Estate Planning in Los Angeles

I write this page for people across Los Angeles County, from Boyle Heights to the west Valley to the Santa Monica Mountains. The county has some of California’s most expensive homes, a large population of married homeowners with community property, and a city transfer tax regime that worries people more than it should. Below is the plan, the local issues, and the price.

If you mainly need to know what a living trust does for a Los Angeles house, read living trust attorney in Los Angeles, which covers deed recording and probate notes in detail. If someone in your family has already died, go to probate attorney in Los Angeles.

What does a complete estate plan include in California?

Five documents, plus the deed and the beneficiary designations that make them work. Each one does a different job.

Document	What it does
Revocable living trust	Holds your home and accounts during life and passes them to your family without court. You keep control and can change it. See living trust attorney.
Pour-over will	Sends anything you forgot to put in the trust into the trust at death. Prob. Code § 6300 lets a will leave property to the trustee of a trust even if the trust is revocable. See what a pour-over will does. It still goes through probate for those forgotten assets.
Financial power of attorney	Lets someone you name pay bills and manage accounts if you cannot. California has a statutory form in Prob. Code § 4401. See California durable power of attorney.
Advance health care directive	Names your health care agent and states your wishes. California publishes a statutory form in Prob. Code § 4701. See advance health care directive.
Guardian nominations	If you have minor children, a parent may nominate a guardian of the person or estate, or both, in the situations described in Prob. Code § 1500. See guardianship of minor children and naming a guardian in your will.

The trust is the centerpiece for anyone who owns a house. The rest covers what the trust does not: incapacity, health decisions, children, and stray assets. A will alone gets a Los Angeles homeowner into probate. The will must be in writing, signed, and witnessed by at least two people present at the same time (Prob. Code § 6110). Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance sit outside all of it, so I review them with you. See wills and trusts and the wills and trusts guide.

What does an estate plan cost in Los Angeles?

My flat fee is $4,100 for a married couple and $3,700 for a single person. It covers the full package above, the deed for your home, and instructions for the beneficiary designations. Work outside the flat fee is billed at $500 an hour. The fees page has the rest.

Compare it to the alternative. On the typical City of Los Angeles home, the statutory probate fee schedule allows the attorney $21,591 and the executor another $21,591 (Prob. Code §§ 10800 and 10810). That’s on a house only, with a mortgage ignored, before court costs. A trust doesn’t remove every cost, but it removes that schedule.

What are Los Angeles home values, and what would probate allow on them?

The table uses Zillow’s typical value for each area as of August 2026 and the statutory attorney fee from Prob. Code § 10810 on that value if the house alone were the estate. The executor is allowed the same amount. Your home will differ.

Area	Typical home value	Attorney fee the schedule allows
Los Angeles (citywide)	$929,572	$21,591
Estate planning in Chatsworth (ZIP 91311)	$928,635	$21,573
Estate planning in West Hills (ZIP 91307)	$985,165	$22,703
Estate planning in Tarzana (ZIP 91356)	$1,317,209	$26,172
Estate planning in Agoura Hills	$1,234,398	$25,344
Estate planning in Westlake Village	$1,570,507	$28,705
Estate planning in Calabasas	$1,688,461	$29,885
Estate planning in Malibu	$3,155,914	$44,559
Estate planning in Hidden Hills	$5,134,415	$64,344

Two more LA County neighborhoods have their own pages, Estate planning in Woodland Hills and Estate planning in Encino. The City of Westlake Village sits entirely in Los Angeles County, but the ZIP codes 91361 and 91362 cross the county line, so which side your home is on decides the court and the recorder.

Every value in the table is above both the $208,850 small estate limit in Prob. Code § 13100 and the $750,000 limit for a home-only petition under § 13151. That’s why a Los Angeles homeowner who does nothing usually leaves a full probate. See small estate limits and home values.

Funding the trust inside the City of Los Angeles: Measure ULA and Prop 13

Moving your home into your own revocable trust doesn’t reassess your property taxes. Under Rev. & Tax. Code § 62(d), a transfer by the trustor into a trust isn’t a change in ownership so long as the transferor is the present beneficiary or the trust is revocable. The exclusion is claimed on the change of ownership report filed with the deed. The recording mechanics, the Norwalk Registrar-Recorder, and the SB2 fee are covered on the Los Angeles living trust page, and I don’t repeat them here.

The question that comes up only in the City of Los Angeles is Measure ULA. The Office of Finance says the ULA tax applies above $5,400,000, at 4%, and at 5.5% from $10,900,000, for transactions closing after June 30, 2026. A home below the threshold owes no ULA on any transfer. A typical home at $929,572 is far below it.

For a home above the threshold, the city’s LAMC § 21.9.15 exemption list ends with “all other transactions which are exempt from the base Real Property Transfer Tax per local, state, or federal laws and regulations.” A deed into your own revocable trust involves no sale and no change in who benefits, and I state the exemption on the deed. If you own a Bel Air or Hollywood Hills house above the threshold, I will confirm the current treatment with the Office of Finance before recording.

The bigger property tax issue is what happens when the children inherit. Under Prop 19, the parent-child exclusion cap is the parent’s taxable value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. For an old Los Angeles home with a low assessed value, that decides whether the children keep the tax basis. See Prop 19 planning, the parent-child exclusion, and the Prop 19 calculator.

Community property: what married Los Angeles homeowners need to know

If you’re married, most of what you built during the marriage is community property, and each spouse owns half. Fam. Code § 760 makes property acquired during marriage by a person domiciled in California community property unless a statute says otherwise, and Prob. Code § 100 gives each spouse half at death.

