Beneficiary Rights Attorney in Tarzana

Beneficiary Rights Attorney in Tarzana

Tarzana has a dense older population and a lot of trusts where somebody held a power of attorney over a parent’s accounts for years before death. When those files go wrong they do not usually go wrong at the trust level. The money moved while the parent was alive.

That matters because a beneficiary who frames it as a trust accounting problem is reaching for the weaker tool.

My work for beneficiaries is trust administration and negotiated resolution, and a petition to the probate court when talking doesn’t settle it. Will and trust contests, and anything headed to trial, I refer to litigation counsel.

Elder financial abuse is a different claim with better remedies

Welfare and Institutions Code § 15610.30 defines financial abuse of an elder or dependent adult to include taking, secreting, appropriating, obtaining or retaining real or personal property for a wrongful use or with intent to defraud, or by undue influence. It reaches conduct during the parent’s lifetime, which an accounting of the trust after death often does not.

Probate Code § 859 is the part that changes the arithmetic. Where property has been taken in bad faith, or through undue influence as defined in the elder abuse statute, the court shall order the person to pay twice the value of the property recovered. Attorney fees and costs are available in the court’s discretion.

Whether the § 859 penalty subsumes the return of the property or sits on top of it has been decided both ways (compare Estate of Ashlock (2020) 45 Cal.App.5th 1062 with Conservatorship of Ribal (2019) 31 Cal.App.5th 519). The cases hold the penalty is in addition to the return, but the point is contested, and you should plan knowing that.

None of this replaces the trust remedies. It sits alongside them, and it is usually the reason a Tarzana file is worth pursuing when the amount taken would not justify a fight on its own.

What the trustee still owes you

§ 16060 requires the trustee to keep beneficiaries reasonably informed of the trust and its administration, and § 16061 requires him to report information relevant to your interest on reasonable request. § 16063 sets out what an account must contain: receipts, disbursements, assets on hand and the trustee’s compensation.

Where the same person held the power of attorney before death and became trustee after it, there are two sets of records and only one of them is the trust’s. § 4541(c) lets a court compel an attorney-in-fact to submit accounts where he has failed to do so within 60 days after a written request from the person filing the petition, and that is the route to the lifetime transactions. A relative or other interested person can file (§ 4540), but the court orders the account delivered to the principal, the spouse, the conservator or whoever the court requires, so an adult child is not automatically owed one.

Ask for both. The trust accounting will not show what happened to the accounts in the two years before death, and that is usually the period that matters here.

	Trust accounting	Attorney-in-fact accounting
Period it reaches	The trust, after the settlor’s death	The lifetime transactions, such as the two years before death
Statute	Prob. Code §§ 16060 to 16063; § 17200(b)(7)(C)	Prob. Code § 4541
What starts the clock	A written request, 60 days without an account, and no account in the prior six months	A written request from the person filing the petition, and no accounts within 60 days
Who you write to	The person as trustee	The same person as former attorney-in-fact

What has to happen before a court will order an accounting

§ 17200(b)(7)(C) requires both that the trustee failed to submit a requested account within 60 days after your written request and that no account was made in the six months preceding it. § 17200(b)(7)(B) applies the same test to information.

Make the request in writing to the person in both capacities, as former attorney-in-fact and as trustee, and keep the date. The two clocks are different and you want both of them running.

1. Send a dated written request for the account. A request for information under § 17200(b)(7)(B) follows the same test.
2. Wait 60 days. The trustee must have failed to submit the account in that time.
3. Confirm that no account was made in the six months before your request.
4. Petition the court under § 17200(b)(7)(C).

Where a Tarzana trust petition is heard

Tarzana is in Los Angeles County, which centralises probate and trust matters at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 N. Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles. There is no Valley probate court, so the Van Nuys courthouse is not where this goes.

An elder abuse claim is not necessarily filed in the same place or the same way as a trust petition, and the two can proceed on different tracks. Which court hears what is worth settling at the outset rather than discovering later.

When the Tarzana house was never deeded to the trust

The typical home in ZIP 91356 is worth $1,317,209 (Zillow Home Value Index, August 2026). If your parent’s trust exists on paper but the deed never moved that house into it, the house is a probate asset, and these are the numbers the court process is built around.

Measure	Amount	Typical Tarzana home compared
Typical home value, August 2026	$1,317,209	Starting point
Small estate affidavit limit, § 13100	$208,850	About 6.3 times the limit
Primary residence petition cap, § 13151	$750,000	About 1.8 times the cap
Executor’s statutory fee, § 10800	$26,172	2.0% of the home’s value
Attorney’s statutory fee, § 10810	$26,172	2.0% of the home’s value

The statutory fee schedule in Prob. Code §§ 10800 and 10810 allows the executor and the attorney each $26,172 on that home, or $52,344 together. It’s figured on gross value, without subtracting the mortgage (Prob. Code § 10810(b)). The number is for an estate made up of only the typical home, so most real estates run higher. Fees come out of the estate before the beneficiaries are paid.

