If you live in Santa Monica and your estate planning attorney is in Pasadena, you are looking at twenty-five miles, two hours of round-trip 405 and 10 traffic, and you have to do it twice. Then a notary appointment. That is what setting up a living trust costs you in time before anyone has even billed for the work.
Most LA families do not realize they have a better option. You can complete a full California living trust estate plan from your kitchen, on Zoom, in about two weeks, with one of our attorneys handling the work directly. No driving. No waiting room. No half-day off work.
LA County has more than ten million people, the most expensive real estate in California south of the Bay Area, and a probate court system that is overworked even on a quiet day. Three things stack up in a way that should make every LA homeowner take this seriously.
First, your home is probably your largest asset, and it is worth more than you think. The LA County median home price is around $900,000. In Pasadena, Sherman Oaks, Burbank, Glendale, Long Beach, and large parts of the San Fernando Valley, the typical home is in the $1 million to $1.5 million range. That is enough to put your family squarely into California probate if you do not have a living trust.
Second, California probate fees are calculated on the gross value of your home, not the equity. The mortgage does not reduce the fee. A $1.5 million home in Burbank with a $900,000 mortgage still pays probate fees on the full $1.5 million.
Third, Proposition 19 changed the rules for inherited homes, and LA homeowners feel it acutely. If your parents bought a home in Sherman Oaks or Long Beach in 1985 for $200,000, they are paying property tax based on something close to that 1985 number. When the home transfers to you, that low assessed value is gone unless you move in within a year. The annual property tax bill can jump from a few thousand dollars to fifteen or twenty thousand, overnight.
California probate fees are set by statute. California Probate Code section 10810 tells the court exactly what the attorney can charge and what the executor can charge. They are calculated on the gross value of the estate. Let us run the numbers on a $1.5 million home, which is roughly the median in Pasadena and a reasonable benchmark across many LA County markets.
On a $1.5 million estate:
Four percent of the first $100,000 is $4,000.
Three percent of the next $100,000 is $3,000.
Two percent of the next $800,000 is $16,000.
One percent of the next $500,000 is $5,000.
Statutory attorney fee: $28,000. Statutory executor fee: another $28,000. Total statutory fees on a $1.5 million home: $56,000. That is before court filing fees, the probate referee, the bond premium, and any extraordinary fees the attorney requests for handling sales of real property or tax issues. By the time the case closes, your family is often closer to $64,000.
Probate also takes time. The standard LA County probate runs twelve to eighteen months. During that window, your home cannot be sold without court approval, your bank accounts are frozen until the executor is appointed, and the entire inventory becomes public record at the courthouse. Anyone can pull the file and read what your family inherited.
A revocable living trust avoids all of it. No court. No filing fees. No public record. Your successor trustee handles the transfer privately and usually finishes the work in a few months.
Skip the probate. Skip the commute to the attorney’s office. Set up your living trust in two weeks, on Zoom, from anywhere in California.
Free 15-minute intro call with one of our attorneys, not a paralegal. Flat fee. Call (800) 394-1988 or click Get Started to schedule.
Most LA families we work with have a parent who bought a home decades ago for a price that looks absurd today. A house in Long Beach bought in 1985 for $150,000 is worth $1.2 million now. The property tax bill is still based on something close to the old number, plus a small inflation bump each year. That is Proposition 13.
Proposition 19 changed what happens when that home transfers to the next generation.
Before Prop 19, parents could pass the family home and even other properties to their children, and the kids kept the parents' low assessed value. Property tax stayed low. That benefit is largely gone. Under the current rules, your child only keeps the parents' assessed value if they move into the home as their primary residence within one year of the transfer. And even then, there is a cap. If the market value exceeds the assessed value by more than $1 million, the excess is reassessed to current market value.
Run the math on a $1.5 million home with a $300,000 assessed value. If the kids do not move in, the home is reassessed to $1.5 million. The annual property tax goes from about $3,750 to roughly $18,750. Per year. For as long as the child owns the home.
Even if a child does move in, the exclusion isn't unlimited. The first roughly $1 million of value above the parents' assessed value passes through tax-free, currently $1,044,586, indexed every two years. Anything beyond that gets added to the assessed value. So on a $300,000 base and a $1.5 million home, the protected amount is about $1.34 million, the excess of roughly $155,000 gets added to the base, and the new assessed value lands around $455,000. The kid's tax bill rises by about 50%, better than the 5x hit of a full reassessment, but still a real and permanent increase. And the exclusion only holds as long as the child keeps the home as their primary residence.
