Concord Living Trust: Keep Your Home Out of the Martinez Probate Court
Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
Nothing about a Concord estate is decided in Concord. Contra Costa County files and hears every probate case at the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse on Court Street in Martinez. On Zillow's August 2026 typical Concord home value of $722,165, the statutory attorney and executor fees in a full probate would come to $34,886.60. A funded living trust keeps the house out of that building for a $400 trust plus a $100 deed.
A Concord house passes outside court when it is deeded into a revocable living trust and that deed is recorded with the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder at 555 Escobar Street in Martinez. Left in your own name, a home at Zillow's August 2026 typical Concord value of $722,165 would go to the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse, where Probate Code §10810 and §10800 fees on a full probate total $34,886.60. Our trust costs $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple.
Key Takeaways
The Contra Costa court says all probate, guardianship and conservatorship documents are filed and heard at the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse, 725 Court Street, Martinez. No Concord courtroom takes them.
Probate examiners in Martinez post calendar notes about 6 to 8 days before each hearing, flagging anything a petition still needs.
Zillow's typical Concord value was $722,165 on August 31, 2026. Full probate fees on that figure: $17,443.30 to the attorney and the same to the executor.
Zillow's typical value sits just under the $750,000 limit for a Probate Code §13151 primary residence petition; Redfin's three month median sale price, about $758,000, sits just over it. Under the limit the home still needs that court petition; over it, full probate.
A deed into your own trust pays no documentary transfer tax. On a sale, Concord, as a general law city, takes half of the county's $1.10 per $1,000 tax rather than adding its own.
Attorney-prepared trust: $400 single, $500 married couple. Deed preparation is a separate $100 per property.
Where Concord Probate Goes: Martinez
Courthouse
Superior Court of California, County of Contra Costa, Wakefield Taylor Courthouse
Building open 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday
Ex parte
Room 210, presented to the probate examiners 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., with sign in from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
Concord is the most populous city in Contra Costa County, yet the county court sends every probate, guardianship and conservatorship filing from Concord to one address: the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse at 725 Court Street, in the county seat. The court's own filing location guide says so in one sentence, and the courthouse page lists probate alongside the criminal and civil work done in the same building. A family settling a Concord estate the court's way will be dealing with Martinez from the first petition to the final order.
Contra Costa runs its probate calendar through probate examiners. Before a judge sees a petition, an examiner reads it for content and legal requirements and writes calendar notes listing anything missing. The court says those notes are ordinarily available 6 to 8 days before the hearing on its public portal. A line marked "NEEDED" means the petitioner has to answer it, by a supplemental filing that follows the California Rules of Court, and the court asks that pleadings be filed at least five days before the hearing to be considered. Ex parte requests in probate go to Room 210 of the same courthouse, where they are handled by submission and the filer is called when the papers are ready.
For guardianships and limited conservatorships of the person, the court has a probate facilitator who helps people without lawyers, reachable by email and a voicemail line, and newly appointed conservators other than professional fiduciaries must attend a workshop booked through the county's Public Law Library. None of that is needed for a trust. A successor trustee reads the trust, collects the assets, pays the bills and distributes the property without a petition, a hearing date or a set of examiner notes. See our guide to avoiding probate in California for the general picture.
Recording a Concord Deed in Contra Costa County
Recorder
Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder, Recorder Division
Address
555 Escobar Street, Martinez, CA 94553
Phone
Clerk-Recorder (925) 335-7900; Assessor's Office, for PCOR questions, (925) 313-7400
Recording fee
$14.00 base fee for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page on the county's posted fee schedule
SB 2 fee
$75 per title under Government Code §27388.1, not more than $225 per transaction, unless a valid exemption is declared on the face of the document or on a cover page
PCOR
A Preliminary Change of Ownership Report goes with the deed and is sent on to the Assessor. Without it the recorder charges a $20 fee in lieu (Revenue and Taxation Code §480.3).
