Probate for a house in Contra Costa County is filed at one courthouse — the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse at 725 Court Street in Martinez — and the first petition costs $435 under the statewide fee schedule in Government Code section 70650, the same base fee charged almost everywhere in California.

What actually varies county to county, and what trips up a lot of families, is everything that happens between filing that first petition and getting a house cleared to sell.

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Where the Case Actually Gets Heard

Contra Costa County Superior Court centralizes probate at its Martinez location rather than spreading cases across its branch courthouses in Richmond, Walnut Creek, or Pittsburg.

Whether the decedent lived in Concord, Antioch, San Ramon, El Cerrito, or anywhere else in the county, the petition for probate is filed and the case is heard at Wakefield Taylor.

Families who assume probate follows the same geography as traffic court or small claims — handled at whichever branch is closest to where they live — sometimes show up at the wrong building entirely, which costs a wasted trip before the case even gets moving.

The $435 Fee Is Statewide, Not a Contra Costa Number

The first-filed petition for letters of administration or letters testamentary costs $435 everywhere in California except a handful of counties — Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Francisco — that charge an additional local courthouse construction surcharge on top of the base fee under separate authority.

Contra Costa isn’t one of those counties, so the base statewide fee is the actual fee families pay here.

That $435 is just the opening cost, though: it doesn’t include the probate referee’s fee for appraising the house (set by statute as a percentage of the appraised value, with a minimum), publication costs for the required newspaper notice, certified copies of letters once issued, or attorney’s fees, which in an uncontested case are usually set under the same statutory percentage schedule that applies throughout the state regardless of county.

What the Branch Courthouses Still Handle

Contra Costa’s branch courthouses in Richmond, Walnut Creek, and Pittsburg aren’t closed to the rest of the family’s business — they hear traffic matters, small claims, unlawful detainer, and various civil and family law matters depending on the branch — but probate is consolidated at Martinez specifically.

That consolidation is a deliberate administrative choice by the court, not a reflection of where estates in the county actually originate; Contra Costa has plenty of estates with houses in Walnut Creek, El Cerrito, San Pablo, and Pittsburg, and every one of them is heard at the same Martinez probate department regardless of where the property itself sits.

A Worked Example

Say a widow in Concord passes away owning her house outright, in her name alone, with a will naming her adult son as executor.

Because the house is titled solely in her name with no trust, no joint tenant, and no transfer-on-death deed, the son cannot simply start showing the house to buyers — he has to open probate first.

He files the DE-111 petition for probate at Wakefield Taylor Courthouse in Martinez, pays the $435 filing fee, and requests full authority under the Independent Administration of Estates Act so he won’t need a court hearing just to sell the house later.

The court sets a hearing roughly six to eight weeks out, notice goes to all the siblings and any other heirs, and publication runs in a qualifying local newspaper.

Assuming no one contests the petition, letters testamentary issue at the hearing, and the probate referee is assigned to appraise the Concord house for the estate inventory.

With full authority in hand, the son can list the house, accept an offer, and send a 15-day Notice of Proposed Action to his siblings before closing — if none of them object in writing during that window, the sale can close without ever going back in front of a judge.

If one sibling does object, the son has to either address the objection directly or ask the court for instructions before proceeding, which adds another hearing and likely another month or more to the timeline.

The $750,000 Small-Estate Threshold, and Why It Rarely Helps With a House Alone

Families researching Contra Costa probate often come across California’s small-estate procedures, which let a simplified affidavit or petition transfer property without full probate when the estate’s value falls under a statutory threshold.

Since AB 2016 took effect on April 1, 2025, the threshold for using the simplified petition to determine succession to real property that serves as the decedent’s primary residence rose to $750,000 — a significant jump from the previous limit, and one that makes the small-estate route realistic for a meaningfully larger share of California homeowners than before.

In a county like Contra Costa, where median home values in cities like Walnut Creek, Danville, and Lafayette often sit well above that figure, a house-only estate frequently still exceeds the threshold even after AB 2016’s increase, which is why full probate remains the more common path here despite the expanded exemption.

Checking the house’s realistic fair market value against the current $750,000 figure, rather than assuming either that probate is automatically required or that the small-estate route automatically applies, is worth doing before filing anything.

What the Petition Actually Has to Include

A petition for probate in Contra Costa follows the same statewide Judicial Council forms every county uses — most importantly form DE-111, the Petition for Probate itself — but the court layers its own local requirements on top of the state form.

The court publishes a probate form packet specifically for self-represented and attorney filers, covering the documents the Martinez probate department expects to see alongside the state forms: a proposed order, specific notice documents, and the court’s own checklist items that aren’t part of the standard statewide packet.

Filing the state forms alone, without checking Contra Costa’s own packet and local rules first, is a common way to get a petition kicked back for corrections, adding weeks to a timeline that’s often already tight for a family trying to sell a house.

Notice, Hearing, and Letters

Once the petition is filed, the court sets a hearing date, and the petitioner has to give notice to heirs, beneficiaries, and anyone else entitled to it, along with publishing notice in a newspaper of general circulation in the area where the decedent lived — a Contra Costa-specific requirement is making sure that publication actually runs in a paper the court will accept for that part of the county, since not every local paper qualifies, and Martinez’s probate department can reject a petition if the wrong publication was used.

If no one contests the petition and the paperwork is in order, the court issues letters testamentary (where there’s a will naming an executor) or letters of administration (where there isn’t), and those letters are what actually give someone legal authority to act for the estate — including listing and selling the house.

Nothing before that point, no matter how clearly the family has agreed among themselves on who should handle things, carries legal authority to sign a listing agreement or a purchase contract.

