You didn’t ask for this job.
Someone died and named you trustee, or left you a house. Here is the whole job in six steps — and the one Proposition 19 change that flipped the old “keep it for the low taxes” logic.
Almost nothing is as urgent as it feels. Four things actually are.
When a parent or a spouse dies, the phone starts ringing and every caller has a deadline for you. Most of them are made up. In California, most filings connected to an inherited home punish lateness with lost retroactivity, not disqualification — you file late, you lose the benefit going backward, and you keep it going forward.
Two of them are different. The twelve-month move-in requirement under Proposition 19 is a hard gate with no relief, and the one-year claim period under Code of Civil Procedure §366.2 is essentially untollable and reaches trust assets, not just probate assets. Those two are worth putting on a calendar the week you find out.
The rest of this page is the job itself, in the order it actually happens. I am a broker, not an attorney or a CPA, and none of this is legal or tax advice — but I have sat at enough kitchen tables to know which questions get asked first.
The Trustee’s First 30 Days
A week-by-week task list for the first month — which is mostly gathering and securing, not selling. Download it, print it, cross things off.
The Deadline Clock
Put the date of death in and see every California filing deadline that applies to the house, on one timeline, with the statute behind each one.
Six steps, in the order they actually happen.
This is the written companion to the video. Every deadline below cites the statute or the form number, so you can check me — or hand this to your attorney and have them check me.
Secure the house before you do anything else
Find the trust document and read the power-of-sale language. Then treat the property like an asset you are legally responsible for: change the locks, keep the utilities on, and call the insurance carrier the same week. A standard homeowner’s policy can lapse or deny a claim once a house is unoccupied — a vacant-property endorsement costs less than one denied water-damage claim. Nothing else on this list matters if the house burns down in month two.
Serve the notices — and know which clock you just started
Probate Code §16061.7(f) requires notification within 60 days of the triggering event. The §16061.7(h) warning has to be in 10-point boldface, which is the kind of detail that gets a notice thrown out. Serving it starts the contest clock under §16061.8: 120 days from service, or 60 days from delivery of the trust terms, whichever is later. A late-served notice still starts a valid clock — so late is better than never.
If the estate is being probated instead, creditor claims run under §9100: the later of four months after letters are first issued to a general personal representative, or 60 days after notice to that particular creditor. And §366.2 of the Code of Civil Procedure gives a one-year outside limit from the date of death that is essentially untollable and reaches trust assets.
Establish the date-of-death value — properly
Under IRC §1014 the basis of inherited property resets to fair market value at death. That is usually the single most valuable thing that happens in the whole administration, and it is the reason a sale shortly after death often produces little or no capital gain. Get a real date-of-death appraisal. An online estimate is not a defensible number three years later when the IRS asks.
California community property gets a full step-up on both halves at the first death under §1014(b)(6) when at least half is includible, whether or not an estate tax return is required. Joint tenancy steps up only the decedent’s half. IRS Publication 523 puts numbers on it: $50,000 basis, $100,000 fair market value — $75,000 as joint tenants, $100,000 as community property. How the deed was titled decides it, and most people have never checked.
File the change-in-ownership paperwork with the county
BOE-502-D, the Change in Ownership Statement — Death of Real Property Owner, is due within 150 days of the date of death when there is no probate, including property held in a trust. If the estate is probated, it is filed with the inventory and appraisal instead.
Here is the part almost everyone gets wrong: missing day 150 does not by itself trigger the penalty. The penalty is triggered 90 days after the assessor mails a written request. The real exposure is escape assessments reaching back eight rolls under R&TC §532(b)(2). Don’t panic about the date; do file.
Separately, BOE-502-A is the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report handed in at recording — $20 if it is omitted. The full statement is BOE-502-AH, due in 90 days. They are different forms and people conflate them constantly.
Decide: keep it, or sell it — and this is where Prop 19 changed everything
For decades the default advice was “keep it, the property taxes are unbeatable.” Under Proposition 58, a parent-to-child transfer of a principal residence was excluded from reassessment with no value cap and no requirement that the child live there. You could rent it out at market and keep a 1978 tax base.
Proposition 19 ended that for transfers on or after February 16, 2021. Under R&TC §63.2, the excluded amount is now the parent’s factored base year value plus $1,044,586 for transfers between February 16, 2025 and February 15, 2027 — and the figure re-indexes on February 16, 2027. It is a cap, not a cliff. The BOE’s published illustration uses the older $1,000,000 allowance and runs a $300,000 base year value and a $1,500,000 market value to a new taxable value of $500,000 rather than a full reassessment. Run the same house at today’s $1,044,586 allowance and the answer is $455,414 — still nowhere near $1,500,000.
Two conditions decide whether you get it at all. The child has to make it their primary residence within one year — Rule 462.520, Example 16 finds fifteen months ineligible, with no late relief — and occupancy has to continue. Keep it as a rental and it is reassessed in full. File BOE-19-P within three years, or before a transfer to a third party, or when an eligible transferee stops occupying it, whichever comes first.
So the arithmetic flipped. If nobody is moving in, holding the house usually means paying reassessed property taxes on it every year while the §1014 step-up — the thing that would have made a sale nearly tax-free — slowly erodes as the market moves. That is the change the video is about.