The trust document does not move your house. A deed does. For a Concord home that deed runs from you, as owner, to you as trustee of your trust, and it is recorded at the Clerk-Recorder's office on Escobar Street in Martinez, the same city as the courthouse. The Clerk-Recorder's site states that under Revenue and Taxation Code §480.3 it will not record a document showing a change of ownership unless a PCOR is filed with it or the extra fee is paid. On the PCOR you check the box for a transfer into a revocable trust. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) treats that transfer as no change in ownership, so the Contra Costa Assessor keeps your existing Proposition 13 base year value. Our guide to living trust property tax rules has more.
The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust, because our deed claims the owner-occupier exemption in Government Code §27388.1(a)(2) on its face, and Contra Costa's SB 2 page lists a transfer of a residential dwelling to an owner-occupier as a valid exemption that must be declared that way. A deed for a rental, a second home or vacant land pays the fee, capped at $225 per transaction. No county guarantees how its staff will read a particular deed, so the exemption is stated clearly on the document itself.
Documentary transfer tax is $0.00 on a deed into your own revocable trust, declared under Revenue and Taxation Code §11930, because nothing is sold. On an actual sale the rate in Concord is $1.10 per $1,000 of value: Concord is a general law city, so it takes half of the county's tax rather than adding its own. That is not true everywhere in the county. Richmond and El Cerrito are charter cities with their own, much higher transfer taxes, so a Concord family that also owns a rental there should read that city's rules before assuming the same answer. Our office prepares the deed and PCOR for a separate $100 per property, and you record it. Recording fees change on January 1, 2027, when AB 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) sets the Government Code §27361 base fee at $15.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page; county add-on fees stay on top of that base.
One more Contra Costa feature is worth using after you record. The Clerk-Recorder offers an optional Real Estate Recording Notification Alert that emails you whenever a document tied to your name, address or parcel number is indexed. Signing up after your trust deed records means you would hear about any later document filed against the house, which is a useful check on deed fraud for a home a successor trustee may one day manage. Our trust transfer deed guide explains the deed itself.
What Probate Would Cost on a Typical Concord Home
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical Concord home value at $722,165, updated August 31, 2026, down 0.5% over the year. Redfin reported a median sale price of about $758,000 for the three months ending August 2026, up 1.1%. The table uses Zillow's typical home value. Probate Code §10810 pays the attorney 4% of the first $100,000 of the gross estate, 3% of the next $100,000 and 2% of the next $800,000, and §10800 pays the executor the same amount. The base is gross value, so the mortgage is not subtracted.
Filing fee: $435 for the first petition in Contra Costa County (statewide fee, 2026).
Probate referee: one-tenth of one percent of the property appraised (Probate Code §8961), about $722 on this home.
Creditor claims: creditors have four months after letters issue (Probate Code §9100), so no estate closes before that.
In Concord the typical home lands right at the edge of the shortcut. The Probate Code §13151 petition for a primary residence applies up to $750,000 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. Zillow's typical value is under that line and Redfin's median is over it, but neither figure decides a real case: what counts is the home's own gross value at death. A petition is still a court filing in Martinez with the $435 fee and notice to heirs. Above $750,000 the house generally goes through full probate, and the separate small estate affidavit under Probate Code §13100 stops at $208,850, far below Concord's typical home value. A trust makes the line irrelevant. Our California probate fees guide walks through each charge.
Concord Homes, Rentals, the Fault and the Old Navy Base
A city of owners, and an older one
The 2020 Census counted 125,410 people in Concord, and the Census Bureau estimated 123,261 for July 1, 2025. The bureau's 2020 to 2024 survey figures say 61.6% of homes are owner-occupied and the median owner-occupied home was worth $797,600, and its QuickFacts table shows 16.4% of residents are 65 or older. That last group is where a trust earns its keep: an owner who bought decades ago, holds a low Proposition 13 base and has never retitled anything. If that owner loses capacity, the successor trustee manages the house without a conservatorship petition in Martinez, and the durable power of attorney covers accounts outside the trust.
