Where Yolo County Probate Is Heard
- Courthouse
- Superior Court of California, County of Yolo (Yolo Superior Court)
- Address
- 1000 Main Street, Woodland, CA 95695
- Phone
- (530) 406-6704 (Civil, Probate, Juvenile, Small Claims and Family); main line (530) 406-6700
- Probate department
- Probate matters are heard at 9:00 a.m. in Department Thirteen and Department Fourteen (probate notes for October 2, 2026)
Davis has no courthouse of its own. Every Yolo County probate, trust petition, conservatorship and guardianship is filed with the Yolo Superior Court at 1000 Main Street in Woodland, the county seat. The court lists phone and window hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Its probate page lists decedents' estates, trusts, conservatorships, guardianships and LPS proceedings as the case types heard in the Probate Court, and it says plainly that probate is not needed for property placed into certain types of living trusts.
Before each probate calendar the court posts Probate Notes. The court describes them as a recommendation on the outcome of a petition; unlike tentative rulings, they are not automatically adopted as the order of the court. The notes for October 2, 2026 list probate matters at 9:00 a.m. in Department Thirteen and in Department Fourteen, and they tell parties who want a continuance to call the civil division at (530) 406-6704 at least two court days before the hearing. Since August 17, 2020, the court has required electronic filing in probate cases; self-represented parties are exempt but encouraged to use the court's File @ Home tool. The court also lists video appearance links for each department, including Departments 13 and 14.
One Yolo County step applies even when you have a trust. The court's probate page says that whoever has the original will must file it with the court in the county where the decedent lived within 30 days after the death. For a Davis resident with a pour-over will, that means lodging the will in Woodland. Lodging a will is not opening a probate case. If the trust holds everything, nothing more is filed.
Yolo County Recorder: Recording Your Trust Deed
- Recorder
- Yolo County Clerk-Recorder (part of the county Assessor, Clerk-Recorder and Elections department)
- Address
- Erwin Meyer Administration Center, 625 Court Street, Room B-01, Woodland, CA 95695. The Assessor is in the same building, Room 104. Mail: P.O. Box 1130, Woodland, CA 95695.
- Phone
- Recorder (530) 666-8130; Assessor (530) 666-8135
- Recording fee
- $15.00 for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page, per the county's posted recording fee schedule (checked October 6, 2026). The county adds a $10 fraud prevention fee, for $25 on the first page, to a listed set of titles that includes the quitclaim deed. A grant deed or a trust transfer deed is not on that list.
- SB 2 fee
- $75 per transaction per parcel, capped at $225 (Government Code §27388.1). The county's SB 2 cover sheet lists an exemption for a transfer of a residential dwelling to an owner-occupier (§27388.1(a)(2)). Our deed of your own Davis home into your trust claims it, so the $75 is usually not charged on that deed; rentals, second homes and vacant land pay it. The $2 AB 1466 fee does not apply to SB 2 exempt documents.
- PCOR
- A Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (BOE-502-A) must accompany a deed that transfers ownership. If it is not presented at recording, the county charges an additional $20 (Revenue and Taxation Code §480.3).
The Yolo County recorder's counter is in Woodland. Documents presented at the counter by 3:00 p.m. on a business day are recorded the same day. Mailed documents, with a check payable to the Yolo County Clerk-Recorder, are recorded within one to three business days. The recorder examines a deed for recording requirements only: names of the grantors and grantees, a legal description, the Assessor's Parcel Number, a documentary transfer tax declaration, a mailing address for tax statements, the city where the property sits or a statement that it is unincorporated, and a notarized signature. Staff cannot give legal advice or help prepare the deed.
Moving your home into your own revocable trust is not a change in ownership for property tax purposes under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d), so your Proposition 13 base value stays where it is and no supplemental assessment follows. The county's documentary transfer tax is $1.10 per $1,000 of value, but a deed into your own revocable trust involves no sale, so the tax due is $0.00, with the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption stated on the face of the deed. The title you put on the deed matters in Yolo County, because the county charges the extra $10 fraud prevention fee on the quitclaim deed and the other titles on its list. Our office prepares the deed and PCOR for a separate $100 per property. You sign before a notary and record it yourself, in person or by mail. Budget for the page fees changing 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.
The form of the deed is explained in our guide to trust transfer deeds.
What Probate Would Cost on a Typical Davis Home
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical Davis home value at $837,982 as of August 31, 2026, down about 1.2% from a year earlier. We use that figure for the math below. Redfin's median sale price for Davis in August 2026 was $821,956, a figure built from the homes that happened to sell that month. Probate Code §10810 sets the attorney's fee on the gross value of the estate, before any mortgage is subtracted: 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, and 1% of the next $9 million. Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same amount.
