Real Estate in a California Probate: Selling, Keeping, or Transferring the House

By Eric Ridley, California estate planning and probate attorney. Updated September 2026.

Short answer: A house in a California probate moves down one of two tracks. Under full authority granted by the Independent Administration of Estates Act (Probate Code § 10400 et seq.), the personal representative can sign a listing agreement and close a sale without a judge’s signature, as long as anyone who objects to the sale gets 15 days’ notice first. Without that authority, or when the will requires it, the sale needs a judge’s confirmation at a hearing where a stranger in the back row can outbid the buyer on the spot. This article covers both tracks end to end, plus keeping the house, transferring it to heirs outright, the tax consequences, and the smaller procedures that skip probate for the house entirely. California only, current as of September 2026.

The two ways a probate house gets sold

Every California probate sale of real property runs through one of two statutory schemes, and the personal representative’s authority decides which one applies before a single showing happens.

Court confirmation sales (Probate Code § 10300 et seq.) are the older, slower default. The personal representative accepts an offer subject to court approval, publishes notice, and asks the court to confirm the sale at a hearing. Any qualified bidder can show up at that hearing and outbid the accepted offer under a formula set by statute. The court’s order, not the signed purchase contract, is what makes the sale final.

Independent Administration of Estates Act sales (Probate Code § 10400 et seq.) let a personal representative with full authority sell real property the way any private seller would: sign the listing agreement, accept an offer, and close, subject only to a 15-day objection window for the heirs and beneficiaries under the Notice of Proposed Action procedure (Probate Code § 10580 et seq.). No hearing, no courtroom overbidding, no waiting for a confirmation date on the court’s calendar.

Which one applies depends on what the will says and what powers the court granted in the order appointing the personal representative. Most modern California wills, and the default rule in an intestate estate, grant full IAEA authority. A will can restrict it, and a judge can grant only limited authority if there is reason to keep closer watch over the estate. Check the Letters (Judicial Council Form DE-150) issued to the personal representative. The form states in plain language whether the court granted full or limited authority under the Act.

Feature	Court confirmation sale (limited authority)	IAEA sale (full authority)
Governing statute	Prob. Code § 10300 et seq.	Prob. Code § 10400 et seq. and § 10580 et seq.
How the sale becomes final	Court order after a confirmation hearing	Close of escrow, once the 15-day objection window passes without a valid objection
Minimum price at confirmation	At least 90% of the probate referee’s appraised value (§ 10309)	No statutory floor, though the personal representative still owes the estate a fair price
Risk of losing the buyer to an overbid	Yes. Any qualified bidder can overbid at the hearing under the § 10311 formula	No courtroom overbidding
Typical time from accepted offer to close	6 to 10 weeks, driven by the court’s confirmation hearing calendar	Roughly 30 to 45 days, close to a normal resale, once the notice period runs
Notice required	Published notice of sale (§ 10300) plus a noticed confirmation hearing	Notice of Proposed Action mailed at least 15 days before the sale closes (§ 10586)
Who can stop it	Any bidder at the hearing, by outbidding	Any heir or devisee entitled to notice, by filing a written objection before the 15 days run

Court confirmation and the overbid: how the math actually works

A court confirmation sale isn’t simply a sale that a judge rubber-stamps. It’s a public auction with an accepted offer as the floor. Two numbers control the hearing: the 90% rule and the overbid formula.

The 90% rule

Probate Code § 10309 won’t let a private sale get confirmed unless the property was appraised within one year of the confirmation hearing and the accepted offer is at least 90% of that appraised value. If the appraisal is stale, the court orders a new one before the hearing can go forward. This is why the probate referee’s appraisal, discussed below, sets the floor for everything that follows.

The overbid formula

At the confirmation hearing, a competing bidder can beat the accepted offer, but not by a token amount. Probate Code § 10311 sets the minimum first overbid at 10% more on the first $10,000 of the accepted offer, plus 5% more on the amount above $10,000. Every overbid after that first one needs the court’s discretion on the increment, typically set by the local probate department at a smaller, fixed amount.

