Estate Planning in Malibu

Malibu Estate Planning When Real Property Sits in More Than One State

Malibu is an incorporated coastal city in Los Angeles County, and a lot of the families I work with here do not own just the one property. A place in the mountains, a family home out of state, land held for a generation somewhere else entirely. That second address is usually good news while you are alive. At death, it becomes a legal complication most people never see coming, because California law does not reach real property sitting in another state, and a will alone does not solve that problem.

I am Eric Ridley, an estate planning attorney at Ridley Law. I work with Malibu clients whose estates cross state lines, coordinating the California side of the plan with local counsel wherever the other property sits, so the plan actually works everywhere it needs to. Call 805-244-5291 or book at https://ridley.click/eric-60.

One estate, property in two or three states, and what a will actually does with it

Real property is governed by the law of the state where it physically sits. That is true no matter where you live, where you signed your will, or which state’s law your other documents reference. When you die owning a house in California and a second property in, say, Nevada or Idaho or anywhere outside California, the California court handling your estate has no authority to transfer title to the out-of-state parcel. Only a court in that other state can do that. A will naming your children as beneficiaries of “everything” does not change this. It just means your executor now has two court cases to run instead of one, in two states, on two timelines, each requiring its own local attorney.

Ancillary probate: the second proceeding nobody budgets for

That second court case has a name: ancillary probate. It opens in every additional state where you hold real property in your own name at death, on top of the primary probate proceeding here in California, which for a Malibu resident runs through the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Each ancillary proceeding is a full probate in miniature: its own petition, its own local counsel, its own filing fees, its own timeline that rarely tracks the California case. A family with a Malibu home and one out-of-state property is not looking at one slow, public court process. They are looking at two, run separately, often by two different attorneys who have to be kept in sync by the executor.

The trust is what consolidates it

A properly funded revocable living trust solves this differently than a will does, because a trust is not a state court proceeding at all. If your Malibu home and your out-of-state property are both deeded into the trust during your lifetime, the trust, not a probate court in either state, holds legal title. At death, your successor trustee distributes trust property according to its terms without opening a probate case anywhere, California or otherwise. The trust becomes the single instrument that reaches across state lines, which a will by itself cannot do. Funding is the step that makes this real: a new deed recorded in California for the Malibu property, and a separate deed prepared under the law of whatever state the other property sits in, since each state has its own requirements for how a trust holds title to land within its borders. I coordinate that second deed with local counsel in the other state as part of the engagement rather than leaving it as homework for later.

What California charges to probate a coastal property

If the Malibu property does end up in probate, California sets the attorney’s fee and the personal representative’s fee by statute, Probate Code §§ 10810 and 10800, and both the attorney and the personal representative are entitled to take it, so it is charged twice against the same estate. The fee is 4% of the first $100,000 of the estate’s value, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, 1% of the next $9,000,000, and 0.5% of the next $15,000,000, with anything above $25,000,000 set by the court. The critical detail for coastal real estate: this is calculated on the gross appraised value of the property, not your equity in it. A home with a large mortgage is still counted at its full appraised value.

Run the numbers on a hypothetical $3,000,000 estate, well within range for coastal property in this area: 4% of $100,000 is $4,000, 3% of the next $100,000 is $3,000, 2% of the next $800,000 is $16,000, and 1% of the remaining $2,000,000 is $20,000. That totals $43,000, and the personal representative is entitled to the same $43,000, for $86,000 in statutory fees on one estate, before any extraordinary services are billed separately under California Rules of Court, rule 7.703. That is the California side alone. Add an ancillary proceeding in another state and its own local fees stack on top.

Prop 19 and the property your kids won’t live in

Proposition 19 narrowed the old parent-child exclusion from reassessment. To keep your property tax basis, the property has to have been your principal residence, and your child has to move in and make it their own principal residence, filing for the homeowners’ exemption. Even then, the exclusion is not unlimited. It covers your factored base year value plus an indexed amount, currently $1,044,586 for transfers occurring February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027 (California State Board of Equalization, https://www.boe.ca.gov/news/2025/nr-25-02.htm; general guidance at https://boe.ca.gov/prop19/). Value above that limit gets added to the new assessed value.

For a family with more than one property, this matters most on whichever one your children will not actually live in. A second home, a rental, or a beach property one child keeps as a vacation house rather than a residence gets reassessed at full current market value the moment it transfers, no exclusion available at all. That is frequently the biggest, least expected cost in a multi-property Malibu estate, and it is worth mapping out while you are still deciding who gets which property, not after the transfer has already happened.

Incapacity, and the paperwork that sits outside the trust

A trust only controls what it owns, and it only works the way you want if someone can act for you before death, too. A durable power of attorney for finances and an advance health care directive let the people you choose step in immediately if you cannot manage your own affairs, without a conservatorship proceeding in any state. Retirement accounts and life insurance also pass outside the trust entirely, by whatever beneficiary designation is on file with the custodian or insurer, regardless of what the trust says. I check and coordinate these as part of every plan, because an outdated form on one account can undo careful planning on everything else.

Why the federal number usually is not the reason to do this

The federal estate and gift tax exemption is $15,000,000 per person, $30,000,000 for a married couple, made permanent under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Most Malibu estates, even ones with real property in more than one state, fall under that number, particularly for a married couple with both exemptions available. That means most families here owe no federal estate tax at all. The reason to build this plan is not a looming federal bill. It is avoiding a probate proceeding in every state where you own land, keeping the details private, and keeping control over who ends up holding title and when.

Malibu Estate Planning FAQs

I own a home in Malibu and a property in another state. Do I need two estate plans?

You need one plan, built correctly. A single revocable living trust can hold both properties if each one is properly deeded into it under the law of the state where it sits. What you do not want is a will alone, which leaves your executor running a separate probate case in each state.

Which county handles probate for a Malibu estate?

Malibu is in Los Angeles County, so a California probate for a Malibu resident is filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Any additional property in another state requires its own separate proceeding in that state’s court, not this one.

Does Prop 19 apply to my out-of-state property too?

No. Prop 19 is a California property tax rule and only applies to California real property. Whatever property you hold in another state follows that state’s own transfer and tax rules, which is one more reason a multi-state plan needs to be coordinated across jurisdictions rather than handled as an afterthought to the California trust.

Can we do this without repeated trips to an office?

Yes. I meet with clients by video or phone for the planning conversation and sign documents in person once they are ready. For clients dividing time between Malibu and another property, that flexibility is usually the only way the planning gets done at all.

Before choosing counsel for a plan this complicated, compare estate planning attorneys in Malibu. Credentials and State Bar numbers are listed for each firm, so you can vet anyone you are considering.

Related

See also Living Trusts, Wills, Trust Administration, Prop 19 Planning, Calabasas, and Agoura Hills. For how California probate works and what it costs, see probate, and for flat-fee pricing see fees.

If your estate includes property in more than one place, that is exactly the situation to plan around now, while you can still choose how it is titled. Call 805-244-5291 or book a consultation at https://ridley.click/eric-60.

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Written by Eric D. Ridley: Estate Planning Attorney, Ridley Law. Serving Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles Counties since 2010. Learn more about Eric →