Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
El Dorado Hills is on El Dorado County’s Western Slope, so an estate here goes through probate at the Superior Court’s Cameron Park Branch. On the typical $905,566 home, statutory attorney and executor fees alone come to $42,222.64. An attorney-prepared trust costs $400 for one person or $500 for a couple.
To keep an El Dorado Hills home out of probate, sign a revocable living trust and record a trust transfer deed with the El Dorado County Recorder-Clerk in Placerville. Without that, the estate is filed at the Superior Court’s Cameron Park Branch, and on a $905,566 home the statutory attorney and executor fees alone come to $42,222.64 under Probate Code §§10810 and 10800.
El Dorado Hills sits at the western edge of El Dorado County, between the City of Folsom and the unincorporated community of Cameron Park. The county’s probate work is split between the Western Slope and the Tahoe basin. The court’s tentative rulings page says that all Western Slope probate and conservatorship filings are to be filed at 2927 Meder Road in Cameron Park, and Department 9 there handles civil, conservatorship and probate matters. So a petition to probate the estate of someone who lived in Serrano, Lake Forest or the Town Center area would start in Cameron Park, not at the Main Street courthouse in Placerville. The Cameron Park clerk’s office is open 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Two court procedures shape how a probate there runs. First, electronic filing has been mandatory in probate since July 1, 2025 under Local Rule 7.08.00 for every party who has a lawyer; only self-represented parties are exempt. Second, the court posts civil and probate tentative rulings after 2:00 p.m. on the day before the hearing. A party who disagrees and wants to argue must call the department and notify the other parties by 4:00 p.m. that day. That is a workable system, but every step of it (the petition, the published notice, the inventory and appraisal, the creditor period and the final accounting) is a public court process with fees set by statute. A funded trust replaces all of it with a successor trustee who signs documents at a kitchen table.
Moving your home into your own revocable trust is not a change in ownership under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d), so the Assessor does not reappraise it and no supplemental assessment follows. Your Proposition 13 base year value and any homeowners’ exemption stay where they are. Documentary transfer tax in El Dorado County is $0.55 per $500 and is figured on the consideration or value of the property conveyed (R&T §11911); a transfer to your own revocable trust involves no sale, so the tax is $0.00, and the deed gives the reason, Revenue and Taxation Code §11930. Because El Dorado Hills is not a city, there is no separate city transfer tax layered on top.
One fee is new this year. Starting July 1, 2026, under county Ordinance 5257, the Recorder-Clerk collects a $10.00 Survey Monument Fee on deeds with “grants to” language, and the county lists the trust transfer deed by name. The county’s own fee sheet notes that El Dorado Hills is not a city, so the city-limits exclusion does not help here. The exclusion that does matter is the legal description: a deed describing a lot on a recorded subdivision map, or a unit in a condominium project, does not pay the fee. A parcel described by a county parcel map, a record of survey, metes and bounds, or township and range pays the $10. Look at the legal description on your current grant deed to see which group your home is in. We prepare the deed for a separate $100 per property, and you record it yourself. Page fees rise on January 1, 2027, when AB 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) makes the Government Code §27361 base fee $15.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page. The Recorder-Clerk will also review a document by email and quote the fees before you mail it.
Our trust transfer deed guide explains which deed to use.
Zillow’s Home Value Index put the typical El Dorado Hills home at $905,566 for August 2026, the latest month in Zillow’s published research data (smoothed, seasonally adjusted, all homes). Redfin’s median sale price for El Dorado Hills was $904,401 in August 2026, almost the same number. The table uses Zillow’s typical home value (Zillow research data, August 31, 2026). Probate Code §10810 sets the attorney’s statutory fee as a percentage of the estate: 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 again. The fee is figured on the gross value of the home, before subtracting the mortgage.
Run your own numbers in the probate cost calculator
The full fee explanation is in our guide to California probate fees; against about $42,223 in statutory fees, the trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a couple. The typical El Dorado Hills home is also too valuable for the shortcuts. For deaths on or after April 1, 2025, the small estate affidavit under Probate Code §13100 is limited to $208,850, and the primary residence petition under Probate Code §13151 stops at $750,000. At $905,566 the typical home here clears both limits. And an estate above $1,000,000, which a larger home plus savings can reach quickly, starts paying the 1% tier as well.