A trustee’s pay works on a different rule. The probate schedule doesn’t govern a trust. If the trust instrument doesn’t set compensation, the trustee is entitled to reasonable compensation under the circumstances (Prob. Code § 15681), and a beneficiary can ask the court to reduce or deny compensation where the trustee has committed a breach of trust (Prob. Code § 16420(a)(7)). A trustee who bills the probate percentage against the house is using a schedule that doesn’t apply to a trust.

If the house should have been in the trust and wasn’t, a trustee can ask the court to settle that by petition under Prob. Code § 850(a)(3)(B), which covers property the trustee claims that is titled in someone else’s name. See a house that never made it into the trust for how that petition works.

Recording, the 150-day statement, and what a child keeps when the house is distributed

When a trustee sells a Tarzana house or distributes it to a beneficiary, the deed is recorded with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, headquartered at 12400 Imperial Hwy., Norwalk. That office is separate from the court.

The trustee has a filing of their own. When an interest in real property passes at death through a trust, the trustee files a change in ownership statement with the county recorder or assessor within 150 days after the date of death (Rev. & Tax. Code § 480(b)). The state’s form for a death, BOE-502-D, warns that failing to file results in a penalty. Ask the trustee whether it was filed.

The bigger money question is what the child who keeps the house pays in property tax. Under Rev. & Tax. Code § 63.2, a parent’s home passing to a child avoids reassessment only up to a cap, and only if the child makes it a principal residence and files a claim with the assessor. The child must also apply for the homeowners’ exemption within one year of the transfer. For transfers from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027 the cap is the home’s taxable value plus $1,044,586.

Two illustrations, using the ZIP 91356 typical value of $1,317,209 as the market value at transfer. If the taxable value is $400,000, the cap is $1,444,586, the market value falls under it, and the child keeps the $400,000 taxable value. If the taxable value is $150,000, the cap is $1,194,586, the market value runs $122,623 over it, and that excess is added, for a new taxable value of $272,623. The taxable values are my assumptions, not figures for any particular house.

A beneficiary who isn’t the child in the house has a stake in this too. Whether the exclusion applies changes what the house is worth to the sibling keeping it, and that should be reflected in any buyout price. See how the parent-child exclusion works before agreeing to a number.

Questions Tarzana beneficiaries ask

Money moved out of my mother’s accounts before she died. Can the trust accounting show me that?

Usually not. A trust accounting covers the trust, and lifetime transfers out of a personal account often sit outside it. If the person held a power of attorney, § 4541 lets a court compel the attorney-in-fact to account where he has not done so within 60 days after a written request. That is the route to the lifetime period.

Is elder financial abuse really a separate claim?

Yes. Welf. & Inst. Code § 15610.30 covers taking an elder’s property for a wrongful use or by undue influence, and it stands independently of any breach of trust. It also reaches conduct while your parent was alive, which is often exactly the period in dispute.

What makes it worth pursuing if the amount is not huge?

§ 859. Where property was taken in bad faith or through undue influence, the court shall order twice the value of the property recovered, and fees and costs are available in the court’s discretion. That changes the economics of a claim that would otherwise not be worth bringing.

Is the double damages rule settled?

Not entirely. Whether the penalty subsumes the return of the property or is added to it has been decided both ways in the Court of Appeal. The cases treat it as in addition, but the point is contested, so don’t plan around a number that might move.

Do I file in Van Nuys?

No. Los Angeles County hears probate and trust matters downtown at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 N. Hill Street. There is no Valley probate court.

Can I find out whether my parent’s house was ever deeded to the trust?

Yes. The recorded deed shows who holds title, and deeds for Tarzana property are recorded with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk in Norwalk. If the house is still in your parent’s name, it goes to probate at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse unless a court order puts it in the trust.

Does the trustee get paid the probate percentage on the house?

Not by default. The probate schedule applies to executors and their attorneys. If the trust is silent on pay, the trustee is entitled to reasonable compensation under Prob. Code § 15681. On a house at the ZIP 91356 typical value, the probate schedule would allow $26,172, which is a figure to question if a trustee cites it.

Who files the change in ownership statement after a parent dies?

The trustee, if the property was held in trust, within 150 days after the date of death (Rev. & Tax. Code § 480(b)). It goes to the county recorder or assessor in each county where the parent owned property.