Most LA families have not run those numbers. A good estate plan does not fix Prop 19 by itself, but it can structure the transfer in ways that preserve the homeowner exemption, coordinate the homeowner and parent-child exclusion forms with the assessor, and put the family in the best position to use the rules that still exist.
For example, if the objective is for one of the kids to get the family home and make it her home, the living trust must be written to account for the increase in property tax and an allocation of other assets to the other kids.
The process is the same one we use for every California client, with no driving and no in-person meetings required.
You start with a free fifteen-minute intro call with one of our estate planning attorneys. We answer your questions, you decide whether we are a good fit, and if you want to move forward, we schedule the design meeting.
The design meeting runs about an hour on Zoom. You meet directly with the same attorney, not a paralegal or intake coordinator. We walk through your assets, your family, who you trust to step in if something happens to you, and how you want the estate to be distributed. We are not reading from a script. We are listening to you to learn your unique situation so we can design your estate plan to hit your objectives.
We draft the documents. You read them. We meet again on Zoom to walk through them and answer questions. If anything needs to be adjusted, we adjust it on the spot.
Signing happens with a remote online notary who appears on your screen, verifies your identity, and notarizes the documents electronically. The signed package comes back to you, the deed transferring your home to the trust is recorded, and we walk you through funding the rest of the trust.
Total elapsed time from first call to signed plan is usually about two weeks. The result is the same legal documents, the same attorney guidance, and the same level of detail you would get from an in-person estate planning engagement, except no traffic.
LA is the toughest commute in California. The estate planning industry in LA has not caught up with that. Most firms still expect two or three in-person meetings at their office, on their schedule, during business hours.
Virtual eliminates the part that has nothing to do with the legal work. You meet with an attorney from your home office or your kitchen. If you and your spouse work different schedules, you can sit on the same Zoom from different rooms in the same house, or from different places entirely.
It also expands who you can hire. You are not limited to firms within a thirty-minute drive of your home. You can work with attorneys who do nothing but California estate planning and trust administration, instead of LA generalists who handle estate planning as a sideline to litigation or business law.
No driving and no in-person meetings required.
Clark Allison has been handling California estate planning for nearly thirty years. Estate planning and trust administration are the only things we do. We do not litigate, we do not handle real estate deals on the side, and we do not hand the work to a paralegal after the first meeting.
We work with California families whose estates fall between roughly $500,000 and $10 million. If your estate is larger than that, you probably want a firm with a tax practice and a family office orientation, and we are happy to refer you. For everyone else, we are most likely a good fit.
You work directly with one of our attorneys from the first call through the final signing. Most clients complete their estate plans in about two weeks. The entire process is handled by Zoom from anywhere in California, which is how we serve our LA clients. See how virtual estate planning works for the full walk-through. Once you are a client, follow-up questions are free, forever.
Our flat fee for most families is $3,000 single or $4,000 married. No hourly billing, no surprise invoices, no charge for follow-up questions after signing.
Yes. California authorizes remote online notarization, the documents are the same as those signed in person, and the legal effect is identical. Most of our LA clients never set foot in one of our offices.
Yes. California has its own community property rules, its own probate code, its own Prop 19 reassessment rules, and its own trust funding mechanics. An out-of-state attorney drafting a California living trust is a recipe for problems. Choose a California estate planning attorney. Whether they sit in a downtown LA tower or a Northern California office is far less important than whether they actually practice California estate planning law.
Statutory attorney and executor fees on a $1.5 million estate are about $28,000 each, or $56,000 combined. Add court costs, the probate referee, and any extraordinary fees, and the total is usually closer to $65,000. The case typically takes twelve to eighteen months. A revocable living trust avoids all of that.
Probably yes, unless one of them moves into the home as their primary residence within a year. Prop 19 ended the broader parent-child transfer exclusion in February 2021. The exclusion still exists for a primary residence, but it is capped, and rental properties and second homes get reassessed at full market value. We work through the math with families before the transfer happens, not after.
About two weeks from the first design meeting to a fully signed plan, for most clients. More complex situations take a little longer. We do not stretch the work out. Once you decide to move forward, we start working.
Proposition 19 and Your California Home: A Complete Guide
Estate Planning for Walnut Creek Homeowners: Probate Math on a $1.5M Home
California Estate Planning for Married Couples with Larger Estates (2026 Guide)
Virtual Estate Planning in California: How It Works and What It Costs
How to Fund Your California Living Trust
Call us at (800) 394-1988 or click Get Started to schedule a free intro call.
We serve Los Angeles families virtually from our San Luis Obispo office. We also work with clients from our El Dorado Hills, Roseville, and San Diego offices, and virtually from anywhere in California.