Somebody just handed you a house to sell. Here is exactly which set of rules applies.

No. Probate Code §16226 gives the trustee the power “to acquire or dispose of property, for cash or on credit, at public or private sale, or by exchange.” A trustee selling trust real property needs no court confirmation, no overbid hearing, no 90 percent price floor, no Notice of Proposed Action, and no probate referee. Every one of those requirements lives in Division 7 of the Probate Code, which governs decedents’ estates, and none of it reaches a trustee. The trustee’s real constraints are fiduciary rather than procedural: the duty of loyalty under §16002, the prudent investor rule, the terms of the trust instrument, and the ability to document that fair market value was actually obtained.

Six situations, mainly. The trust instrument withholds or conditions the power of sale. Co-trustees deadlock. A beneficiary objects or files a §16061.8 contest. No trustee is actually in office. The property was never funded into the trust, which means a Heggstad petition under §850 or a probate. Or the trustee wants advance protection for a self-dealing or below-market sale. In any of those, the trustee petitions the court for instructions under §17200. That is a very different thing from a probate confirmation hearing.

The Letters the court issued say so, and the estate’s attorney can confirm it in one sentence. It matters more than anything else on this page. Under the Independent Administration of Estates Act, Probate Code §10511 gives a personal representative with full authority the power to sell estate real property, and §10503 lists exactly what full authority removes: publication of notice of sale, court approval of agents’ and brokers’ commissions, sale at not less than 90 percent of appraised value, and court examination into the necessity for the sale. With limited authority, §10501(b) still requires court supervision to sell real property, exchange real property, grant an option to purchase real property, or borrow money secured by real property. So limited authority means a court-confirmed sale with overbidding.

Yes. Probate Code §10501(a)(5) requires court supervision regardless of full authority where the sale is to the personal representative, or to the attorney for the personal representative. If a family member who is also the executor wants to buy the house, that is the provision to raise with counsel before anyone writes an offer.

The formula is Probate Code §10311(a)(1) — not §10309, which is a common miscitation. The first overbid must be at least 10 percent more on the first ten thousand dollars of the original bid, and 5 percent more on the amount of the original bid above ten thousand dollars. On a $1,000,000 confirmed bid that is $1,000,000 plus $1,000 plus 5 percent of $990,000, which is $49,500, for a minimum first overbid of $1,050,500. Increments after that first overbid are not set by statute. §10311(b) says only that the court accepts the highest qualifying offer, so the judge sets the raises in the courtroom. Anyone who quotes you a fixed dollar increment as if it were a rule is guessing.

Only to a court-confirmed private sale, and it is Probate Code §10309(a). Confirmation requires all three of: the property was appraised within one year prior to the date of the confirmation hearing, the valuation date used is within one year prior to the confirmation hearing, and the offer is at least 90 percent of appraised value. Note that there are two separate one-year tests and both are measured against the confirmation hearing date, not the listing date or the contract date. Under §10309(b) the court can order a new appraisal if it is satisfied the latest appraisal is too high or too low. The 90 percent floor does not apply at all to a full-authority IAEA sale, and it does not apply to a trust sale.

Probate Code §10586 requires not less than 15 days before the date specified in the notice. Any interested person may object, and an objection forces a hearing. On a full-authority sale that 15-day window is the real scheduling constraint — it is what a buyer’s agent should be building into the escrow timeline, and it is the step most often discovered late.

Probate Code §16061.7(f) requires the trustee to serve the notification within 60 days of the triggering event — a revocable trust becoming irrevocable on the settlor’s death, any change of trustee of an irrevocable trust, or a power of appointment becoming effective or lapsing at death. §16061.8 then sets the contest window: 120 days from service of the notification, or 60 days from the date a copy of the terms of the trust is delivered to you — but only if that delivery happens during the 120-day period — whichever is later. Both halves matter: the “whichever is later” tail is routinely dropped in summaries, and so is the requirement that the delivery fall inside the original window. Trust terms handed over on day 200 do not reopen anything. Also worth knowing: a notification served late still starts a valid 120-day clock. The §16061.7(h) warning has to appear in 10-point boldface.

The BOE-502-D Change in Ownership Statement – Death of Real Property Owner is required under R&T Code §480(b), including for trust-held property and even when no reassessment results. Where there is no probate, including all trust-held property, it is due 150 days from the date of death. Where the estate is probated, it is filed prior to or at the time the inventory and appraisal is filed with the court. The penalty rule is widely misstated. The §482 penalty — $100 or 10 percent of the taxes on the new base year value, whichever is greater, capped at $5,000 with the homeowners’ exemption and $20,000 without — is triggered by failing to file within 90 days after the assessor mails a written request, not by blowing past the 150 days. The real exposure from late filing is escape assessments reaching back up to eight prior rolls under R&T Code §532(b)(2).

They are different filings and one does not satisfy the other. BOE-502-A is the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report, the PCOR, filed at the time a deed is recorded; if it is omitted the recorder may charge $20. The full Change in Ownership Statement is BOE-502-AH, due within 90 days if the transfer was not recorded or was recorded without a PCOR, or within 90 days of the assessor’s written request. Neither one is the BOE-502-D, which is the death-of-owner filing described above.

Probate Code §9100 gives a creditor until the later of four months after letters are first issued to a general personal representative, or sixty days after notice of administration is mailed or personally delivered to that creditor. Letters issued to a special administrator do not start that clock. Behind it sits CCP §366.2: one year from the date of death is a hard outside bar on claims against the decedent, essentially untollable, and it reaches trust assets as well as probate estates. A trust does not make the creditor question disappear; it changes which statute answers it.

Only under narrow conditions. The Prop 19 intergenerational exclusion, R&T Code §63.2 and Rule 462.520, caps the protected value at the property’s factored base year value plus $1,044,586 for transfers dated February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027. The child has to move in as a principal residence within one year of the transfer — that is a hard eligibility gate with no late relief — and has to file the homeowners’ exemption on BOE-266 or the disabled veterans’ exemption on BOE-261-G. Filing that exemption late costs retroactivity but not eligibility. The BOE-19-P claim is due within three years of the transfer, or before transfer to a third party, or when an eligible transferee no longer occupies the residence, whichever comes first. An inherited home kept as a rental is reassessed at full market value. And the Board of Equalization re-indexes that $1,044,586 figure effective February 16, 2027, so the number has a limited shelf life.

Often smaller than families expect, and that is a conversation for the CPA, not for me. The mechanism is IRC §1014: basis steps up to fair market value at the date of death. When an estate or trust sells near that date-of-death value, there is frequently little or no taxable gain on the sale itself. That is one reason the date-of-death valuation is worth getting right the first time, and one reason the keep-versus-sell math under Prop 19 often comes out differently than it did before 2021.