Run your own numbers in the probate cost calculator
- Court filing fee: $435 for the first petition (statewide fee).
- Probate referee: one-tenth of one percent of the appraised property (Probate Code §8961), about $838 on this home.
- Creditor period: four months after letters issue (Probate Code §9100), so no estate closes sooner.
For the full fee breakdown, see California probate fees explained. The comparison is a $400 trust for one person or $500 for a married couple. The $208,850 small estate limit is far below the value of a typical Davis home. The Probate Code §13151 petition for a primary residence worth up to $750,000 (deaths on or after April 1, 2025) also falls short at the typical Davis value, and even a home that fits under it still needs a court filing in Woodland.
Davis Homes, UC Benefits and Local Taxes: What They Mean for Your Trust
UC Davis pensions and savings plans need their own beneficiary review
UC Davis is by far the largest employer in the city. The City of Davis listed it first among principal employers in its fiscal 2020 annual financial report, with more than 25,000 employees, ahead of the Davis Joint Unified School District and Sutter Davis Hospital. For a household with a UC paycheck, much of the family's wealth may sit in UC retirement benefits rather than the house, and those benefits do not follow the trust.
The University of California tells employees to name beneficiaries for three things: UC Retirement Plan (UCRP) benefits, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, and UC Retirement Savings Program accounts, which include the Defined Contribution Plan, the 403(b) Plan and the 457(b) Plan. UCRP and AD&D beneficiaries are managed in UC Retirement At Your Service (UCRAYS). Savings plan beneficiaries are managed separately at Fidelity NetBenefits, account by account; UC's UCRP beneficiary form cannot be used for them. UC's retiree form also says that if no beneficiary is named, UCRP lump sum death benefits are paid automatically in a default order printed on the form. Fidelity answers at 866-682-7787 and the UC Retirement Administration Service Center at 800-888-8267.
UC also warns married employees that a spouse may have a legal interest in benefits payable at death, and that a designation reducing the spouse's share of the community property benefit may be challenged. That is a California community property issue, and it is a reason to decide the beneficiary question together with the trust rather than leave old forms in place. When we prepare a Davis trust for a UC employee or retiree, the funding instructions list each UC account and who it should name: a spouse, the trust, or individual children. A pension survivor option you elected at retirement is a separate decision that the trust cannot change.
Faculty housing and other homes with resale limits
Some Davis homes are not ordinary market property. The City of Davis runs an affordable homeownership program whose homes are sold below market and stay subject to recorded deed restrictions. The City lists the key terms: every owner must live in the home as a primary residence, the resale price is capped at 3.75% annual appreciation compounded from the original purchase date (5.5% at Southfield Park), and a sale goes through a City run process that matches the home with an eligible buyer from its waitlist, with a 1% program fee at closing. University faculty housing can carry its own limits too; a 2006 UC Davis News report said Aggie Village, a 37 home faculty development built in 1997, then had a cap on resale prices. We did not find a current university statement of those rules, so an Aggie Village owner should read the restrictions in their own purchase and title papers.
A trust can hold any of these homes, but the deed into the trust does not lift a resale cap, an owner occupancy rule or a buyer eligibility rule. Before you sign a trust deed for one of these homes, read the recorded restrictions, and tell your successor trustee they exist. A trustee who sells at a market price that the documents do not allow creates a problem for the whole family.
Parcel taxes and Mello-Roos on a Davis tax bill
A Davis property tax bill carries more than the 1% Proposition 13 levy. Davis Joint Unified School District says voters approved the Measure N parcel tax in March 2024 to renew Measure H at its then current rate of $768 a year, replacing Measure H on January 1, 2025, and the separate Measure G parcel tax that voters passed in March 2020. The district also levies special taxes through two Mello-Roos community facilities districts: CFD No. 1, at $341.73 on the 2026 to 2027 bill, and CFD No. 2. The district states that seniors and residents with disabilities can be exempt from the parcel taxes and that CFD No. 1 has a 50% exemption, while it lists no exemptions for CFD No. 2 or the district's 2000 and 2018 bonds, apart from a low income rental housing exemption from both CFD taxes.
The trust changes none of these taxes. The district says that if you currently have exemption status you do not need to reapply. Because the trust deed changes the name on the county roll from you to you as trustee, a senior with an exemption should call DJUSD Business Services at (530) 757-5300 after the deed records to confirm the exemption still matches the parcel. The district says the application link for the 2027 to 2028 tax year will be posted in November 2026.