El Dorado Hills is not a city. It is an unincorporated town and census designated place, and the 2020 Census counted 50,547 residents there. El Dorado County is the local government, and other agencies, including the El Dorado Hills Community Services District, provide a number of services. That is why your deed goes to the county Recorder-Clerk in Placerville and why the county Assessor, not a city office, values your home.
That status may change. On May 1, 2025 the El Dorado Hills Community Services District board adopted Resolution 2025-09 to start the incorporation process with El Dorado LAFCO, which lists it as Project No. 2025-02. For your estate plan the answer is simple: a trust transfer deed identifies the property by its legal description and assessor’s parcel number. If El Dorado Hills becomes a city, a deed already recorded into your trust stays good, and nothing needs to be re-signed. The point to watch would be any new city tax or fee on later recordings, which has nothing to do with a deed already on file.
Several El Dorado Hills neighborhoods sit inside Mello-Roos community facilities districts. The El Dorado County Auditor-Controller’s direct charge list shows county Mello-Roos special taxes for El Dorado Hills CFD 1992-1, Promontory CFD 2001-1 and 2025-1, Blackstone CFD 2005-1, Laurel Oaks CFD 2005-2, Carson Creek CFD 2014-1, Carson Creek Village 11 CFDs 2024-1 and 2024-2, Bass Lake Hills CFD 2018-1 and 2019-1, and East Ridge CFD 2023-1, plus a Buckeye Elementary school district CFD 2007-1 for Valley View. The list does not map each district, so check your own tax bill. Each appears as its own line on the annual property tax bill.
A special tax follows the parcel, not the owner. Recording a deed into your revocable trust does not trigger a payoff, does not change the rate and does not create a new lien. What it does change is who pays after you die. Your successor trustee pays the property tax bill, special taxes included, out of trust funds until the home is sold or deeded to your beneficiaries. If your trust leaves the home to one child and the cash to another, say who carries those tax installments in the meantime; on a Mello-Roos parcel the bill is larger than a buyer from outside the area might expect, and it keeps coming while the house is being sold.
El Dorado Hills was planned as a group of residential villages from the 1960s on. The original villages include Ridgeview, Park, Saint Andrews, Crown and Governors, and later development added Lake Forest, Fairchild, Sterlingshire, Highland Hills, Bridlewood, Woodridge, Laurel Oaks and the master-planned community of Serrano. The county direct charge list also shows El Dorado Hills CSD landscaping and lighting assessments for areas such as Stonegate Village, Green Valley and Oakridge Village.
If your neighborhood has a homeowners association, a trust does not change your obligations to it. Two practical points matter. Send the association a copy of the recorded deed so that its records, ballots and assessment notices match the new title. And give your successor trustee the HOA contact and any gate access information, because the trustee will be the one dealing with the association, the management company and any transfer paperwork when the home is eventually sold.
The 2020 Census found 17,728 households in El Dorado Hills. Of those, 70.7% were married-couple households, the median age was 45.0, and 19.1% of residents were 65 or older. There were 18,249 housing units, and the homeowner vacancy rate was 0.8%.
Those numbers point to a joint trust for most families here. A married couple can hold the home and accounts in one trust while keeping a clear record of which assets are community property and which are separate, which matters for a second marriage or for an inheritance one spouse received. The other side is incapacity. With nearly one resident in five over 65, the durable power of attorney and advance health care directive in the package do real work: a successor trustee and an agent under the power of attorney can pay the property tax, the Mello-Roos installment and the HOA dues without anyone going to the Cameron Park courthouse for a conservatorship.
El Dorado County notes that the state Fire Hazard Severity Zone map, required by state law, classifies areas as moderate, high or very high fire hazard, and it links the CAL FIRE viewer where you can enter your address. Check your address before you review your insurance.
