Top Estate Planning Attorneys in Ojai, CA (2026)

Ojai has about 7,500 residents, a median home value around $1.02 million, and a median age of 47, the oldest of any city in this part of Ventura County. Nearly 27% of residents are over 65. And yet median household income sits at a modest $83,000. That gap between property values and income is the story of Ojai: a lot of people here are retirees or longtime residents sitting on homes worth well over a million dollars while living on a fixed or modest income.

Ojai has drawn artists, writers, and people looking for a slower pace since at least the 1880s, and the wellness-retreat identity that took hold in the early 20th century still pulls new residents in, many of them from out of state. Those two facts together create a specific estate planning problem. People retire to Ojai with a trust drafted years earlier in Illinois, New York, or wherever they came from, assume it still works the same way here, and never have a California attorney look at it. Sometimes it’s fine. Often it isn’t.

Below are the estate planning attorneys who serve Ojai, with verifiable credentials. This is not a ranking. It is a starting point for doing your own homework.

---

How to vet an estate planning attorney

The California State Bar certifies attorneys as Legal Specialists in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. Fewer than 1% of California attorneys hold this credential. It requires passing a written exam, demonstrating substantial experience, and submitting to peer review. You can verify any attorney’s status at calbar.ca.gov.

Beyond certification, look for:

• A practice focused on estate planning, not a general practice that also handles trusts.
• Direct access to the attorney, not a paralegal-driven mill that hands you a binder.
• Flat, disclosed fees. If an attorney won’t tell you the cost before you sign, that tells you something.
• If you moved to Ojai from another state, specific experience reviewing out-of-state trusts against California law, not just re-signing what you already had.
• Familiarity with Ventura County probate procedures. Ojai matters are heard at the Ventura County Superior Court, Juvenile and Probate Division, 4353 E. Vineyard Avenue in Oxnard, about a 30-minute drive down the valley.

---

Estate planning attorneys serving Ojai

Ridley Law

Eric D. Ridley has practiced estate planning in Ventura County since 2010, working with families across Ojai, Ventura, and the surrounding area. The firm handles living trusts, wills, powers of attorney, advance healthcare directives, trust administration, and probate. Flat-fee pricing, disclosed before engagement. Free 30-minute initial consultation by phone or video.

567 W. Channel Islands Boulevard, Suite 210, Port Hueneme, CA 93041. (805) 244-5291.

Ojai Law Corporation

Carolyn Vondriska (State Bar #166962) was admitted to practice in 1993 and handles estate planning, trusts, probate, and conservatorship matters. Hers is the only estate planning firm with a physical office inside Ojai city limits. She is not a Certified Specialist.

603 W. Ojai Avenue, Suite D, Ojai, CA 93023. (805) 646-1111.

Botti & Morison

Christopher Botti (State Bar #150071) was admitted to practice in 1990 and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law. The firm maintains offices in Westlake Village and Ventura, both a drive from Ojai but within range for families who want a certified specialist and are willing to travel.

Offices in Westlake Village and Ventura, CA.

Ferguson Case Orr Paterson

John Mark Andersen (State Bar #162930) is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law, practicing with this Ventura firm.

Ventura, CA.

Law Office of Gregory Hultgren

Gregory Hultgren (State Bar #100910) was admitted in 1981 and is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law, based in Newbury Park.

Newbury Park, CA. (805) 375-7300.

---

What Ojai families actually deal with

Out-of-state trusts in an in-migration town

Ojai has pulled in new residents from other states for well over a century, and that hasn’t slowed down. A trust drafted under New York law or Illinois law doesn’t automatically fail once you move to California, but California has its own rules on community property, trustee succession, and how a revocable trust interacts with a surviving spouse’s rights. A trust that was perfectly fine where it was written can create real confusion for a California probate court or a successor trustee who has to figure out which state’s law actually controls. If you moved here with an existing plan and haven’t had it reviewed by a California attorney, that review is worth doing regardless of how long ago you signed the original documents.

The gap between home value and income

Ojai’s median home value is about $1.02 million. Its median household income is about $83,000. Those two numbers don’t usually appear together, and the gap points to a lot of longtime residents and retirees who are house-rich and cash-modest. That matters for estate planning in a specific way: a plan that assumes liquidity to cover taxes, care costs, or an equalization payment between children may not reflect what’s actually available if most of the estate’s value is locked in the house.

It also matters for the retirees themselves while they’re still alive. Since Proposition 19 took effect in 2021, a homeowner 55 or older can sell a primary residence and transfer its existing property-tax base to a replacement home anywhere in California, regardless of the new home’s price, up to three times in a lifetime. For an Ojai retiree living on a fixed income in a million-dollar house, that provision can make downsizing financially realistic in a way it wasn’t before 2021. It’s worth discussing with an attorney before assuming you’re stuck.

Prop 19 for the next generation

Many of Ojai’s older homes, including bungalows and cottages from the artist-colony era of the early 1900s through the 1950s, are owned by longtime residents with property-tax assessments far below current market value. A home assessed at $180,000 with a market value of $1.02 million has an assessment gap of about $840,000, which falls under the $1,044,586 exclusion Proposition 19 allows when a child inherits and moves into the home as a primary residence within one year.

The catch is that requirement. Ojai has a meaningful number of heirs who live out of state, sometimes the same out-of-state origin their parents moved away from. An heir who doesn’t move into the inherited home gets no exclusion and faces full reassessment. On the numbers above, that’s a jump from roughly $2,160 a year in property tax to roughly $12,240 a year, at a combined rate of about 1.2%. If your children aren’t planning to live in the house, that’s worth factoring into whether they keep it or sell it.

The probate math on an Ojai home

Probate fees in California are set by statute (Probate Code §§ 10810 and 10800), calculated on the gross value of the estate. On an Ojai home at the median value of $1.02 million, the statutory fee works out to about $23,200 for the attorney and $23,200 for the executor, roughly $46,400 total, before court costs, appraisal fees, or a petition for extraordinary compensation.

A funded living trust avoids that process entirely, and for an out-of-state family already managing a trustee or executor from a distance, it also avoids adding a lengthy California court proceeding on top of that distance.

Where Ojai probate is heard

Ojai matters are filed at the Ventura County Superior Court, Juvenile and Probate Division, 4353 E. Vineyard Avenue, Oxnard, CA 93036, not at any courthouse in Ojai. Your attorney should know this without being told.

---

Credentials listed are drawn from the firms’ own public information, the State Bar of California, and public court records. This page is not a ranking and is not an endorsement. Ridley Law is listed first because we publish this page, not because of any ranking; we are included because we serve Ojai. We wrote this page, and we think you should know that. Note also that Ross Atkinson, a name some longtime Ojai residents may associate with estate planning locally, resigned from the State Bar of California effective June 11, 2025, and is no longer a practicing attorney. Verify any attorney’s license status and specialist certification at calbar.ca.gov.