El Macero and homes just outside the city line
El Macero, the golf course community often counted as part of South Davis, is an unincorporated census designated place in Yolo County, not part of the City of Davis. Its 2020 census population was 1,074, with a median age of 58.0 and 39.1% of residents 65 or older, against 13.9% for Davis as a whole. For a trust the address difference is small but real: the Yolo County recorder requires the deed to state the city where the property is located or that it is unincorporated, so an El Macero trust deed should state unincorporated Yolo County even though the mailing address says Davis. The court and the recorder are the same for both. Most El Macero homes belong to the El Macero Homeowners' Association (The Oaks, a 37 home development inside El Macero, is not part of it), and the association's records should show the trust as owner once the deed records.
Village Homes and other common area neighborhoods
Village Homes in West Davis, completed in 1982, has 225 homes and 20 apartment units built around shared rear common areas with fruit and nut trees and natural drainage swales. Stonegate, built around Stonegate Lake, and East Davis subdivisions such as Mace Ranch, Lake Alhambra Estates and Wildhorse are other planned neighborhoods. Where a homeowners association exists, the trust takes title to your lot and the membership and assessments follow the deed. Send the association a copy of the recorded deed or a certification of trust so that notices and votes come to you as trustee, and so a successor trustee can deal with the association later without a court order.
Rentals near campus, farmland and property in other counties
The 2020 census counted 27,066 housing units in Davis, and only 43.5% of occupied units were owner occupied; the rest were rented. If you own a second unit or a small rental in town, each one needs its own deed into the trust, and each lease should be reviewed so that the trust, through you as trustee, is the landlord.
Yolo County is farm country, and some Davis families own ranch land outside town. Proposition 19 limits the parent to child exclusion to a principal residence that the child also occupies, capped at the existing taxable value plus $1 million of market value (indexed by the Board of Equalization to $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027), but the Yolo County Assessor notes that family farms may qualify without the residence requirement. A trust lets you leave that land on your own terms without putting a child on the deed today, which can trigger reassessment of the child's share.
Davis also sits at a county line. Most of the UC Davis campus lies outside the city in unincorporated Yolo and Solano counties, and many families own a cabin, a rental or a parent's house in Solano, Sacramento or another county. Property outside Yolo County is deeded into the same trust but recorded with that county's recorder. Leaving one property out means a separate probate in that county.
Davis and Yolo County Living Trust Questions
Which court handles probate for a Davis resident?
The Yolo Superior Court at 1000 Main Street in Woodland. Davis has no courthouse. The court's probate notes for October 2, 2026 set probate matters at 9:00 a.m. in Departments Thirteen and Fourteen, and the civil division phone for probate is (530) 406-6704.
What would probate cost on a typical Davis home?
Zillow puts the typical Davis home value at $837,982 for August 2026. Under Probate Code §10810 the statutory attorney fee on that value is $19,759.64, and the executor is entitled to the same amount under §10800, so the two fees total $39,519.28. The $435 filing fee, the probate referee and publication costs come on top.
Where do I record the deed that puts my Davis home in the trust?
At the Yolo County Clerk-Recorder, Erwin Meyer Administration Center, 625 Court Street, Room B-01, Woodland, or by mail to P.O. Box 1130, Woodland, CA 95695. Documents presented at the counter by 3:00 p.m. are recorded the same day. Include a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report or the county charges an extra $20.
Will moving my Davis home into a trust raise my property taxes?
No. A transfer into your own revocable trust is not a change in ownership under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d), so the Yolo County Assessor does not reassess the home. Parcel taxes and the school district special taxes stay on the bill as before.
Does my UC pension or Fidelity savings account go into the trust?
No. UCRP lump sum death benefits go to the beneficiary you name in UC Retirement At Your Service, and each UC Retirement Savings Program account (DC Plan, 403(b) and 457(b)) passes by the beneficiary on file at Fidelity NetBenefits. UC's UCRP beneficiary form allows a trust or individuals to be named, a survivor option elected at retirement is a separate matter, and married employees should keep the spouse's community property interest in mind.
I live in El Macero. Is anything different?
The court and the recorder are the same, but El Macero is unincorporated Yolo County, not the City of Davis. The Yolo County recorder requires the deed to state the city where the property sits or that it is unincorporated, so the trust deed should say unincorporated area. If your home is in the El Macero Homeowners' Association, let the association know the trust now holds title.
Do I lose my DJUSD senior parcel tax exemption if I use a trust?
Nothing on the district's exemption pages says a revocable trust ends eligibility, and the district says owners who already have exemption status do not need to reapply. Because the recorded owner changes to you as trustee, call DJUSD Business Services at (530) 757-5300 after recording to confirm the exemption still matches your parcel.
What does a Davis living trust cost with this office?
$400 for one person or $500 for a married couple, flat. The package includes the revocable trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive, certification of trust and funding instructions. Deed preparation is a separate $100 per property, and you record the deed in Woodland.
