Living Trust Downey: Protect a Downey Home From Probate Court
Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
Downey has a courthouse on Imperial Highway, but it hears traffic and criminal cases, not probate. A Downey estate is probated at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, and on Zillow's August 2026 typical Downey home value of $878,882 the statutory attorney and executor fees add up to $41,155.28. A funded living trust keeps the house out of that process for a $400 trust plus $100 deed.
To keep a Downey house out of probate, sign a revocable living trust and record a deed moving the house into it with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder in neighboring Norwalk. A house left in your own name goes through probate at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, and at Downey's typical value of $878,882 (Zillow, August 31, 2026) the attorney and executor fees under Probate Code §10810 and §10800 come to $41,155.28. Our trust is $400 for one person, $500 for a married couple.
Key Takeaways
The Downey Courthouse, 7500 E. Imperial Highway, has traffic and criminal departments only. Los Angeles County probate is filed in the Central District and heard at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 N. Hill Street.
The county recorder's main office, 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk, is in the city just east of Downey and records deeds from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays.
On the typical Downey value of $878,882, each side of the statutory fee is $20,577.64, and the attorney and executor together take $41,155.28.
In the 2020 Census, 17,501 of Downey's 35,017 occupied homes were rented. A rental needs its own trust deed, and its deed pays the $75 SB 2 fee that the home you live in usually does not.
Downey is a charter city with its own transfer tax. A transfer into your own revocable trust usually pays no transfer tax because no price is paid; the deed states the exemption. Confirm with the county recorder.
Attorney-prepared trust: $400 single, $500 married couple. Each deed is a separate $100.
Los Angeles County Probate for Downey Families
Courthouse
Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, Stanley Mosk Courthouse
Address
111 N. Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Phone
(213) 830-0800; court call centers are open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday
Probate department
Assigned when the petition is filed; look the case up on the court's website before each hearing
Not a probate court
Downey Courthouse, 7500 E. Imperial Highway, Downey, CA 90242, (562) 658-0500
The Downey Courthouse is one of four buildings where the court's Southeast District holds sessions: the Norwalk Courthouse on Norwalk Boulevard, the Bellflower Courthouse on East Flower Street, the Downey Courthouse on East Imperial Highway and the Whittier Courthouse on South Painter Avenue (Local Rule 2.2(b)). A family settling a parent's estate cannot use any of them for probate. In the court's judicial directory for the week of October 5, 2026, the Downey Courthouse has six departments: one for traffic infractions and five for criminal cases. The Norwalk Courthouse lists civil, criminal and mental health departments. Neither shows a probate assignment.
The reason is Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A), which requires conservatorship, guardianship, probate and trust proceedings to be filed in the Central District. The only exception covers cases tied to the North District, which may be filed at the Antelope Valley Courthouse in Lancaster and are heard downtown. A Downey estate could use it only if the person filing lives in the North District, and even then the case is heard downtown. The probate departments in the same directory are downtown, nearly all of them at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on North Hill Street, roughly 13 miles northwest of Downey.
So when a Downey homeowner dies with the house titled in his or her own name, the person named as executor files a petition at Mosk and pays a first filing fee of $435 under the statewide fee schedule effective January 1, 2026. A probate referee appointed by the court appraises the house for a commission of one tenth of one percent of its value. Creditors have at least four months after letters are issued to file claims, so the estate stays open at least that long, and every petition, inventory and accounting sits in a public court file. Writing a will does not avoid any of this; a will is the document probate carries out.
A funded living trust works differently. The successor trustee you name steps in without a court order, pays the last bills, gives the notices the Probate Code requires of trustees, and deeds the Downey house to the people you chose. For how cases are assigned once they reach Hill Street, see our article on Los Angeles County probate judges and departments.
Recording a Downey Trust Deed in Norwalk
Recorder
Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk
Address
Main office: 12400 Imperial Highway, Norwalk, CA 90650, at Imperial Highway and Volunteer Avenue (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday). By mail: Document Analysis and Recording Section, P.O. Box 1250, Norwalk, CA 90651-1250.
Phone
(800) 201-8999
Recording fee
County fee list for a grant deed: $15.00 base fee, $3.00 for each additional page, a $7.00 fraud notification fee (Government Code §27387.1) and the $2.00 AB 1466 fee. A $10.00 survey monument fee applies when the legal description is not on a recorded subdivision tract map. Confirm the current fee with the recorder before mailing.
SB 2 fee
$75.00 per document under Government Code §27388.1, capped at $225 per transaction. It is usually not charged on a deed moving the home you live in into your trust, because our deed claims the owner-occupier exemption of §27388.1(a)(2). Rentals, second homes and vacant land pay it.
PCOR
File a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (BOE-502-A) with the deed. Without one, the recorder may charge a $20.00 fee in lieu under Revenue and Taxation Code §480.3(b).