A worked example

Say the probate referee appraises a Camarillo house at $700,000. The personal representative accepts an offer of $650,000, which clears the 90% floor ($630,000) with room to spare. At the confirmation hearing, the minimum qualifying overbid is calculated like this:

• 10% of the first $10,000 of the accepted offer: $1,000
• 5% of the remaining $640,000 (the accepted offer above $10,000): $32,000
• Minimum first overbid: $650,000 + $1,000 + $32,000 = $683,000

A bidder who shows up planning to offer $660,000 doesn’t qualify to bid at all. The first overbid on the table has to be at least $683,000, in a form the court accepts, usually a cashier’s check for 10% of the bid held by the estate’s attorney at the hearing. If nobody overbids, the court confirms the original $650,000 sale. If someone does, bidding continues in whatever increments the court sets until a highest bidder is confirmed.

Selling under full IAEA authority: the faster track

When the personal representative holds full authority, real property sells the way it would outside probate, with one procedural layer added: the Notice of Proposed Action.

Before selling, the personal representative must deliver written notice of the proposed sale to every heir, devisee, and any person who requested special notice, at least 15 days before the date stated in the notice (Prob. Code § 10586). The notice describes the property, the material terms, and the date the sale will close if nobody objects. A beneficiary who wants to stop the sale has to deliver a written objection to the personal representative before that date (§ 10587). If an objection arrives, the personal representative either negotiates it, drops the proposed action, or goes back to court for authority to proceed anyway, which functionally converts the sale into the same court-supervised process as a limited-authority sale.

No objection, no hearing. The sale closes on ordinary escrow timing, roughly 30 to 45 days from an accepted offer, the same as a typical resale. Probate Code § 10501 confirms that full authority doesn’t require court supervision to sell real property to an outside buyer. The exception is a sale to the personal representative or their own attorney, which always needs court approval regardless of authority level, to prevent a fiduciary from buying the estate’s asset from themselves at a discount.

What “subject to court confirmation” means to a buyer and the MLS

A listing marked “court confirmation required” or “subject to overbid” isn’t a for-sale sign with an asterisk. It means the accepted offer is provisional until the confirmation hearing, and the buyer can be outbid in open court by someone who was never part of the negotiation. Buyers who submit an offer on a confirmation sale are typically asked to include an overbid rider and to have a cashier’s check ready for the hearing, since the court expects the initial overbid deposit on the spot, not a financing contingency worked out over the following week.

A listing on a full-authority IAEA sale carries none of that. Once escrow opens and the 15-day notice period runs without objection, the sale behaves like any private resale, contingencies and all. The difference matters enough that agents representing buyers should confirm which track a probate listing is on before writing an offer, since the strategy, the deposit required at acceptance, and the risk of losing the house to a later bidder aren’t the same.

The probate referee’s appraisal

Every asset in a decedent’s estate, including real property, gets valued as part of the Inventory and Appraisal (Judicial Council Form DE-160), due within four months after Letters are first issued to the personal representative (Prob. Code § 8800). Probate Code § 8900 allows the appraisal to be done by the personal representative, a court-appointed probate referee, or an independent expert, but in practice the county probate referee values the real property in nearly every case.

The referee is paid a commission of one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of the value of everything they appraise, with a statutory floor of $75 and a cap of $10,000 per estate, though a court can approve more on a showing that the referee’s work justified it (Prob. Code §§ 8961, 8963). On a $700,000 house appraised alone, that commission runs $700. This appraisal is the number that sets the 90% floor for a court confirmation sale and anchors the fair-market-value figure used for the federal tax basis step-up discussed later in this guide.

Broker commissions and exclusive listings

A personal representative can hire a licensed real estate broker to find a buyer and can authorize that broker to work through the multiple listing service like any other seller (Prob. Code § 10150). Two rules apply that don’t exist in a private sale. First, the commission is only binding against the estate in whatever amount the court allows, meaning the listing agreement’s stated commission doesn’t automatically bind the estate until a judge approves it, usually at the same hearing that confirms the sale. Second, an exclusive listing is capped at 90 days. Extending it past that requires a further showing to the court that the extension benefits the estate, granted by ex parte application in 90-day increments.

None of this stops a probate house from being marketed aggressively. It means the commission structure and listing term that a broker proposes need the estate’s attorney to build court approval into the sale documents from the start, not as an afterthought at the confirmation hearing.