Two consequences matter here. First, a couple can leave everything to each other with no probate. Prob. Code § 13500 says property passing to a surviving spouse under a will or intestacy needs no administration, subject to its chapters. The trust does this and also protects the second death, when the house passes to the children.

Second, tax basis. Under federal law, the survivor’s half of community property also gets a stepped-up basis at the first death if at least half of the community interest is in the decedent’s gross estate (26 U.S.C. § 1014(b)(6)). For a home bought decades ago in Woodland Hills or Encino, that can remove most of the capital gain on a sale. Holding title as joint tenants can lose that. See community property step-up versus separate property and community property with right of survivorship versus joint tenancy. The community property tracer helps sort out what’s which.

Blended families and second marriages

A blended family is where a simple plan goes wrong. If you have children from an earlier marriage and a spouse now, the default rules under Prob. Code § 6401 give the surviving spouse a share that depends on how many children there are.

A trust can give your spouse the right to live in the house for life or a set period and then send it to your children, with a trustee you choose. That protects both sides. See blended family estate planning, the blended family guide, blended families and the family house, and do stepchildren inherit in California. If a dispute is already underway, families need litigation counsel, not a planner.

Estate tax, and the Woolsey Fire lesson

California has no estate or inheritance tax, and the federal exemption for 2026 is $15,000,000 per person. Most Los Angeles families are far under the federal number. Owners in Hidden Hills or Malibu with several properties and a business may not be, and I run the numbers with the estate tax calculator before recommending anything more complicated than a trust.

For property owners in fire country, the lesson is practical. The Woolsey Fire of November 2018 burned 96,949 acres across Los Angeles and Ventura counties and destroyed 1,643 structures, according to CAL FIRE. If your home is destroyed, insurance proceeds and rebuilding decisions land on whoever holds title. A funded trust puts a named successor trustee in charge without a court appointment. See the trust funding checklist and the trust funding tracker.

What Los Angeles families get wrong about estate planning

The trust exists but the house isn’t in it. This gap is the most common failure, and a trust that never received title leaves the family in probate anyway. My is my living trust funded page shows how to check.

The plan came from another state. Many Los Angeles residents moved here with documents signed elsewhere, and the plan doesn’t fit California’s community property rules or its recording process. See estate planning for people new to California.

Rentals and businesses sit outside the plan. Los Angeles landlords often hold duplexes and small buildings in their own names, and business owners have no successor. See rental property in an LLC and business continuity.

Nobody updates it. Divorce, a new child, a move, or a death changes who should be named. See does divorce revoke a will and why to review your plan regularly. I don’t handle family law, so if you’re in the middle of a divorce, your family law attorney and I coordinate on the timing.

How the process works, remotely

I work with Los Angeles County families by Zoom or phone. There are no office visits. The steps are these.

1. A 60-minute consultation by Zoom or phone. We go through family, property, and goals.
2. I send a plan summary for your written signoff before drafting.
3. I draft the trust, pour-over will, powers of attorney, health care directive, and deed.
4. You review a draft and we make changes.
5. A mobile notary comes to you for signing, and I record the deed.
6. I give you a funding checklist for accounts and beneficiary designations.

Remote doesn’t mean generic. The deed is prepared for the correct county recorder, and the trust is drafted for your family, not from a template. If you want to see what to bring, read how to prepare for your first meeting. My service area is Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles counties, applying California law.

Estate planning near you in Los Angeles County

Each page below adds local detail for that community: Estate planning in Calabasas, Estate planning in Agoura Hills, Estate planning in Hidden Hills, Estate planning in Westlake Village, Estate planning in Malibu, Estate planning in Woodland Hills, Estate planning in Encino, Estate planning in Tarzana, Estate planning in Chatsworth, and Estate planning in West Hills.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a trust in Los Angeles, or is a will enough?

If you own a house, a trust is usually worth it. A will goes through probate, and a typical Los Angeles home is worth $929,572, far above the $208,850 small estate limit. A renter with modest assets and no real property sometimes does fine with a will, a power of attorney, a health care directive, and beneficiary designations.

How much does an estate planning attorney cost in Los Angeles?

My flat fee is $4,100 for a married couple and $3,700 for a single person. It includes the trust, pour-over will, powers of attorney, health care directive, and the deed for your home. Anything outside the plan is $500 an hour. See the fees page.

Can I use an online form instead of hiring a lawyer?

You can, and the risks are in the deed and the details. A trust that never receives title to the house does nothing, and a form can’t ask about your family. See free living trust forms in California and online trust services versus an attorney.

Will putting my Los Angeles home in a trust raise my property taxes?

No. A transfer into your own revocable trust isn’t a change in ownership under Rev. & Tax. Code § 62(d). The claim is made on the change of ownership report filed with the deed.

Does Measure ULA apply when I fund my trust?

Not for a home below $5,400,000, the city’s threshold for closings after June 30, 2026. Above it, the city exempts transactions that are exempt from the base transfer tax, and I confirm the treatment with the Office of Finance before recording.

Does California have an estate tax?

No. California has no estate or inheritance tax, and the federal exemption for 2026 is $15,000,000 per person.

I am married. Does my spouse inherit everything?

Only if the plan says so, and only for community property in the usual case. Half of community property is yours by law at death (Prob. Code § 100), and how the rest passes depends on your documents. A trust also handles the second death.

Do you meet clients in Los Angeles?

I work with Los Angeles County families by Zoom or phone. A mobile notary comes to you for signing, so nobody drives to an office. I’m based in Port Hueneme and serve Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles counties.