Inherited Property

Most California probate estates take nine to eighteen months from filing to close. Here is the statutory floor, a realistic month-by-month walkthrough, and what actually stretches a case out.

Riverside County does not have one probate courthouse – it has three, and which one hears your case depends on the region where the matter arose, not simply where the decedent lived.

Orange County hears probate at the Costa Mesa Justice Complex, not in Santa Ana or at Lamoreaux, and the first petition costs $435. Here is what the process actually involves when there is a house to sell.

A California partition action forces co-owners to divide or sell jointly owned property. Since January 2023 the rules changed: a court-ordered appraisal sets the value, co-owners get 45 days to elect a buyout, and the default sale is an open-market listing rather than an auction.

A Heggstad petition asks a California probate court to confirm that a house belongs to a trust even though the deed was never changed. It is filed under Probate Code section 850, it takes at least 30 days of notice the court cannot shorten, and the order has to be recorded before you can sell.

The California small estate affidavit under Probate Code section 13100 cannot transfer real property at all — it reaches money, tangible personal property and securities. The procedure that does transfer a house is a different one, and since April 2025 it covers primary residences worth up to $750,000.

Probate for a Los Angeles County decedent’s estate is filed and heard at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, and the first-paper filing fee is $435. Whether you can sell the house quickly depends less on the court’s calendar than on whether the personal representative holds full or limited authority.

In California, usually yes. A personal representative with full authority under the Independent Administration of Estates Act can sell estate real property without beneficiary consent — but must give 15 days’ written notice first, and an objection changes what happens next.

Whether you need to go through probate before selling an inherited California home depends almost entirely on how the property was titled before the owner died. Some heirs can sell…