How long it takes, from Letters to closing

Milestone	Court confirmation sale	Full-authority IAEA sale
Letters issue, probate referee assigned	Same, typically 6 to 10 weeks after filing the petition for probate	Same
Inventory and Appraisal filed	Within 4 months of Letters (§ 8800)	Within 4 months of Letters
Listing and marketing	Broker markets the property; offers accepted “subject to court confirmation”	Broker markets and negotiates like a normal sale
Notice period	Notice of sale published; confirmation hearing set on the court’s calendar, often 3 to 6 weeks out	15-day Notice of Proposed Action to heirs and devisees
Closing	After the court’s confirmation order, plus standard escrow, typically 6 to 10 weeks from accepted offer	Roughly 30 to 45 days from accepted offer, ordinary escrow timing
Estate closes	Independent of the house sale; a full probate in my experience runs 12 to 18 months overall	Same overall estate timeline; the house sale itself is the fast part

No California court publishes a statewide median for either track, so treat the ranges above as observations from practice, not statistics. A confirmation sale can move faster if the probate department’s calendar is light, and slower if a hearing gets continued or an overbid drags the process into a second round.

Who pays what: the cost breakdown

Cost	Who bears it	Amount
Probate referee’s commission	Estate	0.1% of appraised value, $75 minimum, $10,000 cap absent court approval of more (§§ 8961, 8963)
Broker commission	Estate, from sale proceeds	Set by the listing agreement, binding only in the amount the court allows (§ 10150)
Publication of notice of sale	Estate	Newspaper’s published rate for a legal notice, typically a few hundred dollars
Personal representative’s statutory fee	Estate	4% of the first $100,000 of estate value, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, declining above that, calculated on gross value with no reduction for a mortgage (§ 10800)
Attorney’s statutory fee	Estate	The identical schedule as the personal representative’s fee (§ 10810)
Ongoing carrying costs	Estate, until closing or distribution	Property tax, hazard and vacancy insurance, utilities, basic upkeep
Extraordinary fees for the sale itself	Estate, if petitioned and approved	Court-approved additional compensation for unusually difficult or contested sales

Because the personal representative’s and attorney’s statutory fees run on the estate’s gross value, “without reference to encumbrances” (§ 10800(b)), a house with a $400,000 mortgage and $300,000 of equity still counts at its full $700,000 appraised value for fee purposes. Selling the house doesn’t by itself reduce what the estate owes in statutory fees; it just converts an illiquid asset into cash the estate can use to pay them. You can run the full estate math, mortgage and all, with our probate fee calculator.

Keeping the house instead of selling it

Not every family wants to sell. Heirs who plan to keep the house, whether to live in it or hold it as a rental, face three practical problems that a sale sidesteps: the mortgage, the insurance, and, if more than one heir inherits, the risk of disagreement.

The mortgage doesn’t have to be paid off or refinanced

A common and costly misconception is that a mortgage automatically comes due when the borrower dies and the house passes to an heir. Federal law says otherwise. The Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 bars a lender from enforcing a due-on-sale clause against a transfer to a relative resulting from the borrower’s death, and separately against a transfer where the borrower’s spouse or children become an owner of the property (12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(5), (d)(6)). An heir who inherits a mortgaged house can keep making the existing payments on the existing loan, at the existing rate, without qualifying for a new mortgage or refinancing to remove the due-on-sale risk. Loan servicers don’t always handle this smoothly in practice, so an heir who wants to keep making payments should contact the servicer early, in writing, and cite the Garn-St Germain exemption if a representative suggests the loan must be paid off.

Insurance is the detail that gets missed

A standard homeowners policy is written to insure an occupied residence. Once the house sits vacant, which is common for months while an estate works through probate, many carriers will non-renew, cancel, or simply deny a claim under a vacancy exclusion unless the personal representative requests a vacant-property or landlord endorsement. A burst pipe or a break-in in an uninsured, unoccupied probate house is an avoidable loss that lands on the beneficiaries, not on whoever forgot to call the carrier. The personal representative is responsible for maintaining the property for as long as the case is open, and that duty includes keeping the insurance current, not just paying the property tax bill.

An heir living in the house during probate

It’s common, and generally permissible with the other heirs’ consent or a court order, for one heir to live in the house while probate is pending, particularly a surviving spouse or a child who was already living there. That arrangement should be documented, even informally, addressing who pays the property tax, insurance, and utilities while the resident-heir is there, and whether occupancy reduces that heir’s eventual share. Left undocumented, it’s a common source of later disputes among the other beneficiaries, especially if the house is later sold and the occupying heir didn’t pay fair rent for months of exclusive use.