Concord neighborhoods and the $750,000 line
Concord's neighborhoods do not share one price, so the citywide figures say little about a particular house. Redfin tracks Clayton Valley, on the east side toward Clayton, and Downtown Concord, around Todos Santos Plaza, as separate markets, and Dana Estates, Holbrook Heights, Sun Terrace, Four Corners, Colony Park and the Monument Corridor each have their own price range. A house in one part of town can sit under the §13151 limit while a similar house across town sits over it. The practical point is the same everywhere: a value under $750,000 still leads to a court petition, and a value over it leads to full probate, unless the house is in a trust.
Rentals and Concord's tenant rules
Some Concord owners also rent out a second house, a condo or an apartment building. Concord Municipal Code Chapter 19.40, the Residential Tenant Protection Program, sets a 5% Allowable Annual Rent Increase as of August 1, 2025 for covered units, mainly multifamily buildings with a certificate of occupancy before February 1, 1995, and requires every Concord rental to be registered each year in the city's Rent Registry. Fees for fiscal 2025 to 2026 run from $33 to $78 per unit. Putting a rental into your trust does not change those rules: the trust takes the property subject to the leases, the rent limits and the registry. Two practical steps follow. Keep the owner contact in the Rent Registry portal current, and ask the Rent Program whether it wants the trust deed reported through the portal's new ownership option. Then make sure your successor trustee knows the registry exists, so the annual registration continues if you cannot handle it.
Mobile homes
The City of Concord says its mobile home parks together offer about 1,800 spaces, and Chapter 15.105 of the Municipal Code limits how often space rent can rise and ties increases to the consumer price index. A mobile home on a rented space in a park is usually personal property titled with the state Department of Housing and Community Development, not a parcel with a recorded deed, and HCD publishes its own instructions for changing ownership of a titled home into a trust. A deed recorded in Martinez does not move it. List it in your questionnaire so it is handled separately.
The Concord fault under southeast Concord
A 2025 study in Seismological Research Letters, listed by the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Science Center, reported a creeping strand of the Concord fault continuing more than 7 kilometers farther south than earlier maps showed, through developed neighborhoods in southeast Concord and northeast Walnut Creek, with the active trace about 400 meters west of where it had been placed. The authors found curbs and sidewalk slabs bent sideways on every street that crosses the strand there, with offsets of 8 to 18 centimeters. Slow creep is not a single disaster, but a damaged foundation or an insurance claim can arrive when the owner is ill. A trustee can deal with the insurer and contractors for a house the trust holds. After the deed records, tell your homeowner's and any earthquake insurer, and have the trust added to the policy.
Fire hazard severity zone maps
The State Fire Marshal released new local responsibility area Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps for Contra Costa County on February 24, 2025. The City of Concord explains that the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, not the city, is the lead agency for adopting them, and it points owners to the state's map viewer to see where a given address falls. A zone designation follows the land, not the owner, so it stays the same when the house moves into the trust.
The former Concord Naval Weapons Station
The old weapons station's inland area, more than 5,000 acres inside the city limits, is Concord's largest pending change. On May 27, 2026 the City Council unanimously approved a term sheet with the U.S. Navy on price and payment terms for about 2,422 acres of it, with Brookfield as master developer, and the city announced on September 25, 2026 that the Navy had approved it. A Specific Plan comes next. For owners near the base, nothing about that process changes how a trust works, but anyone who later buys a home there will need the same deed into the trust as everyone else.
Hospital, schools and pensions
The City of Concord's 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report lists John Muir Medical Center and the Mt. Diablo Unified School District as its largest employers, each with 1,000 to 4,999 workers, followed by the City of Concord and PG&E. Pensions, 403(b), 457 and 401(k) plans and group life insurance pass by beneficiary designation, not under the trust or the will. When we prepare your trust we go through those designations with you so they point where the trust does.
Setting Up and Funding a Trust From Concord
Fill out the online questionnaireWork through the questions from Concord at your own pace: your family, your Contra Costa County home and any rentals, your accounts, and who should take over as successor trustee. Your answers save as you go.
Attorney drafts and reviews the trustRozsa Gyene, a California attorney, prepares the trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and certification of trust from your answers and reviews the set before it is delivered.