Downey owners have an advantage most of the county does not: the Registrar-Recorder's headquarters is next door. Norwalk borders Downey on the east, and the main office sits on the same Imperial Highway that runs past the Downey Courthouse. It keeps longer hours than the district offices that record documents (Lancaster, Van Nuys and the LAX/Courthouse office on La Cienega Boulevard, all 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.). If you mail the deed instead, the county asks that it go to the Norwalk post office box above and never to a district office.
The trust agreement does not move the house on its own. The deed does: you, as owner, grant the property to yourself as trustee, using the legal description and Assessor's Parcel Number from the deed you received when you bought. The Preliminary Change of Ownership Report travels with it, marked as a transfer into a revocable trust. Under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) that transfer is not a change in ownership, so your Proposition 13 assessed value stays where it is and the Assessor does not reassess. Questions about the PCOR or the homeowners' exemption go to the Los Angeles County Assessor at (213) 974-3211. Our living trust property tax guide explains the form line by line.
Downey's own transfer tax
Downey is a charter city. Its annual financial report is submitted "in accordance with the Charter of the City of Downey," and the city levies its own real property transfer tax. A transfer into your own revocable trust usually pays no transfer tax because no price is paid; the deed states the exemption. Confirm with the county recorder. For the county's tax, documentary transfer tax is $0.00 on a transfer into the grantor's own revocable trust (R&T §11930), and our deed states the exemption the county accepts: the conveyance transfers an interest into or out of a living trust.
The tax matters when a house is sold. The county's documentary transfer tax is $0.55 per $500 of value, not counting any loan that stays on the property, and collects for the cities at the same time. It lists five cities with special rates: Culver City, Los Angeles, Pomona, Redondo Beach and Santa Monica. Downey is not on that list. If your successor trustee later sells the Downey house, the tax on that sale is figured on the sale deed, and the county says that calculation belongs to whoever prepares the deed, not to the recorder.
We prepare the trust transfer deed and the PCOR for $100 per property, and you record them yourself, in person in Norwalk or by mail. The recording fees above change on January 1, 2027: AB 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) raises the statutory base fee in Government Code §27361 from $10 to $15.00 for the first page and from $3 to $4.00 for each additional page, and the Registrar-Recorder's notice dated September 24, 2026 says the county will apply it to documents received on or after that date, subject to Board approval, and will stop charging its penalty print, nonconforming page, referencing and indexing fees. Our trust transfer deed guide covers how the deed is filled out.
Probate Fees on an $878,882 Downey Home
Zillow's Home Value Index for the City of Downey stood at $878,882 for August 2026 (data through August 31, 2026), up about 2.3% from $859,322 a year earlier. That is the figure used here. It is a typical value for the middle of the market, not a median sale price. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2020 to 2024, which asks owners to estimate their own home's value, gives a lower median of $796,600, an older and self-reported number. The attorney's fee under Probate Code §10810 is a percentage of the estate's gross value, with no deduction for a mortgage: 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000 and 2% of the next $800,000. Probate Code §10800 gives the executor a fee of the same size.
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 $879 on this home.
Creditor period: four months after letters issue (Probate Code §9100), so no estate closes sooner.
Because the base is gross value, a Downey owner who still owes $300,000 on the house produces the same $41,155.28 as a neighbor who paid off the loan years ago. The two shortcuts in the Probate Code do not reach most Downey homes. The small estate procedure under Probate Code §13100 is limited to $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. The petition for a decedent's primary residence under Probate Code §13151 is limited to $750,000 for deaths on or after that date, and it is still a court petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court with notice to heirs.
Zillow also tracks values by ZIP Code. For August 2026 it shows $818,854 for 90242, $924,472 for 90241 and $931,968 for 90240, the three ZIP Codes it files under Downey. Every one is above the $750,000 line. At the 90240 figure, the attorney and executor fees together would be $43,278.72; at the 90242 figure, $38,754.16. The California probate fees guide explains each charge. Against those numbers, our trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple.
Downey Homes, Rentals and Your Trust
A postwar housing stock and owners who stayed
Downey was founded on October 23, 1873 and was still described as an orange grove town in 1935. Suburban homes and factories replaced the farms after World War II, and the city incorporated on December 17, 1956. The housing reflects that history. The American Community Survey for 2020 to 2024 counts 35,919 housing units in Downey, and 13,859 of them, about 39%, were built in the 1950s. Adding the 1940s and earlier, 53.5% were built before 1960. Only 733 units were built in 2010 or later. The Census Bureau estimated the population at 108,468 on July 1, 2025, against a 2020 estimates base of 114,354.