Taxes on a probate house

The income tax basis step-up

Inherited real property generally receives a stepped-up basis to its fair market value as of the date of death, under Internal Revenue Code § 1014. In practice, that fair market value is the same number the probate referee put on the Inventory and Appraisal. An heir who sells the house soon after death, at close to that appraised value, typically owes little or no federal capital gains tax on the sale, because there is little or no gain between the stepped-up basis and the sale price.

For community property, both halves of the asset step up in basis when the first spouse dies, not just the deceased spouse’s half (IRC § 1014(b)(6)). That is a meaningfully better result than the same house held in joint tenancy, where only the deceased owner’s half gets the step-up and the survivor’s original basis carries forward on their half.

Proposition 19 and the parent-child exclusion

Inheriting a house doesn’t, by itself, trigger reassessment for property tax purposes. What triggers reassessment is the change in ownership itself, defined in Revenue and Taxation Code § 60 et seq., with the resulting supplemental assessment under § 75 et seq. Whether a child can avoid that reassessment on a parent’s home turns on Proposition 19’s parent-child exclusion, codified at Revenue and Taxation Code § 63.2.

Two conditions have to be met. The child must make the inherited home their principal residence within one year of the transfer, and must file for the homeowners’ exemption (or the disabled veterans’ exemption) within that year (Rev. & Tax. Code § 63.2). Miss either one, and the property reassesses to full market value as of the date of the parent’s death. The exclusion isn’t gone for good, though: as long as the home hasn’t been sold to a third party, a late claim can still be filed under § 63.2(f)(3), and the exclusion then applies going forward from the lien date of the year the claim is filed, with the intervening years reassessed.

Even when both conditions are met, the exclusion isn’t unlimited. It shelters the home’s factored base year value plus an inflation-adjusted amount, currently $1,044,586 for transfers occurring February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027, per the State Board of Equalization. Value above that combined figure gets added to the assessment. A parent’s home with a $200,000 factored base year value and a $2,100,000 date-of-death market value would see roughly $855,414 in new assessed value added ($2,100,000 minus $200,000 minus $1,044,586), even with the exclusion properly claimed.

A worked Ventura County example

Consider a Camarillo parent who bought the family home decades ago. Its factored base year value, the Proposition 13 number the county has been carrying forward, sits at $180,000. The home is worth $1,600,000 at the parent’s death. A surviving child who moves in within a year and timely files for the homeowners’ exemption keeps the parent-child exclusion, but the exclusion only shelters $1,044,586 of the gain above the base. The gain here is $1,420,000 ($1,600,000 minus $180,000), which exceeds the exclusion by $375,414. That excess gets added to the $180,000 base, producing a new assessed value of $555,414, well below the $1,600,000 market value, but a real increase from the parent’s original bill. A child who rents the home out instead of moving in gets none of this protection; the property reassesses to the full $1,600,000 on the date of death. For a deeper look at this math across a range of home values, see our Prop 19 planning guide.

The homeowners’ exemption itself

Separately from Proposition 19, an heir who occupies the house as their principal residence as of January 1 can claim the ordinary homeowners’ exemption, which subtracts $7,000 from the assessed value before the tax rate applies (Rev. & Tax. Code § 218). It’s a modest saving on its own, generally $70 to $100 a year, but filing for it’s also one of the two conditions the Proposition 19 exclusion requires, so it isn’t optional paperwork for an heir trying to keep a low tax base.

Putting the house in a trust doesn’t solve the property tax question

Moving a home into a revocable living trust preserves the settlor’s existing Proposition 13 base year value while they are alive, but it doesn’t exempt the property from Proposition 19 reassessment after death. Reassessment turns on whether the parent-child exclusion’s conditions are met, not on how title happened to be held before death. Families relying on a living trust to solve every property tax question shouldn’t assume the trust itself does that work; the exclusion still has to be claimed, and the residency and filing deadlines still apply. If the house should have been titled in the trust but never was, a Heggstad petition under Probate Code § 850 can bring it in without a full probate, discussed below.

When heirs disagree about selling or keeping the house

A house with two or more heirs and no consensus is one of the more common reasons a probate stalls. The personal representative still has authority to sell under whichever track applies, but a beneficiary who wants to keep the house, or who thinks it’s being sold too cheaply, has real options.

