Alameda County Probate Court: Filing Fee and Local Rules

Filing a decedent’s estate in Alameda County costs $435 for the first petition and can only be filed at one courthouse in the entire county: the Berkeley Courthouse.

If you have inherited a house in Oakland, Fremont, Hayward, San Leandro, or anywhere else in Alameda County and no trust, joint tenancy, or Transfer on Death deed covers it, here is exactly where the case goes, what it costs, and the local rules that decide whether your hearing gets a pre-grant or gets dropped from the calendar.

Where an Alameda County Probate Case Is Filed

The Superior Court of California, County of Alameda hears probate matters — decedents’ estates, trusts, guardianships, conservatorships, and spousal or succession petitions — for the entire county, but it does so from a single location.

Probate documents are filed only in the Clerk’s Office at the Berkeley Courthouse, 2120 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, Berkeley, CA 94704. Not Oakland. Not Hayward. Not Fremont or Dublin, even though each of those cities has its own Alameda County courthouse for other case types.

Decedents’ estates, spousal property petitions, and succession petitions are heard in Departments 201 and 202 at the Berkeley Courthouse; if a probate matter actually goes to trial, that trial is held in Department 103 at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland instead.

Venue is proper in Alameda County when the decedent was domiciled in the county at death, under Probate Code § 7051, or when a non-resident decedent owned Alameda County real property, which triggers ancillary administration here even if the main estate is probated elsewhere.

The $435 Fee — and Why It Is the Same Everywhere

The fee for the first-filed Petition for Probate in Alameda County is $435. That figure is not an Alameda County decision — it is the statewide probate filing fee set under California Government Code § 70650 and the Statewide Civil Fee Schedule, and it applies the same way in all 58 California superior courts.

Alameda’s own local civil fee schedule, last reissued in mid-2026, adds no probate-specific surcharge on top of it, unlike a small number of counties that tack on a local courthouse-construction fee.

Fee waivers are available on Judicial Council forms FW-001 and FW-003 and can be e-filed along with the petition itself.

What does vary by county is everything that happens after the fee is paid: where you file, how strictly the clerk enforces formatting, how the court’s probate examiners screen your paperwork, and whether a complete petition can skip a hearing entirely. Alameda County’s version of those local rules is more procedural than most, and it rewards a petition that is completely assembled before it is ever filed.

E-Filing Is Mandatory for Attorneys, Not for Families

Since October 23, 2023, Local Rule 7.2 has required attorneys and represented parties to e-file probate documents through an approved eFileCA service provider. Self-represented filers may e-file voluntarily or still file on paper — in person at the Berkeley Courthouse clerk’s window (Monday through Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Friday 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.), in the drop box until 4:00 p.m., or by mail. Fax filing ended entirely on August 31, 2023.

Several documents cannot be e-filed under any circumstances and must reach the Berkeley clerk as paper originals: the original will and any codicils, surety bonds, the DE-305 Affidavit Re Real Property of Small Value, and Probate Code § 13101 small-estate affidavits.

Local Rule 7.150 also requires attaching a copy of each will and codicil to the Petition for Probate itself, plus a typewritten transcription of any handwritten holographic will — a step people filing their first petition without an attorney often miss.

The Pre-Grant System That Can Skip a Hearing Entirely

Alameda County runs what is effectively a paper-review fast lane.

Under Local Rule 7.10, if all supporting documents and a proposed order are filed at least two days before the scheduled hearing and the assigned probate examiner finds no deficiencies, the matter can be designated a pre-grant — a tentative grant of the petition with no appearance required from anyone.

For a cooperative, uncontested estate with a complete petition, this is the difference between driving to Berkeley on a weekday morning and never needing to show up at all.

The flip side is less forgiving.

Probate examiner notes typically post to the case’s Register of Actions on the court’s eCourt Public Portal (eportal.alameda.courts.ca.gov) about three weeks before the hearing date, and any procedural deficiency they flag has to be cleared — usually by a verified MC-030 declaration rather than an amended petition, since an amended petition can trigger republication — by 12:00 p.m. two court days before the hearing.

