Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
The courthouse on East Broadway does not hear probate. A Glendale estate is probated at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, and on a home at Glendale's typical value of $1,180,773 the statutory attorney and executor fees come to $49,615.46. An attorney-prepared living trust costs $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple.
To keep a Glendale home out of probate, sign a revocable living trust and record a deed with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder that puts the home in the trust. If the home stays in your own name, a house at Zillow's August 2026 typical Glendale value of $1,180,773 would go through probate at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, where Probate Code §10810 and §10800 set attorney and executor fees of $49,615.46 together. Our trust is $400 for one person and $500 for a married couple.
Glendale does have a courthouse, at 600 E. Broadway, and many people assume a local estate would be handled there. It would not. That courthouse does not hear probate. Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3 directs probate, trust, guardianship and conservatorship matters to the Central District, and almost all Los Angeles County probate cases are heard at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse downtown, about six miles south of the Glendale Courthouse in a straight line. Probate Code §7051 puts the case in the county where the person who died was domiciled, so a Glendale resident's estate belongs in Los Angeles County regardless of where the death occurs. The only filing exception the court lists is the Antelope Valley Courthouse in Lancaster for North District cases, and since February 2, 2026 even those are heard at Mosk.
A Glendale probate runs through the usual steps from a downtown courtroom: a petition for letters, a published notice, an inventory valued by a court-appointed probate referee, a creditor period of at least four months, and a final petition asking the judge to approve distribution. The first petition costs $435 to file under the statewide fee schedule in effect since January 1, 2026. Contested matters that need a long trial go elsewhere: the court moved long-cause probate trials to Department 64 of the Metropolitan Courthouse, 1945 S. Hill Street, effective September 15, 2025. Everything filed in the case is a public record.
With a funded trust, none of this happens for the assets the trust holds. Your successor trustee steps in under the trust document, collects the property, pays final bills and taxes, sends the notices the Probate Code requires of a trustee, and signs the deed that conveys your Glendale house to the beneficiaries. For background on the downtown courtrooms, see our article on Los Angeles County probate judges and departments.
Signing the trust does not move the house. The house moves when a deed is recorded that transfers it from you, as owner, to you as trustee. The deed has to describe the Glendale parcel by its legal description and Assessor's Parcel Number exactly as the current vesting deed does. South Glendale has many condominium buildings, and a condominium legal description usually refers to a unit number, a recorded condominium plan and an undivided interest in the common area; each piece has to be copied over, or the trust may end up owning less than you do.
The Preliminary Change of Ownership Report goes with the deed. It has a box for a transfer into a trust you can revoke, and Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says that transfer is not a change in ownership, so the Los Angeles County Assessor leaves your Proposition 13 base year value alone. Our living trust property tax guide covers the reassessment rules in more detail.
As for the $75 SB 2 fee, our trust transfer deeds claim the owner-occupier exemption in Government Code §27388.1(a)(2) on the face of the deed, so the fee is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust. It is charged on a rental, a second home or vacant land, up to $225 per transaction. If you also own a duplex, a condominium you rent out or a small apartment building, each of those deeds pays the fee. Documentary transfer tax is $0.00 on any deed into your own revocable trust, since nothing is sold, and the deed states the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption on its face as Los Angeles County requires.
We prepare the deed and the PCOR for $100 per property; you record them, at any of the county's recording counters or by mail to Norwalk. Fees change on January 1, 2027, when AB 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) raises the Government Code §27361(a) base fee from $10 to $15.00 for the first page and from $3 to $4.00 for each additional page; county program fees remain on top. The Registrar-Recorder's notice of September 24, 2026 says it will apply the new base fee to documents received on or after January 1, 2027, subject to Board approval and required notice, and will stop charging penalty print, nonconforming page, referencing and indexing fees. New county totals had not been posted when we checked on October 6, 2026. Our trust transfer deed guide explains the deed form.
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical Glendale home value at $1,180,773 for August 2026 (Zillow research data through August 31, 2026), and the table uses that figure. Probate Code §10810 sets the estate attorney's ordinary fee as a sliding percentage of the gross 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. Gross means the mortgage is ignored, so a Glendale house with a large loan is charged as if it were paid off. Under Probate Code §10800 the executor may take the same amount.
Run your own numbers in the probate cost calculator
Our California probate fees guide explains each charge. The small estate shortcuts do not reach a typical Glendale house. The Probate Code §13100 affidavit is limited to $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, and the §13151 primary residence petition to $750,000. At $1,180,773 the typical home is far above both, and even a petition under §13151, for a smaller condominium, is still a filing in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Compare those figures with a $400 trust for one person or $500 for a married couple. For a side-by-side look at a trust, a transfer on death deed and joint tenancy for a house, see how to avoid probate on a California home.