If you sell, run the sale under the right authority
A trust sale needs no court confirmation. Probate Code §16226 gives the trustee the power to sell. Court involvement is exception-driven: the instrument withholds the power, co-trustees deadlock, a beneficiary contests, there is no trustee in office, the property was never actually funded into the trust (a Heggstad petition under §850), or you want court cover for a sale to an insider under §17200.
A probate sale depends on your letters. Full authority under the Independent Administration of Estates Act (§10511) permits the sale, with a Notice of Proposed Action — 15 days under §10586 — that any interested person may object to. Limited authority under §10501(b) still requires court approval for real property, and §10501(a)(5) requires court supervision where the buyer is the personal representative or their attorney.
If it does go to confirmation, two rules govern. §10309(a) is the 90%-of-appraisal rule, with two one-year tests both measured to the confirmation hearing date. And the overbid is §10311(a)(1) — not §10309 — at 10% of the first $10,000 plus 5% of the excess. On a $1,000,000 accepted offer the minimum first overbid is $1,050,500. Increments after that are the judge’s discretion, not statute, and §10311(e) says bids are computed without regard to commission.
What actually has a deadline.
Two of these are hard gates. The rest cost you retroactivity, not eligibility.
| What | When | Hard gate? | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prop 19 move-in, parent-to-child | Within 1 year of transfer, and continuing | Yes | Rule 462.520 |
| Claim against the decedent | 1 year from date of death, essentially untollable | Yes | CCP §366.2 |
| Trust notification to beneficiaries and heirs | 60 days from the triggering event | No | Prob. §16061.7(f) |
| Trust contest window | 120 days from service, or 60 days from delivery of terms — later of | — | Prob. §16061.8 |
| Change in Ownership Statement (no probate) | 150 days from death; penalty runs 90 days after the assessor’s written request | No | BOE-502-D |
| Prop 19 parent-to-child claim | 3 years, or before third-party transfer, or when occupancy ends — earliest of | No | BOE-19-P |
| Disclaimer of an inheritance | 9 months to receipt | Yes | IRC §2518 |
| Federal estate tax return, if required | 9 months; automatic 6-month extension on a timely Form 4768 | No | Form 706 |
| Portability-only election, missed | Up to 5 years after death | No | Rev. Proc. 2022-32 |
The 2026 federal estate tax exclusion is $15,000,000 per person — statutory, and indexed only after 2026. The scheduled TCJA sunset that would have cut it roughly in half was repealed, so if you were told years ago to plan around a 2026 cliff, that advice is out of date. Most families never file a 706 at all; portability is the reason some still should.
One more: IRC §2032 alternate valuation is available six months after death, but only if the election decreases both the gross estate and the estate tax. A non-taxable estate generally cannot elect it, which surprises people who were hoping to pick the lower of two values.
The four I get asked most.
Does a trust sale need court confirmation in California?
Generally no — Probate Code §16226 gives the trustee the power of sale. Court involvement is exception-driven: the instrument withholds the power, co-trustees deadlock, a beneficiary contests, there is no trustee in office, the property was never funded into the trust, or the trustee wants court cover for a sale to an insider.
I’m past 150 days on the assessor’s form. How much trouble am I in?
Less than you think, and it is fixable. The penalty is triggered 90 days after the assessor mails a written request — not by day 151 on its own. The real exposure is escape assessments reaching back eight rolls under R&TC §532(b)(2), which is a reason to file now rather than a reason to give up.
My kids want to keep the house and rent it out. Do they keep the low tax base?
No. Under Prop 19 the parent-to-child exclusion requires the child to make the home their primary residence within one year and to keep living there. A home kept as a rental is reassessed in full. That single rule is what flipped the old “keep it for the taxes” default for most families.
If it does go to a confirmation hearing, how much does the first overbid have to be?
Probate Code §10311(a)(1): the accepted price plus 10% of the first $10,000 and 5% of the amount above that. On a $1,000,000 offer, $1,050,500. Increments after the first bid are the judge’s discretion, not statute. And §10311(e) says bids are computed without regard to commission.
You need someone who has done this before, not someone learning on your file.
Trust and estate sales are not ordinary listings. The disclosures are different because the seller never lived there. The timing is different because it is driven by notices and beneficiaries, not by a school calendar. And the price has to hold up to people who were not in the room — a co-trustee, a sibling, sometimes a judge.
I spent years on the finance side, including corporate property-tax consulting and a stint as a CFO, before I was a broker. That is why attorneys and CPAs send me these. I will tell you plainly when selling is not the right move, which is more often than you would expect from someone paid on the sale.
Get it a piece at a time, in the order you need it.
Six short pieces over the first ninety days — securing the property, the notices and their clocks, the date-of-death value, the assessor’s form, the keep-or-sell math, and how the sale runs. The Trustee’s First 30 Days downloads the moment you submit this; the rest come from me personally as you get to them, not from an autoresponder. No listing spam.
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Not sure whether to sell it, keep it, or wait?
That is the conversation, and it is free. Bring the date of death, roughly what the house is worth, and whether anyone is planning to live in it. Twenty minutes usually settles it.