Alameda County’s court does not automatically continue matters with uncleared issues; a hearing can simply be dropped from the calendar at the court’s discretion, which means missing that noon deadline can cost weeks, not days.

Probate examiners take phone questions at (510) 647-4403, but only from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m., Monday through Friday — a narrow window that catches people who assume a court office answers calls all day. Continuance requests, by contrast, go directly to the assigned department rather than the examiner line: (510) 647-4470 for Department 201, (510) 647-4471 for Department 202.

None of this is unique to a complicated estate. A single-asset estate — one house, no business interests, no disputes — can hit the same deficiency notes as a complex one if a required exhibit is missing or a proof of publication was filed late. The examiner system does not distinguish by estate size; it checks the same procedural boxes on a $400,000 Hayward bungalow that it checks on a multimillion-dollar Piedmont estate.

What the Statutory Attorney and Executor Fees Actually Cost

California fixes probate attorney and personal representative compensation by statute rather than by negotiated rate.

Probate Code § 10810 sets a sliding scale — the attorney and the personal representative are each separately entitled to the full amount — of 4% of the first $100,000 of the estate’s appraised value, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, and lower percentages above that.

Alameda County’s home values work against families here compared with inland counties: on a $900,000 Oakland or Fremont-area house with no other significant assets, the statutory calculation comes to roughly $4,000 + $3,000 + $16,000 = $23,000 for the attorney and another $23,000 for the representative — a combined $46,000 before any extraordinary fees for selling real property.

Critically, that fee is calculated against the estate’s full appraised value, not the equity remaining after a mortgage. A $900,000 house with a $500,000 mortgage still generates statutory fees based on the full $900,000 appraisal, not the $400,000 of actual equity.

A personal representative who is also the primary heir can waive their own fee, and some attorneys will agree to hourly billing instead of the statutory percentage, but any such arrangement needs to be in writing before the case gets underway.

When Alameda County Estates Skip Probate Entirely

Not every inherited Alameda County property needs to go through this process. If the house was held in a revocable living trust, title passes to the successor trustee with no court filing at all.

If it was held in joint tenancy or as community property with right of survivorship, the surviving owner records an affidavit of death and can sell as sole owner. A recorded Transfer on Death deed lets the named beneficiary take title after California’s required waiting period, also outside probate.

Even without any of those, Assembly Bill 2016 raised the threshold for a simplified Petition to Determine Succession to Real Property under Probate Code §§ 13150–13157 to $750,000 for a decedent’s primary residence, effective for deaths on or after April 1, 2025.

The personal-property small-estate affidavit under § 13100 covers up to $208,850 for deaths on or after that same date and goes directly to banks and asset holders without ever touching the court.

Alameda County’s home prices mean a meaningful share of inherited houses here — a typical Hayward or San Leandro property, for instance — can still clear the $750,000 primary-residence ceiling and qualify for the simplified route, while a comparable house in Oakland’s hills or in Alameda itself more often cannot.

Selling the House While the Case Is Open

A common misunderstanding is that a house cannot be sold until the entire probate case closes.

In practice, a personal representative with full authority under the Independent Administration of Estates Act can typically market and sell the property well before final distribution, by serving a Notice of Proposed Action on interested parties and proceeding if no one objects within 15 days.

Without full IAEA authority, the sale instead requires a court-confirmation hearing, where the court can accept competing overbids from the floor and the originally accepted offer is not final until the judge confirms it — a detail worth flagging to any buyer before escrow opens, so an accepted offer being outbid in open court does not come as a surprise mid-transaction.

One more Alameda-specific wrinkle under Local Rule 7.300: a court-confirmed sale held more than a year after the date of death requires a fresh reappraisal before the confirmation hearing, which can add both time and an extra probate referee fee to a case that has already run long.

Checking a Case Online and the Forms Alameda County Actually Requires

Alameda County’s eCourt Public Portal lets anyone look up a probate case by number, view the Register of Actions, and read examiner notes once they post — no registration required.

