What California Probate Actually Costs

When families ask what probate will cost, they expect a fuzzy answer. California's answer is unusually precise, because the ordinary fees are written directly into the Probate Code. That precision cuts both ways: the schedule sets the ordinary fee, and an agreement to pay more than it allows is void. The biggest variable is the number the schedule is applied to, and that is decided by how your assets are titled on the day you die.

The statutory fee schedule

Probate Code sections 10800 and 10810 set compensation for ordinary services, one schedule for the personal representative (the executor or administrator) and an identical schedule for their attorney:

Source: California Probate Code sections 10800 and 10810. The attorney and the personal representative are each entitled to the scheduled amount; courts may also approve additional "extraordinary" fees for work such as property sales or litigation.

Two details in that table do most of the damage. First, the fees can be doubled: the attorney is entitled to the schedule, and so is the executor. A son or daughter serving as executor often waives their fee, partly out of love and partly because the fee is taxable income while an inheritance generally is not, but a professional administrator will typically charge it. Second, and less known:

The schedule runs on the gross estate: the appraised value of what you own, "without reference to encumbrances." A $900,000 home with a $500,000 mortgage is a $900,000 home to the fee schedule.

That single phrase from the statute is why leveraged estates, common in farm country, get hit hardest. A family can owe statutory fees on millions of dollars of value the family does not actually keep. On top of the percentage fees, the court-appointed probate referee who appraises non-cash assets charges 0.1% of the appraised value (at least $75 and, unless the court allows more, no more than $10,000), and filing fees and administrative costs add more.

The other two costs: time and privacy

An uncontested California probate commonly runs twelve to eighteen months from the first filing to final distribution, and it cannot legally close before the four-month creditor claim window under Probate Code section 9100 has run. During that time the property sits under court supervision: selling real estate, operating a business, or simply paying a family member from estate funds involves procedure, and sometimes a court date. And every step happens in a public file: the inventory of assets and their appraised values, the names of the heirs, and any family disagreement, all readable by anyone who asks, including solicitors who work probate filings for a living. A trust administration handles the same work privately, on the family's timeline.

Where probate happens in Kings, Tulare, and Fresno counties

The statutory fees above are the same in every California county. So, in nearly every county, is the court's charge to open the case: under the Judicial Council's Statewide Civil Fee Schedule effective January 1, 2026, the first petition for letters testamentary or letters of administration costs $435, including in Kings, Tulare and Fresno (Government Code 70650(a) with the surcharges in 70602.5 and 70602.6). The probate referee who appraises the non-cash assets is paid a commission of one-tenth of one percent of the appraised value, no less than $75 and no more than $10,000 unless the court approves more (Probate Code 8961 and 8963); on a hypothetical $4 million estate appraised entirely by the referee, that is $4,000. What differs by county is where you go, which department hears the matter, and how the court tells you whether your paperwork will pass. Most of the families we serve are in Kings, Tulare, and Fresno counties. For those three:

Sources: Judicial Council of California, Statewide Civil Fee Schedule effective January 1, 2026; Probate Code sections 8961 and 8963; Kings County Superior Court Local Rules effective July 1, 2026 (Rules 307 and 313); Tulare County Superior Court Local Rules effective July 1, 2026 (Rule 1000) and its probate tentative rulings page; Fresno County Superior Court, Probate Proceedings pamphlet (October 2022). Departments, extensions and posting times change; confirm with the court or your attorney before relying on them.

Two practical consequences for a family in one of these counties. First, the examiner's notes are an early signal of how long a probate will take: a petition that clears the notes on the first hearing moves, and one that does not is continued, often more than once, which is one way a 12 to 18 month timeline stretches longer. An attorney who practices in that courthouse regularly knows what its examiner looks for. Second, for assets titled to a funded living trust, these steps generally do not apply. A trust administration ordinarily stays out of the probate department, which is the point of the estate planning guide and the reason every client family receives the Second Look, our plain-English estate plan review, which checks titling first.

When probate is required, and what passes outside it

Probate is generally required when someone dies holding assets in their own individual name above California's small-estate limits. For deaths on or after April 1, 2025, those limits are $208,850 for the estate's California property, with some property excluded from the count (personal property can then be collected by affidavit, no court case required), and, separately under AB 2016, a primary residence worth up to $750,000, which can pass through a simplified petition that still requires a court hearing. Those thresholds help modest estates, but a Central Valley family with a home and farmland outside a trust is often past them.

What passes outside probate regardless of size:

1. 1
   Assets titled to a funded living trust. The centerpiece, covered in our Estate Planning 101. The trust only protects what has actually been retitled to it.
2. 2
   Accounts with valid beneficiary designations. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and pay-on-death accounts pass by contract. The designations need to be coordinated with the trust, and they go stale quietly after divorces, deaths, and rollovers.
3. 3
   Certain jointly held property. Joint tenancy passes to the survivor without probate, but it is a blunt tool: it can forfeit the community property double step-up in basis and create Prop 19 and control problems. How something avoids probate matters as much as whether it does; see Stepped-Up Basis on Inherited Farmland.

The tax picture: often better than families fear

California has no state estate tax and no inheritance tax; probate cost is a fee problem, not a tax problem. At the federal level, the estate tax applies only above the basic exclusion of $15,000,000 per person for deaths in 2026, roughly double for a married couple using portability. For families near or above that line, which sizable land holdings can cross faster than their owners expect, the planning conversation changes: additional trusts, gifting strategy, and timing all matter, and that work belongs with experienced estate counsel well before it is needed. We coordinate it; we do not draft it.