Selling the House Once Letters Issue

Whether the house can be sold without a court hearing, or needs one, depends on whether the personal representative was granted full or limited authority under the Independent Administration of Estates Act when the court appointed them — a determination made at the same hearing that issues letters, based on what the petition requested and whether anyone objected.

With full authority, the representative can typically sell the house after giving a Notice of Proposed Action to interested parties, with at least 15 days before the sale can close, and proceed without a confirmation hearing if no one objects in writing within that window.

With limited authority, the sale needs a separate court confirmation hearing, where the judge can accept competing overbids from other buyers in the courtroom — a real possibility in probate sales that surprises buyers unfamiliar with the process, since an accepted offer isn’t necessarily final until the court actually confirms it.

What the Probate Referee Does to the House

Every California probate requires a court-appointed probate referee to appraise non-cash estate assets, including real property, and that appraisal sets the house’s value for inventory purposes and for calculating the statutory fees due to the attorney and personal representative.

The referee’s fee is set by statute at a percentage of the appraised value, with a minimum charge, and Contra Costa draws its referees from the same statewide pool the Controller’s office maintains rather than a county-specific roster — so the process itself doesn’t differ much here, but the appraisal date and value still matter directly to how much the estate ends up paying in statutory fees, since those fees are calculated as a percentage of the estate’s appraised value rather than the eventual sale price.

How Long This Actually Takes

An uncontested Contra Costa probate involving a house typically runs somewhere between eight months and a year and a half from filing to final distribution, depending on the court’s calendar, whether the estate has creditor claims to resolve (creditors generally have four months from when letters first issue to file a claim), and whether the sale itself proceeds under full or limited authority.

The house can usually be sold well before the estate formally closes — the sale doesn’t have to wait for the final accounting — but the proceeds typically sit in the estate’s account until debts, taxes, and statutory fees are settled and the court approves final distribution to the heirs.

Local Rules Worth Checking Before Filing

Contra Costa Superior Court publishes its own local rules covering probate department practices, including calendar notes that spell out what the court specifically wants to see at a given type of hearing — continuances, supplemental filings, and what triggers a matter being dropped from the calendar rather than heard.

These calendar notes change from time to time as the probate department’s practices evolve, and checking the current version before a scheduled hearing, rather than relying on what a filing looked like in a prior case, is the kind of detail that keeps a petition from being continued for a minor, avoidable defect.

The court’s probate self-help desk, reachable through the Martinez probate division’s general line, is the practical first stop for a self-represented filer trying to figure out which local forms accompany the state packet for a given type of petition — the clerk’s office can confirm what’s currently required without the back-and-forth of a filing being rejected after the fact.

For anything beyond a straightforward, uncontested estate, most families still find it worth paying a probate attorney for at least the initial filing, given how much a single defective notice or missed local form can add to an already months-long timeline.

Common Questions Contra Costa Families Ask

Does the executor have to live in Contra Costa County? No. The case is filed where the decedent lived or where their property is located, not where the executor or administrator lives — an out-of-state executor can serve, though the court may require a local agent for service of process.

Can the house be sold before the estate is fully closed? Generally yes, once letters issue and, if required, the Notice of Proposed Action window passes or a confirmation hearing is held — the sale itself doesn’t have to wait for the final accounting and distribution that formally closes the estate.

What if the family can’t agree on a sale price? The personal representative has a fiduciary duty to the estate and its beneficiaries, which means a price objected to by other heirs as unreasonably low can become grounds for an objection to the Notice of Proposed Action or, in a limited-authority case, grounds to object at the confirmation hearing itself — getting an independent appraisal or multiple offers in hand before proceeding is the most common way to head off that kind of dispute before it costs more time in court.

When a Fast Sale Beats Waiting on Probate

For some families, running the full probate timeline before selling is unavoidable — if there’s no trust, no joint tenancy, and no qualifying small-estate shortcut, the house generally cannot be sold to a third party until letters issue, whatever the timeline costs.

But even once letters are in hand, a family facing mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance on a vacant inherited house every month that probate drags on has a real incentive to sell as soon as authority allows, rather than waiting for a traditional listing process, inspection negotiations, and a financed buyer’s underwriting timeline to run their full course on top of the probate timeline that’s already consumed months.

That said, probate sale rules exist to protect heirs from an estate being sold too cheaply, and a representative who rushes a sale without getting a reasonable value for the property, or who skips the Notice of Proposed Action process when it’s required, can expose themselves to objections from other beneficiaries later.

The honest tradeoff is speed against the extra scrutiny a probate sale already carries — a representative in a hurry still has to be able to show the sale price was fair, whether through an appraisal, a referee’s valuation, or competing offers, regardless of how quickly they want to close.

First Steps for a Contra Costa Probate Sale

Confirm whether the house avoids probate entirely — a trust, joint tenancy, or a qualifying small-estate procedure can make full probate unnecessary
If probate is required, file the petition at the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse in Martinez, using both the statewide Judicial Council forms and Contra Costa’s own local probate form packet
Confirm whether the representative holds full or limited authority once letters issue, since that decides whether a sale needs court confirmation
Keep the property insured and maintained throughout — a vacant inherited house sitting empty during an eight-month-plus process is a real liability on its own

If the house is tied up in a Contra Costa probate case and the family would rather not wait on a traditional listing timeline once letters issue, Cash Home Buyers CA buys inherited and probate houses as-is and can make a no-obligation cash offer, working directly with the estate’s attorney on the Notice of Proposed Action or court-confirmation timeline.

Learn more on our homepage, see how we work with inherited houses in the area on our sell inherited house in Walnut Creek, or find us through Cash Home Buyers CA’s Google profile.

Contra Costa County Probate: The Courthouse, the Fee, and the Forms You’ll Actually Need