E-filed documents, though, can take three or more business days to actually appear on the portal, which means waiting until the day before an examiner deadline to check for notes is a real risk; the court’s guidance is to file everything well ahead of that two-court-day cutoff specifically because of the lag.

On paperwork, Alameda County is unusually light on mandatory local forms for a county this size.

Every decedent’s-estate filing uses the statewide Judicial Council DE-series — DE-111 Petition for Probate, DE-121 Notice of Petition to Administer Estate, DE-147 Duties and Liabilities of Personal Representative, DE-150 Letters, DE-160 Inventory and Appraisal, and the rest — and the court publishes free downloadable packets bundling exactly the forms a given path needs.

The county’s own local probate forms are confidential questionnaires used only for guardianship and conservatorship matters; a straightforward decedent’s estate files none of them, aside from the will-attachment requirement under Local Rule 7.150.

What Happens If Heirs Disagree

It is common for a single Alameda County house to pass to multiple siblings or heirs, and disagreement over whether to sell, rent, or keep the property is common enough that California law has a built-in answer.

While the estate is still open, any heir can petition the court for instructions. Once probate closes and title has transferred to the heirs as co-owners, a partition action is a separate civil proceeding that can force a sale if the co-owners genuinely cannot agree.

It is generally a last resort — a buyout between the heirs, or a simple agreement to sell and split proceeds, is almost always faster and cheaper than litigating a partition action through to a forced sale.

Out-of-County and Out-of-State Heirs

A probate case is filed where the decedent resided, not where the heirs live, so an heir in Sacramento or Seattle deals with the Berkeley Courthouse and Alameda County’s local rules regardless of their own address.

This is manageable in practice: a complete petition can be pre-granted with no appearance at all, and when an appearance is required, Departments 201 and 202 allow remote appearances by ZoomGov video at the department’s discretion — though telephone-only appearances are generally not permitted, and links are not published online, so you have to contact the department directly.

A personal representative who lives outside California, though, must post a minimum $20,000 bond under Local Rule 7.175, filed with the petition and proposed order.

What that leaves unresolved is the house itself. An out-of-area heir still needs someone local to secure the property, keep insurance current, and handle repairs or showings while the case is open — a vacant home sitting through many months of probate is a real liability on its own, separate from anything happening in the courtroom.

1. Pull the recorded deed from the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder and confirm exactly how title is currently held
2. Check whether the primary residence falls under the $750,000 AB 2016 threshold before assuming full probate is required
3. Download the court’s free Probate Packet — Decedent’s Estate before filing anything, and attach every will and codicil to the petition as Local Rule 7.150 requires
4. Submit all supporting documents and a proposed order at least two days before the hearing to have a shot at a pre-grant under Local Rule 7.10
5. Watch the eCourt Public Portal for examiner notes and clear any deficiency by noon two court days before the hearing — this court does not automatically continue uncleared matters

Whether an Alameda County estate qualifies for the simplified succession petition or needs full probate, the first practical step is the same: confirm exactly how title is held before assuming either way, since guessing wrong in either direction costs months.

A direct sale is not automatically the better path once letters issue — if the house is in good condition and the estate has full IAEA authority, listing with an agent will often net more after the statutory fees are paid regardless of how the sale happens.

A direct sale tends to help most in Alameda County probate specifically when the house needs repairs a conventional lender would flag, when out-of-area heirs cannot manage a vacant property through a long case, or when a fast, certain buyer willing to work through a court-confirmation hearing is hard to find otherwise.

Probate procedure is detailed and Alameda County’s local rules change periodically, so nothing here replaces confirming your specific situation with a California probate attorney before committing to a filing strategy.

If you are an heir deciding whether to list or sell directly once you have authority to act, selling an inherited house in Alameda, CA is something Cash Home Buyers CA handles regularly, including coordinating around Notice of Proposed Action timelines and court-confirmed sales.

We buy directly or bring a vetted cash buyer, and when you sell to us, we pay the standard closing costs, including the county and city transfer taxes, escrow and title.

Find Cash Home Buyers CA on our Google Business Profile, or call (424) 435-2326 with questions about an inherited Alameda County property.