An heir with an ownership interest can object to a Notice of Proposed Action, forcing the sale into court supervision. An heir who wants to buy out the others can negotiate a private transaction, distributing the house to that heir in exchange for cash or other estate assets going to the rest, sometimes called an equalization or a buyout distribution. Once the estate closes and heirs hold the property together as co-owners, any of them can file a partition action under California’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which gives the other co-owners a court-ordered appraisal and a buyout option before the court can force an open-market sale. We cover that process, the appraisal, and the 45-day buyout window in detail in can siblings force the sale of an inherited house in California.

The decision path in practice: if every heir agrees to sell, the personal representative proceeds under whichever authority the estate has. If one heir wants to keep the house and can afford to buy the others out, that gets negotiated as part of the estate’s distribution plan, ideally before the house goes on the market. If heirs disagree and nobody can afford a buyout, the house typically gets sold and the proceeds divided, either through the probate sale itself or, if the disagreement surfaces after distribution, through a later partition action.

Skipping probate for the house entirely

Full probate isn’t the only path for a decedent’s real property. Several narrower procedures let an eligible heir or spouse get the house without opening, or without fully administering, a probate estate. Each has its own eligibility rule, and getting the wrong one costs time rather than saving it.

The $750,000 primary residence petition (Probate Code § 13151)

For deaths on or after April 1, 2025, the successor to the property (the heir or devisee who takes it under the will or by intestate succession) can petition the court to determine succession to the decedent’s primary residence if its gross value is $750,000 or less, once 40 days have passed since the death, without opening a full administration (Prob. Code § 13151). This covers only the home the decedent actually lived in, not a rental, a vacation property, or vacant land. The petitioner must deliver notice to every heir and devisee named in the petition within five business days of filing (§ 13151(b)). We walk through eligibility and the filing process in our small estate guide.

The real property affidavit (Probate Code § 13200)

Any real property of small value, whether or not it was the decedent’s residence, has a separate affidavit path: real property with a gross value of $69,625 or less for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, using an affidavit filed with the superior court clerk six months or more after the date of death, with a probate referee’s appraisal attached, and a certified copy then recorded with the county recorder (Prob. Code §§ 13200, 13202). It’s the older, narrower procedure, and most houses in Ventura County are worth far more than its ceiling.

Both thresholds are indexed for inflation every three years under Probate Code § 890, most recently adjusted April 1, 2025, with the next adjustment due April 1, 2028. Both measure gross value, the appraised number before subtracting any mortgage, so a house with a large loan balance and modest equity still counts at its full value for eligibility.

The spousal property petition (Probate Code § 13650)

A surviving spouse or registered domestic partner who inherits property under intestate succession or under a will can file a spousal property petition asking the court to confirm that the property already belongs to them, without any dollar limit and without opening a full administration (Prob. Code § 13650). This is often the fastest route to clear title to a house for a surviving spouse, since it sidesteps both the $750,000 cap on § 13151 and the small dollar ceiling on § 13200.

The Heggstad petition, when the house should have been in the trust

When a decedent created a living trust but the deed to the house was never retitled into the trust’s name before death, the house technically sits outside the trust and, without more, would have to go through probate. Probate Code § 850(a)(3)(B) lets the trustee petition the court to confirm that the house belongs to the trust anyway. The rule the court applies comes from Estate of Heggstad (1993) 16 Cal.App.4th 943: a signed declaration of trust that lists the property on its schedule of assets is enough to make it trust property, even though the settlor never signed a separate deed. A general assignment of property to the trust can do the same work. A successful Heggstad petition brings the house into the trust’s administration, avoiding probate for that asset even though the deed was never changed. Our Heggstad petition guide covers the evidence a court wants to see and how long an uncontested petition typically takes. Once the house is confirmed as trust property, the trustee can sell it the way any trustee sells trust real estate, a different and generally faster process than a probate sale; see can you sell a house that’s in a living trust for how that works.

Ventura County practicalities

Ventura County probate matters, including petitions to sell real property and confirmation hearings, are filed and heard at the Juvenile and Probate Courthouse in Oxnard. As of this writing, wills, estates, and trust matters are calendared on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9:00 a.m., with new probate estate petitions set on Thursdays at 10:30 a.m., typically in Department J6, according to the court’s own probate division page. Court calendars change, so confirm the current department and hearing days on the court’s website before relying on a specific date. The Probate Code sets the substance of a confirmation sale or IAEA sale statewide; what differs by county is the calendar, the local forms, and how quickly a confirmation hearing gets set once the report of sale is filed.

