Living Trusts, Vesting and Probate for New SF Homeowners

You picked a vesting at the escrow table in about thirty seconds. Revisit it within a year. Die holding title in your own name and the home goes through California probate, where fees run on gross value, not equity: tens of thousands of dollars at SF prices and a year or more in court. The usual fix is a revocable living trust. Done correctly, the transfer triggers no reassessment, transfer tax, loan call or title insurance gap; done casually, it can cause all four.

What probate costs in California

Probate Code sections 10810 and 10800 give the attorney and the executor the same statutory fee: 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, 1% of the next $9 million and 0.5% of the next $15 million, on the appraised value of what you own, mortgage not deducted.

Add court fees, the probate referee's appraisal at one-tenth of 1% of value (Probate Code section 8961), publication and any bond. A typical probate runs roughly nine months to a year and a half, often longer, and meanwhile the home can be sold or refinanced only through the court-appointed personal representative. The comps tool estimates gross value.

A will does not avoid probate; it tells the court who inherits. The simplified petition for a primary residence under Probate Code section 13151, widened in 2025 to homes worth up to $750,000, rarely reaches an SF price (check current figures).

Vesting recap and what you may want to fix

What each choice in the escrow and title vesting table does at a death:

A couple pays $1.2 million and the home is worth $2 million at the first death: as community property the survivor can sell with no taxable gain; as joint tenancy $400,000 of gain stays in the survivor's half. Spouses and registered domestic partners fix this with a new deed, to themselves as community property with right of survivorship or into their trust declaring the home community property, excluded from reassessment (Revenue and Taxation Code sections 63 and 62(p)) and, as a gift, from transfer tax.

Unmarried co-owners: joint tenancy overrides your will. Changing only the form of title between the same co-owners, same percentages, is excluded from reassessment under section 62(a)(1); moving a percentage between unrelated owners is reassessed for the share moved. Co-buying covers the agreement behind any shared deed.

The revocable living trust: what it does and does not do

A revocable trust moves title from you, the trustor, to yourself as trustee. You keep full control, can amend or revoke it, and name who manages the home if you are incapacitated and who receives it at death, all without court.

It does not shield the house from creditors, lower any tax or help assets you never retitled; a trust that does not hold the deed is paper. The pour-over will in every package catches stray assets and names guardians, but what it catches above the small-estate limits still goes through probate.

A basic package suits a married couple with children in common and one home. You need more in a blended family or unmarried partnership, with a TIC whose agreement restricts transfers, a rented unit, a non-citizen spouse, a beneficiary with special needs or an estate near the federal exclusion ($15 million per person for 2026); see when you need an attorney.

Transferring your home into the trust

• Deed. A grant deed from you to yourself as trustee, naming the trust and its date, notarized and recorded with the SF Assessor-Recorder.
• PCOR. File the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (BOE-502-A) with the deed and check the revocable trust box; without it the recorder may add a $20 fee under Revenue and Taxation Code section 480.3 and the Assessor sends a Change in Ownership Statement you must return within 45 days.
• Reassessment. A transfer into your own revocable trust is excluded under section 62(d); your Prop 13 base continues. Put the exclusion on the deed.
• Transfer tax. A transfer in trust for no consideration is exempt under section 11930; state it on the deed and complete San Francisco's transfer tax affidavit (forms on the Assessor-Recorder's recording page).
• Homeowner exemption. It continues while you live there; if a new claim form arrives, file it (deadlines).
• Lender. The Garn-St Germain Act, 12 U.S.C. 1701j-3(d)(8), bars enforcing a due-on-sale clause when a home with fewer than five units goes into an inter vivos trust in which you remain a beneficiary and occupancy does not change; send the servicer the recorded deed anyway.
• Certification of trust. Keep one under Probate Code section 18100.5 so lenders, insurers and your HOA never need the whole document. CC&Rs often require notice; a TIC agreement and fractional lender may require consent first.

Title insurance and homeowners insurance after the transfer

Your owner's title policy insures the person named in it; after the transfer the owner of record is the trustee. Some policy forms continue coverage for the trustee of your estate planning trust and some do not: ask the issuing title company in writing and, if the answer is anything but yes, request an additional-insured endorsement naming the trustee. Add the trust as an additional insured on your homeowners and earthquake policies too.

Refinancing while in trust

Fannie Mae's Selling Guide (B2-2-05) accepts an inter vivos revocable trust as borrower when the person who created it is its primary beneficiary, serves as a trustee and qualifies for and signs the loan individually. Some lenders still require you to deed out before closing and back in afterward; the two mistakes are forgetting the re-deed, which puts the house back on the probate track, and recording it without the PCOR and exemption statements, which invites a reassessment inquiry. Ask when you shop the refinance, prefer a lender that lends to the trust, and write any re-deed into the escrow instructions.

The transfer on death deed as a cheaper alternative

California's revocable transfer on death deed, Probate Code section 5600 and following, names who takes a one-to-four unit home or condominium at death without probate, for the cost of a form, two witnesses, a notary and recording. The property stays exposed to your debts, and the statute sunsets on January 1, 2032 unless extended again (check current rules). Skip it if you hold joint tenancy with someone who may outlive you (the deed is then void under section 5664), want a backup beneficiary (the statutory form provides for none; under section 5652 a lapsed share goes to the other named beneficiaries), have a minor beneficiary, own a TIC interest, or want anyone able to act during your incapacity, since it does nothing while you are alive.

Prop 19 and your heirs

Since February 16, 2021, a child inherits your Prop 13 value only for a family home the child makes their principal residence, claiming the homeowner exemption within one year, and only up to your factored base-year value plus an inflation-adjusted amount, $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027 (check current figures); market value above that sum is added. A trust does not change this. The levers are which child, if any, will live there and life insurance for the higher tax.

• Unmarried partners get no spousal exclusion, no community property step-up and nothing under intestacy. The cotenancy exclusion in section 62.3 spares the survivor reassessment only if the two of you owned 100% together as joint tenants or tenants in common, were both on title and both lived there as your principal residence for the year before the death, and the survivor takes 100% and signs the affidavit (BOE-58-H).
• Blended families: a survivor who inherits outright can leave the first spouse's children with nothing; a trust with separate shares for each side is the usual answer.

What to shop for right now

The one service here is the estate planning attorney; savings are medium, because flat-fee packages for the same documents differ by thousands of dollars between San Francisco firms (as of 2026-10-25, check current quotes). Get two written quotes and ask who handles the deed, the PCOR, the exemption statements and the lender and insurer notices. If you later buy again with one of this site's agents, the buyer-side commission is how the site is paid.