Many owners have been in their houses a long time. The same survey counts 3,526 Downey households that moved in before 1990 and another 4,178 that moved in during the 1990s, and it finds 5,643 owner households headed by someone 65 or older, close to a third of the 17,807 owner-occupied homes. About 5,679 owner-occupied homes have no mortgage at all. For these owners the house is often worth many times its Proposition 13 assessed value. The trust deed keeps that low value in place, because a transfer into your own revocable trust is not a change in ownership. The trust also answers a question that matters more with age: if you can no longer sign, your successor trustee can manage or sell the house without a conservatorship case, and the durable power of attorney covers anything left outside the trust.
Half of Downey rents, and someone owns those homes
The 2020 Census counted 35,017 occupied homes in Downey: 13,856 owned with a mortgage, 3,660 owned free and clear, and 17,501 rented, almost exactly half. Some of those rentals are in small apartment buildings. The 2020 to 2024 survey counts 693 units in two-unit buildings, 1,194 in buildings of three or four units and 2,337 in buildings of five to nine. If you own one of those buildings, or a second house you rent out, it needs its own deed into the trust, just as your residence does. A rental deed does not qualify for the owner-occupier exemption, so the $75 SB 2 fee applies to it.
Once a rental is in the trust, you remain the landlord as trustee while you are alive and well. After your death or incapacity, your successor trustee collects the rent, handles repairs and deals with tenants under the existing leases. Keep copies of each lease, the security deposit records and the property insurance policy with your trust papers, and tell us in the questionnaire whether the rental should be sold or kept for a particular beneficiary. A will cannot do that without probate; a trust can.
Condominiums and townhomes
About 56% of Downey's housing units are detached single family houses. The survey also counts 2,275 attached single family units, the townhome category, and 5,637 units in buildings of 20 or more. A condominium or townhome goes into a trust the same way a house does, by a recorded deed with its own PCOR. After recording, send the homeowners association a copy of the recorded deed or the certification of trust so that statements and voting notices reflect the new title, and keep the association's governing documents with the trust. If you own the condominium as a rental, the SB 2 fee applies to that deed as it would to any rental.
Mobile homes
The survey counts 186 mobile homes in Downey, a small share of the city's housing. A mobile or manufactured home on a rented space is not transferred by deed. The California Department of Housing and Community Development keeps the title records for manufactured homes and mobilehomes and updates them on a change of ownership, so moving one into a trust is done on HCD's records with its transfer forms. A home installed on a foundation system is no longer registered by HCD. If you own a coach, list it in the questionnaire so the trust and the funding instructions cover it.
Hospital and public employers, and the plans a trust does not control
Downey's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the year ended June 30, 2024 lists its largest employers. Health care leads: Kaiser Permanente with 6,512 employees (up from 4,500 in 2014 to 2015), Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center with 2,052, PIH Health, formerly Downey Regional Medical Center, with 1,146, and Lakewood Health Center with 434. Public employers follow: the Los Angeles County Office of Education with 1,665, the Downey Unified School District with 1,363, the City of Downey with 750 and the County's Internal Service Department with 712. Stonewood Shopping Center (2,000) and the Coca-Cola Bottling Company (1,054) complete the list.
People who work for these employers often have a pension, a 403(b) or 401(k), or group life insurance through work. None of those pass under a trust or a will. Each pays whoever is named on its beneficiary form, and a form that was never updated can name someone who has since died. When we prepare your trust we ask you to collect those forms and check that each names the right person, or the trust where that makes sense, with a contingent beneficiary.
The aerospace years
For decades Downey was an aircraft and spacecraft town. Vultee Aircraft was the city's largest employer during World War II, North American Aviation took over the plant in 1948, and from 1961 the site under NASA ownership built systems for the Apollo program. The plant closed in 1999, and the land now holds the Columbia Memorial Space Center, the Downey Landing and Promenade at Downey shopping centers, a Kaiser Permanente hospital and city park fields. If you or your spouse worked there, check whether a pension or life insurance policy from one of the companies that ran the plant is still in force. Those benefits, like any old 401(k) that was never rolled over, follow their own beneficiary forms, so look for them and update them when you sign the trust.
When your children inherit the Downey house
A trust keeps the house out of probate, but it does not prevent reassessment when the house passes to your children. Under Proposition 19 a child can keep a parent's taxable value on the family home only by making it the child's own principal residence and filing for the homeowners' exemption within one year, and the benefit is capped at the parent's taxable value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. Any market value above that cap is added to the assessment. The claim, form BOE-19-P, goes to the Los Angeles County Assessor within three years of the death or before a transfer to a third party, whichever comes first. For a Downey house bought in the 1980s, the gap between the old taxable value and today's typical value of $878,882 is large, so the trust should say who may keep the house and how the other children are treated if one of them moves in. Our Prop 19 inheritance guide goes through the rule in detail.