The bottom line

Before assuming a house has to sit through a court confirmation hearing, check the Letters for full or limited IAEA authority, since that single distinction decides whether the sale needs a judge’s order or just a clean 15-day notice period. Before assuming the house has to go through probate at all, get it appraised and check whether it was the decedent’s primary residence and under $750,000, whether it qualifies for the smaller real property affidavit, or whether a surviving spouse can clear title with a spousal property petition instead. If the estate includes real property and you aren’t sure which path applies, talk to an estate planning and probate attorney before listing the house or filing anything with the court.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my house have to go through full probate?

California requires formal probate for an estate with assets subject to probate above $208,850 in gross value, for deaths on or after April 1, 2025 (Probate Code § 13100). Real property is different from most other assets in a small estate: the personal property affidavit that lets heirs collect bank accounts and other personal property without probate doesn’t reach real estate. Separate procedures, covered above, apply to the house itself, including the § 13151 primary residence petition, the § 13200 real property affidavit, and the § 13650 spousal property petition.

Some assets skip probate no matter what the house is worth. Property held in joint tenancy, payable-on-death or transfer-on-death accounts, and accounts or policies with a named beneficiary are excluded from the small estate calculation entirely (Probate Code § 13050). Real estate titled that way passes directly to the surviving owner or named beneficiary. A funded revocable living trust is the only tool that keeps real estate out of probate as a general matter, and only if the deed was actually retitled into the trust before death. A will doesn’t avoid probate; it only controls how assets are distributed once a court validates it through the probate process. Where there is no will, California’s intestate succession rules decide who the heirs are and who can petition for the house.

What is the $750,000 shortcut, and does my family qualify?

Under Assembly Bill 2016, the heir or devisee who succeeds to a decedent’s primary residence can petition the court to transfer it without full probate when its gross value is $750,000 or less, for deaths on or after April 1, 2025 (Probate Code § 13151). This only covers the residence the decedent actually lived in. A rental house, a vacation property, or land doesn’t qualify for this particular procedure, though it may qualify for the smaller real property affidavit under § 13200 instead.

How long does probate take when a house is involved, and what does it cost?

In my experience most California probate cases run twelve to eighteen months from the date the court appoints a personal representative, and a house in the estate pushes toward the long end of that, especially on the court-confirmation track. No California court publishes a median, so treat that as an observation from practice rather than a statistic. California sets probate fees by statute: 4% of the first $100,000 of the estate’s gross value, 3% of the next $100,000, and 2% of the next $800,000, with lower percentages above that, for both the personal representative and the estate’s attorney (Probate Code §§ 10800, 10810). On a $1,000,000 estate, that schedule produces $23,000 for the executor and $23,000 for the attorney, or $46,000 in ordinary statutory fees before referee commissions, broker commissions, court costs, or bond. Run your own numbers with our probate fee calculator.

What is the overbid process, and can I lose the house after my offer is accepted?

Yes, if the sale is on the court-confirmation track. An accepted offer on a limited-authority sale is provisional until a judge confirms it at a hearing where another qualified bidder can outbid it under the formula in Probate Code § 10311: 10% more on the first $10,000 of the accepted price, plus 5% more on the balance. A buyer serious about a probate house on this track should ask their agent whether the personal representative holds full or limited authority before writing the offer, since a full-authority IAEA sale carries no overbid risk once the 15-day notice period runs clean.

Do I need a court order to sell if the personal representative has full authority?

No. With full IAEA authority, the personal representative can sign the listing agreement, accept an offer, and close escrow without a confirmation hearing (Prob. Code § 10501). The only step required is the Notice of Proposed Action, delivered to every heir and devisee at least 15 days before the sale closes (§ 10586). If nobody files a written objection in that window, the sale proceeds on ordinary escrow timing. The one exception is a sale to the personal representative or their own attorney, which always requires court approval.

Does the mortgage have to be paid off when I inherit the house?

No. Federal law, the Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act, bars a lender from calling the loan due just because the house passed to a relative on the borrower’s death or because a spouse or child becomes an owner (12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(5), (d)(6)). An heir who wants to keep the existing loan and existing payment can typically continue making payments to the servicer without refinancing, though contacting the servicer in writing early avoids confusion on their end.

