Short pieces, written for the personal representative or successor trustee who’s looking for a specific answer at 11 p.m. No 2,400-word listicles.
Within days of filing DE-111, your inbox and mailbox fill with cash offers. Here’s what those letters actually mean, what to do with them, and when one of them is worth a phone call.
The trust splits everything three ways. One sibling wants to keep the house. The math is doable, but every family I’ve walked through this misses two things.
If a reverse-mortgaged home was just inherited, the most important phone call is to the servicer — not the Realtor. Here’s exactly what to say.
Probate sales in Los Angeles closed at a median 96% of list in the trailing twelve months. Numbers, charts, and what they mean for pricing a 2026 estate sale.
Limited-authority sales end in a confirmation hearing where strangers can show up with cashier’s checks and bid against your accepted offer. I’ve been to a lot of these. They’re calmer than you expect.
Your parent created a living trust but never recorded the deed transferring the home into it. Probate isn’t the only path. A Heggstad petition can fix this in about four months.
What “stepped-up basis” actually means for the capital gains math, and how Prop 19 changed the rules for keeping a parent’s low tax assessment after inheritance.
The DE-111 filing fee is roughly $435 in most California counties as of January 2026. In the context of a $700K estate, it’s the smallest line item by an order of magnitude.
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