Creating and Funding a Downey Living Trust
Answer the online questionnaireList your Downey house, any rental or condominium, any mobile home, your bank and investment accounts and your retirement plans, and choose a successor trustee and backup. You can stop and come back; your answers are saved.
Attorney prepares the documentsCalifornia attorney Rozsa Gyene drafts the revocable trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and certification of trust from your answers and reviews the full set before it is sent to you.
Sign before a notary, with two witnesses for the willSign the trust and the power of attorney in front of any California notary public, in Downey or elsewhere. Two adult witnesses sign the pour-over will with you, following the signing instructions in the package.
Record the trust deed in NorwalkRecord the deed from you to yourself as trustee with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder at 12400 Imperial Highway, Norwalk, or by mail to P.O. Box 1250, with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report. The deed for the home you live in claims the SB 2 owner-occupier exemption; a rental pays the $75 fee. Each property needs its own deed.
Move bank and brokerage accountsGive each bank, credit union and brokerage the certification of trust and have the account retitled to you as trustee, or name the trust as the payable on death beneficiary where the institution allows it.
Check every beneficiary formPensions, 401(k), 403(b) and IRA accounts and life insurance pass by their own beneficiary forms, not by the trust. Confirm that each names the person or trust you intend, with a contingent beneficiary, including plans from employers you left years ago.
Advance health care directive with HIPAA authorization
Certification of trust
Assignment of personal property
Personal property memorandum
Funding instructions
The package is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple. Each deed, whether for your Downey home, a rental or a condominium, is $100 more. You can reach the attorney directly at (818) 337-4071. The office is in Burbank and you never have to come in; you sign before any California notary in Los Angeles County or anywhere else in the state. For how that price compares with other ways of getting a trust, read what a California living trust costs.
Downey Living Trust Questions
Does the Downey Courthouse on Imperial Highway handle probate?
No. The court's judicial directory for the week of October 5, 2026 lists one traffic department and five criminal departments at the Downey Courthouse, 7500 E. Imperial Highway. Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3 sends probate, trust, guardianship and conservatorship filings to the Central District, so a Downey estate is probated at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 N. Hill Street, in downtown Los Angeles. A house that is already titled in a funded living trust needs no court case at all.
What would probate cost on a typical Downey home?
Zillow put the typical Downey home value at $878,882 for August 2026. On that gross value, Probate Code §10810 gives the estate's attorney $20,577.64 and §10800 gives the executor the same amount, $41,155.28 between them. The $435 first petition fee and a probate referee's commission of about $879 come on top. A living trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple, plus $100 for the deed.
Can I take my trust deed to the recorder's office in Norwalk myself?
Yes. The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's main office is at 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk, the city on Downey's eastern border, and it records documents from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays. If you prefer to mail it, send the deed to the Document Analysis and Recording Section, P.O. Box 1250, Norwalk, CA 90651-1250, not to a district office. File a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report with the deed so the recorder does not add the $20 fee in lieu.
Does Downey charge its own transfer tax when I deed my home into my trust?
Downey is a charter city and has its own real property transfer tax. A transfer into your own revocable trust usually pays no transfer tax because no price is paid; the deed states the exemption. Confirm with the county recorder. For the county's own tax, the deed carries the statement Los Angeles County accepts for a conveyance into or out of a living trust under Revenue and Taxation Code §11930, and the county transfer tax line reads $0.00.
I own a rental house in Downey. Does its trust deed cost more to record?
Usually yes, by $75. The SB 2 fee under Government Code §27388.1 is usually not charged on a deed moving the home you live in into your trust, because our deed claims the owner-occupier exemption in §27388.1(a)(2). A rental, a second home or vacant land does not fit that exemption, so the $75 fee applies, capped at $225 per transaction. The county's other recording charges are the same for both deeds.
Could my family use the $750,000 home petition instead of a trust?
Probably not for a typical Downey house. Probate Code §13151 allows a court petition for a decedent's primary residence worth $750,000 or less, for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. Zillow's August 2026 typical values for the three ZIP Codes it files under Downey were $818,854 in 90242, $924,472 in 90241 and $931,968 in 90240, all above that limit. Even when a house qualifies, the petition is still filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court with notice to heirs.
My parents bought their Downey house decades ago. What happens to the property tax when we inherit it?
Putting the house in their trust does not change the assessment, because a transfer into a revocable trust is not a change in ownership under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d). The inheritance is different. Under Proposition 19 a child keeps the parents' taxable value only if the house becomes the child's principal residence, and only up to that value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. The claim, form BOE-19-P, goes to the Los Angeles County Assessor within three years of the death or before a transfer to a third party, whichever is earlier.
Keep Your Downey House Out of the Hill Street Probate Courts
An attorney-prepared living trust for $400, or $500 for a married couple, with each deed $100, signed before any California notary in the Gateway Cities.
