana, Legon

Bachelor of Arts, Political Science

2007
Admissions and courts
State Bar of California

Attorney and Counselor at Law

2011
U.S. District Court, Central District of California

General Bar

2013
U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

Bar of the Court

2016
Associations
State Bar of California

Trusts and Estates Section

2012
Los Angeles County Bar Association

Member, Probate Litigation Committee

2013
Beverly Hills Bar Association

Member

2015
Recognition
State Bar of California

Certified Specialist, Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law

2018

Source: State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization

Los Angeles Daily Journal

Trusts and Estates, attorneys to watch

2021

Source: Los Angeles Daily Journal, 2021

04

What people are dealing with when they call

Trust administration

Successor trustee representation

The first ninety days decide the next three years. We act for the trustee, and say so at the first call.

  • The statutory notice and when it must go out
  • Trust certification for banks and title companies
  • Date of death valuations
 Trust administration

Trust accountings

A legal document with a required form, not a spreadsheet. It is the first thing a court reads.

  • Accountings in the statutory form
  • Reconstruction where records were not kept
  • Responding to a beneficiary's demand
 Trust administration

Beneficiary representation

You are on the receiving end and being told very little. We act for you, and not also for the trustee.

  • Demand for a copy of the trust and for an accounting
  • Review of the trustee's conduct and fees
  • Distribution disputes short of litigation
 Property transfers

Deeds and retitling

The recorded document is the transfer. Everything else is a description of one.

  • Grant deeds and trust transfer deeds
  • Preliminary change of ownership report
  • Recording with the county
05

What this costs and how long it takes

Claire quotes a fee structure in writing before any work begins. An administration is the one shape nobody can price at the first call, and she will say so rather than guess.

A trustee's first ninety days

The notices, the certification, the retitling and a written sequence for everything that follows.

Fee basis
Flat fee.
Typical time
Three to six weeks from the day the trust and the death certificate arrive.

A full administration

Everything through to distribution and the accounting that closes it.

Fee basis
Hourly, with a written estimate for each phase and a new one before any phase begins.
Typical time
Nine to eighteen months, and real property or a business sets much of that pace.

A dispute short of filing

Correspondence with a beneficiary or a co-trustee, and the accounting that usually ends it.

Fee basis
Hourly.
Typical time
Six to twelve weeks, and the other side sets much of that.

An administration priced at the first call is priced without the facts that decide it.

What moves a matter up a band: property in more than one state, a beneficiary who has already retained counsel, an asset the trust never owned, and a trustee who has already distributed something.

06

Who she is not the right lawyer for

Claire acts for trustees and for beneficiaries, and not for both in the same matter. Some things she will not take, and she says so on the first call.

  • Both sides of the same trust.

    She acts for the trustee or for a beneficiary. Which one is decided at the first call and does not move.

  • A trustee who has decided what the accounting will say.

    The accounting is a legal document, not a position. If the instruction is to produce a particular answer, she is not the right lawyer.

  • Matters already in trial with counsel of record.

    Changing lawyers mid-case is occasionally right and more often expensive, and she will say which she thinks it is.

  • Conservatorships and elder abuse as the main claim.

    These are their own practice and she is not it. She refers them, by name.

07

Written by Claire

The first ninety days decide the next three years.

By Claire Osei · 4 April 2026

Nobody tells a new trustee that the clock has started

A successor trustee is usually a son or a daughter, and they take the role on in the worst month of their life. Nothing about the paperwork announces that it is now a legal office with duties attached.

It is. From the date of death, a trustee in California owes duties to every beneficiary, and several of those duties have deadlines measured in days.

The notice is not a formality

California requires a trustee to serve notice on beneficiaries and on heirs after a death, and that notice starts the period in which someone can contest the trust. Serving it early closes the window early.

Trustees skip it constantly, usually out of delicacy. The effect is to leave the contest period open indefinitely, which is the opposite of what the delicacy intended.

Keep the accounting from the first day, not the first demand

Almost every administration I have seen go wrong went wrong because the records were assembled a year late, in response to a demand, from a bank statement and a memory.

An accounting built as you go is a morning's work a month. Reconstructed under pressure it is the single most expensive thing in the matter, and it is the document a court will read first.

What to do in the first week

Do not distribute anything. Do not sell anything. Do not close an account because a bank suggests it.

Get the trust, the death certificate and a list of what the trust actually owns. Everything else follows from those three, and none of it is urgent in the way it feels.

08

Selected matters

01
Successor trustee, estate with four beneficiaries
Los Angeles County · 2024
Arrived with
Eleven months since the death, no notice served, no accounting kept, and a written demand from a sibling's attorney.
At stake
The trustee's personal exposure, and whether the contest period had ever begun to run.
What Claire did
Served the statutory notice, reconstructed the accounting from bank and title records, and closed the matter without a petition.
02
Beneficiary, trust holding a single commercial building
Santa Monica · 2023
Arrived with
Three years of silence from a co-trustee and a distribution that had gone to one branch of the family only.
At stake
An accounting the trustee had never produced, and whether the distribution could be brought back.
What Claire did
Demanded the accounting, reviewed four years of records, and negotiated an equalizing distribution without filing.
03
Trustee, property in California and Nevada
Administration · 2022
Arrived with
A funded trust, a Nevada rental that had never been retitled, and a buyer already in escrow.
At stake
Whether the sale could close at all, and whether an ancillary proceeding would be needed for one asset.
What Claire did
Cleared title through the Nevada procedure available for the asset, and closed escrow eleven days late rather than eleven months.

Matters are described in general terms. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

09

What counsel say

Claire produced a four-year accounting in six weeks that two prior firms had called impossible. My client read it and settled.
Priya Raghunathan Partner, Probate Litigation Vasquez Lind LLP, Los Angeles Opposing counsel in 2023
She tells a trustee what they have done wrong in the first meeting. It is not a comfortable way to begin and it is the reason her files do not end up in front of me.
Alan Whitcombe Retired Judge, Probate Division Los Angeles Superior Court Referring counsel to Claire Osei since 2019
10

What happens after you write

  1. You write. I read it myself the day it arrives.
  2. We speak within one business day. Thirty minutes, by phone, no charge.
  3. If I am the right person for the matter, you receive a written scope and a fee structure before any work begins. If I am not, I tell you who is.

Fees are quoted in writing before work begins. You will not receive an invoice for a figure you have not already seen.

I act for the trustee or for a beneficiary, never for both in the same trust. Which one is settled at the first call.

Write to Claire

Trust administration and property transfers, from the Santa Monica office. There is no cost for the first conversation.

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