Sign in front of a notarySign the trust and the power of attorney before a California notary public; there are notaries throughout Concord. The pour-over will is signed in front of two witnesses, as the signing instructions explain.
Record the deed with the Contra Costa County Clerk-RecorderDeed your Concord home to yourself as trustee and record it at 555 Escobar Street, Martinez, with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report. The home you live in claims the SB 2 owner-occupier exemption, so the $75 fee is usually not charged; a rental pays it. Property in another county is recorded there.
Move bank and investment accountsShow each bank and brokerage the certification of trust and have the account retitled to you as trustee, or name the trust as payable on death beneficiary where the institution allows it.
Check every beneficiary designationPensions, retirement plans and life insurance follow their beneficiary forms, not the trust. Confirm that each form names the people or the trust you want, plus a contingent beneficiary.
Advance health care directive with HIPAA authorization
Certification of trust
Assignment of personal property
Personal property memorandum
Funding instructions
Concord clients pay $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple. A deed for the Concord house, or for a rental elsewhere in Contra Costa County, is $100 per property, and you record it in Martinez. You can call the attorney's office directly at (818) 337-4071. For how this compares, see what a California living trust costs, and for the trust and will side by side, living trust vs. will in California.
Concord Living Trust Questions
How much does a living trust cost in Concord?
$400 for one person or $500 for a married couple. The package includes the revocable living trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and certification of trust. A deed moving your Concord home into the trust is a separate $100 per property, and you record it with the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder in Martinez.
Where is probate handled for Concord residents?
All probate, guardianship and conservatorship documents for Contra Costa County are filed and heard at the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse, 725 Court Street, Martinez, CA 94553. Nothing is heard in Concord. The Probate Division's number is (925) 608-2613. A Concord home held in a funded trust passes without any filing there.
What would probate cost on a typical Concord home?
Zillow's typical Concord home value was $722,165 as of August 31, 2026. On that gross value Probate Code §10810 gives the attorney $17,443.30, and §10800 gives the executor the same, $34,886.60 together. The $435 filing fee and a probate referee commission of about $722 come on top. The trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a couple.
Could a Concord home use the $750,000 primary residence petition instead of probate?
Sometimes. Probate Code §13151 allows a court petition for a primary residence worth up to $750,000 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. Zillow's typical Concord value of $722,165 is under that limit, but Redfin's three month median sale price of about $758,000 is over it. What counts is your own home's gross value at death. Even when it applies, the petition is a court filing in Martinez with a $435 fee.
What does it cost to record a trust transfer deed in Contra Costa County?
The county's posted fee schedule charges a $14.00 base fee for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page, plus $20 if no Preliminary Change of Ownership Report is filed. Documentary transfer tax is $0.00 on a deed into your own revocable trust. The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on the deed for the home you live in, because the deed claims the owner-occupier exemption in Government Code §27388.1(a)(2). A rental, second home or vacant lot pays it, capped at $225 per transaction.
Will moving my Concord home into my trust raise my property taxes?
No. Under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d), a transfer into a trust you can revoke is not a change in ownership. The Contra Costa County Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value. You claim the exclusion on the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report that is recorded with the deed.
I rent out a Concord house. What changes when it goes into my trust?
The leases, the Concord Rent Registry and any rent limits under Municipal Code Chapter 19.40 stay with the property. The deed into the trust is recorded like any other, but a rental pays the $75 SB 2 fee. Keep your owner contact current in the Rent Registry portal, ask the city's Rent Program whether it wants the trust deed reported, and tell your successor trustee the registry exists.
Do I need to come to an office to set up a Concord living trust?
No. You answer the questionnaire online, Attorney Rozsa Gyene (California State Bar #208356) prepares and reviews the documents, you sign before a notary in Concord or anywhere in California, and you record the deed with the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder. Call (818) 337-4071 to speak with the attorney's office.
An attorney-prepared living trust for $400, or $500 for a married couple, signed before a notary in Concord and funded with one deed recorded in Martinez.
