John J. Donahue

Will & Trust Contests · Los Angeles

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Palisades Park in Santa Monica: palms and twisted trees along the bluff walk above the ocean.

Probate · Santa Monica

Probate in Santa Monica

Palisades Park on the Santa Monica bluffs. Photo: bynyalcin, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Santa Monica homes are worth far more than California’s probate shortcuts allow, so a house in a parent’s own name almost always means a probate. John J. Donahue’s office on Wilshire is minutes from the Santa Monica line.

Where a Santa Monica probate is filed

Santa Monica is its own city, but it is in Los Angeles County, so its estates go to the county’s Superior Court, Probate Division. Most hearings are at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse downtown, and many can be attended remotely, which matters to Westside families who would rather not lose a morning to the 10 freeway.

Why Santa Monica estates are different

  • Values. Even a modest Santa Monica house or condo is usually worth well over $750,000, the ceiling for the shorter primary-home petition. Without a trust, it is a probate.
  • Rent control. Many Santa Monica apartments are covered by the city’s rent control law, run by its Rent Control Board. An executor or trustee who inherits tenants inherits those rules too, including limits on rent and on asking tenants to leave.
  • The fee scales with the value. Because the statutory fee is a percentage, a $2.5 million estate carries a basic attorney fee of $38,000, approved by the court and paid from the estate at the end.
  • Trusts are common here, and so are unfinished ones. Read a story like this →

From the calls John gets

The duplex north of Montana

A widow owned a duplex north of Montana Avenue for fifty years and lived in the front unit. Her trust left everything to her two sons, but the deed was still in her own name, and the back unit had a tenant paying a 1990s rent.

What John looks at: Whether the duplex can be confirmed as a trust asset without a full probate, who manages the tenant in the meantime, and what Santa Monica’s rent rules allow before any sale.

Illustration. Details changed; not a real client. Read a story like this →

Getting started

Find the original will and the trust binder, if there is one, and a copy of the deed. Keep the property insured and the tenant’s rent going to an account the family can document. Then call John; the first call is about what you have and what has arrived in the mail. The first 30 days, as a checklist →

Keeping a Santa Monica house in the family

Some families want to sell. Others want to keep a Santa Monica house they could never afford to buy today. Keeping it is possible, but it takes planning during the probate: one heir buying out the others, a refinance to fund the buyout, or the house going to several heirs together with an agreement about who lives there and who pays what.

Property taxes are the other question. The rules for passing a parent’s lower tax base to a child changed in 2021, and they now generally apply only when the child makes the house their own home, and only up to a limit. Ask before deciding, because the answer changes the math.

In families’ own words

What Santa Monica families ask

Is Santa Monica part of Los Angeles for probate?

Santa Monica is its own city, but probate is handled by the Los Angeles County court, so the process is the same.

Can we sell with the tenant in place?

Often, yes. Many rental properties sell with tenants in place, rent-controlled units especially. The executor needs the court’s authority first.

We live out of state.

Most of a probate is handled by phone, email and mail, and many hearings can be attended remotely.

Mom’s trust covers everything but one account.

Then that account may be collected with an affidavit if it is small enough, or moved into the trust with a short court petition.

Can the executor be paid?

Yes. California sets the executor’s fee the same way as the lawyer’s, and family executors often waive it to leave more for the heirs.

Stories from families like yours

An older woman’s hand reaches toward a shelf in a wood-paneled den where two thick binders sit beside a lamp and a framed family photo.

The unfinished trust

“There was a trust. The house just never made it in.”

Dad paid for a trust and kept the binder on the shelf. Nobody ever put the house in it.

A gray-haired woman stands in her late mother’s small living room with half-packed boxes, an old armchair and afternoon light through the blinds.

The house in Mom’s name

“Mom kept it simple. Now nobody can sell the house.”

No trust, no fight, just a house in Mom’s name. And nothing moves without the court.

Three adult siblings in dark clothes stand apart in a family dining room after a funeral, one holding an envelope of papers.

Cut out at the end

“They always said it would be split three ways.”

Mom and Dad always said everything would be split evenly. The trust that surfaced after the funeral says otherwise.

Probate anywhere in Los Angeles County →

Elsewhere John works

Probate, explainedProbate litigationWill and trust contests in Santa MonicaProbate in Los Angeles CountyProbate in Orange CountyProbate in Los AngelesProbate in PasadenaProbate in Beverly HillsProbate in Long BeachProbate in GlendaleProbate in TorranceProbate in WhittierProbate in IrvineProbate in Huntington Beach