The zone matters for a trust in one specific way: the insurance policy. After the deed is recorded, the legal owner of the home is you as trustee. Ask your insurer, or the California FAIR Plan if that is where your coverage is, to show the trustee as a named insured. If a fire or a smoke claim happens after your death or incapacity, the check is made out to the person the policy names, and you want that to be the successor trustee, not an estate that has to open in Department 9 before anyone can endorse it.
El Dorado Hills borders the City of Folsom, which is in Sacramento County, and you may also own property elsewhere in the region, such as a rental in Folsom or a cabin farther up U.S. 50. One trust can hold all of it. Each property needs its own trust transfer deed recorded in the county where the property sits: the El Dorado County Recorder-Clerk for the home here, the Sacramento County Recorder for a Folsom rental, and so on. Each county sets its own recording fees. A home in another state should be deeded into the same trust under that state’s rules, which avoids a second probate there.
The package is $400 for one person and $500 for a married couple. Preparing the trust transfer deed for your El Dorado Hills home is a separate $100 per property, and you record it with the El Dorado County Recorder-Clerk. You can reach the attorney directly at (818) 337-4071 with questions about your documents, and you sign before any California notary in El Dorado County. A full breakdown of what is and is not included is on the living trust cost page.
El Dorado Hills is on the county’s Western Slope, and the Superior Court of El Dorado County says all Western Slope probate filings go to the Cameron Park Branch at 2927 Meder Road, Cameron Park, CA 95682. Probate there is heard in Department 9. The clerk’s phone is (530) 621-5047. Property held in a funded living trust does not go through that court at all.
Zillow put the typical El Dorado Hills home value at $905,566 for August 2026. Under Probate Code §10810 the statutory attorney fee on that value is $21,111.32, and the executor is entitled to the same amount under §10800, for $42,222.64 combined. The court filing fee, the probate referee and publication costs are on top of that.
Only if the home is worth $750,000 or less. Probate Code §13151 allows a court petition for a primary residence up to $750,000 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. The typical El Dorado Hills value of $905,566 is above that limit, so many homes here would still need a full probate unless they are held in a trust.
No. El Dorado County bills Mello-Roos special taxes for districts such as El Dorado Hills CFD 1992-1, Promontory, Blackstone, Laurel Oaks, Carson Creek, Bass Lake Hills and East Ridge on the regular property tax bill. The special tax is tied to the parcel. Moving the parcel into your own revocable trust does not end it, pay it off or raise it. Your successor trustee keeps paying it until the home is sold or distributed.
The fee schedule effective January 1, 2026 charges $14.00 for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page. The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust, because the deed states the owner-occupier exemption under Government Code §27388.1(a)(2) on its face; rentals, second homes and vacant land pay it, up to $225 per transaction. Documentary transfer tax on that deed is $0.00. A deed recorded without a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report costs an extra $20. Since July 1, 2026 some deeds also pay a $10 Survey Monument Fee, though deeds that describe a lot on a recorded subdivision map or in a condominium project are excluded.
No. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says a transfer into a trust that you can revoke, or where you remain the present beneficiary, is not a change in ownership. Your Proposition 13 base value stays the same. The El Dorado County Assessor receives the PCOR filed with the deed, and the office has an El Dorado Hills phone line at (916) 358-3555 extension 5719.
No. El Dorado Hills is an unincorporated census designated place today, and the El Dorado Hills Community Services District started a LAFCO incorporation process in May 2025. A trust transfer deed identifies the property by its legal description and assessor’s parcel number, not by the name of a city. A change in city status would not undo or require you to redo a recorded transfer into your trust.
No. You sign the trust and the power of attorney before any California notary, including a mobile notary who comes to your home, and you sign the pour-over will before two witnesses. The only office the documents touch is the El Dorado County Recorder-Clerk in Placerville, when your trust transfer deed is recorded. The probate court is not involved when you create a trust.
Checked October 6, 2026. Fees and addresses change; confirm with the office before you file or record.
Sign a $400 attorney-prepared trust, record one deed in Placerville, and your family never has to file in Cameron Park.
Law Offices of Rozsa Gyene, 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505. California State Bar #208356. Read client reviews.
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