Who pays the taxes and insurance while the case is open?

The personal representative is responsible for maintaining the property for as long as the case is open. Property taxes, hazard insurance, utilities, and basic upkeep don’t pause during probate, and those costs are typically paid from estate funds before the sale closes or the property distributes. Insurance is the item that gets missed. A standard homeowners policy can lapse or be voided once the house is vacant, and a vacancy endorsement usually has to be requested. A house that sits empty and unmaintained for months is a common and avoidable source of value loss, and the loss lands on the beneficiaries, not on the person who forgot to call the carrier.

Does inheriting the house change the property taxes?

It can, and the trigger is the change in ownership itself, not how the sale or transfer happens (Rev. & Tax. Code § 60 et seq.). To keep a parent’s low property tax base after inheriting the home, a child must make it their principal residence within one year of the transfer and file for the homeowners’ exemption, and the protected value is capped at the home’s factored base year value plus $1,044,586 for transfers occurring February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027 (Rev. & Tax. Code § 63.2). A child who rents the house out instead of moving in gets no protection at all; the full market value reassesses on the date of death. Separately, inherited property generally receives a step-up in income tax basis to fair market value as of the date of death. For community property, both halves of the asset step up when the first spouse dies, not just the deceased spouse’s half, which is a meaningfully better result than the same asset held in joint tenancy (IRC § 1014(b)(6)).

Can my siblings force the sale of a house we inherited together?

Once the estate closes and siblings hold the house together as co-owners, any one of them can file a partition action to force a sale if they can’t agree on keeping it. California’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act gives the other co-owners a right to a court-ordered appraisal and a 45-day window to buy out the sibling seeking partition before the court will order an open-market sale. The full mechanics, including how the buyout price is set, are in our guide on whether siblings can force the sale of an inherited house in California.

The house was supposed to be in Mom’s trust but the deed was never changed. Does it have to go through probate?

Not necessarily. If there is evidence Mom intended the house to be part of the trust, such as a schedule of trust assets listing the property or a signed general assignment, the trustee can file a Heggstad petition under Probate Code § 850 asking the court to confirm the house belongs to the trust despite the deed never being recorded in the trust’s name. An uncontested petition typically resolves faster than a full probate. See our Heggstad petition guide for what evidence the court expects.

Figures verified September 2026 against the cited statutes and Judicial Council forms.

Sources

• Probate Code §§ 10300, 10308, 10309, and 10311, sale and confirmation of estate real property. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Probate Code §§ 10400, 10501, and 10580 through 10592, Independent Administration of Estates Act and Notice of Proposed Action. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Probate Code § 10150, broker contracts and exclusive listings. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Probate Code §§ 8800, 8900, 8961, and 8963, Inventory and Appraisal and probate referee compensation. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Probate Code §§ 10800 and 10810, statutory compensation of the personal representative and attorney. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Probate Code §§ 13050, 13100, 13101, 13150, 13151, 13152, 13200, 13650, and 890, small estate and summary succession procedures. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Probate Code § 850, petition concerning property claimed to belong to a trust or estate. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Judicial Council of California, “Maximum Amounts for Determining Eligibility for Summary Succession Procedures,” effective April 1, 2025 through March 31, 2028. courts.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Judicial Council Form DE-160, Inventory and Appraisal. courts.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Judicial Council Form DE-260/GC-060, Report of Sale and Petition for Order Confirming Sale of Real Property. courts.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Superior Court of California, County of Ventura, Probate Division. ventura.courts.ca.gov/divisions/probate. Accessed September 2026.
• Estate of Heggstad (1993) 16 Cal.App.4th 943, Court of Appeal, First Appellate District. Accessed via Descrybe, September 2026.
• Internal Revenue Code § 1014, and IRS Publication 551, Basis of Assets, basis of property acquired from a decedent and community property basis rules. irs.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Revenue and Taxation Code § 63.2, Proposition 19 parent-child transfer exclusion. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• California State Board of Equalization, News Release NR 25-02, Proposition 19 base year value transfer and exclusion adjustment to $1,044,586. boe.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Revenue and Taxation Code § 218, homeowners’ exemption, and § 75 et seq., supplemental assessments. California Legislative Information, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Accessed September 2026.
• Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d), due-on-sale exemptions. Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute, law.cornell.edu. Accessed September 2026.