Glendale incorporated in 1906. The 2020 Census counted 196,543 residents, and the Census Bureau's July 1, 2025 estimate is 187,160, which still makes it the fourth largest city in Los Angeles County. It covers about 30.5 square miles of land, most of it in the Verdugo Mountains region, and it borders Burbank on the west, Pasadena on the east, La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta and Tujunga on the north, and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Atwater Village, Glassell Park and Eagle Rock on the south and east. Our office is in Burbank, at 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300; Burbank is the city on Glendale's western border, but we do not have an office in Glendale itself.
Glendale sits on part of the Rancho San Rafael, granted to José María Verdugo in 1784. When he died in 1831 the land was divided between his son Julio and his daughter Catalina; the Catalina Verdugo Adobe, begun in 1828, is still the city's oldest building. In 1861 Julio Verdugo mortgaged the ranch to build a larger house, could not keep up the payments, and in 1871 a court divided the rancho into parcels to satisfy the claims against the family. The details belong to another century, but the pattern is familiar to anyone who has administered an estate: land held by several heirs, a debt against it, and a court deciding who gets what. A trust lets you decide those questions in advance, including whether one child may keep the house and how the others are paid.
In the 1980s many single-family houses in south Glendale were torn down for apartment and condominium buildings, and the city's population grew faster than the county's as a result. Two practical points follow. First, a condominium is real property and goes into the trust by recorded deed exactly like a house. Send the association a copy of the recorded deed or your certification of trust so that dues statements and ballots come to you as trustee and, later, to your successor trustee. Second, if you own a rental unit or an apartment building, list each parcel separately in the questionnaire. Each needs its own deed, each pays the SB 2 fee because it is not your residence, and your successor trustee will need the leases, the security deposit records and the property manager's contact information to keep collecting rent without a court order.
Glendale runs an active historic preservation program, with more than 100 designated local landmarks and several historic districts, the first designated in 2008, and it offers Mills Act contracts as a property tax incentive for qualifying historic properties. Under Government Code §50281 a Mills Act contract lasts at least ten years and binds every successor in interest of the owner. Putting a Mills Act house into your revocable trust does not end the contract; the trust, and later your successor trustee and beneficiaries, take the property subject to the same preservation obligations. Keep the recorded contract with your trust papers so the successor trustee knows it exists before anyone plans repairs or a sale.
Not every address that feels like Glendale is inside the city. La Crescenta-Montrose is an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County made up of the parts of the Crescenta Valley that are not within Glendale or La Cañada Flintridge; it had 19,997 residents in 2020. Some Montrose and La Crescenta homes are in the City of Glendale and some are not. For a living trust the answer is the same either way, because the county records the deed, the county Assessor keeps the roll and the county court would hear a probate. What matters is the legal description on the deed, not the mailing address.
Several known faults cross the Glendale area, among them the Sierra Madre, Hollywood, Verdugo and Raymond faults. In the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, 31 structures in Glendale suffered major damage and had to be demolished, and the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged a public parking structure and the Glendale Galleria parking structures. Much of the city lies in the Verdugo Mountains region, and in 2025 the State Fire Marshal released new fire hazard severity zone maps for the local responsibility areas of Los Angeles County, which local agencies had to adopt by ordinance within 120 days. A trust does not change your insurance, but it decides who can deal with the insurer. After the deed records, ask your carrier to show the trust or you as trustee on the homeowner's and any earthquake policy, and keep the declarations pages with your trust binder so a successor trustee can make a claim if a fire or earthquake comes after your death or while you are unable to act. Our funding guide lists the other assets to retitle.
The largest employers in Glendale include the Glendale Unified School District, ServiceTitan, Adventist Health Glendale, the City of Glendale, Glendale Community College, Walt Disney Imagineering and DreamWorks Animation. For teachers, city employees, hospital staff and studio employees, a pension, 403(b), 457 or 401(k) plan may be the largest asset after the house. Those accounts do not pass under a trust or a will; they go to whoever is named on the plan's beneficiary form. Part of preparing a Glendale trust is checking each form, including the contingent beneficiary, so the retirement money and the trust point the same way.
Glendale has one of the largest Armenian American communities in the United States, and it has long drawn immigrants from many countries. If a child or sibling you want to name lives outside the United States, two points apply. Anyone can be a beneficiary of a California trust wherever they live. A successor trustee who lives abroad is possible too, but a trustee here will deal with Los Angeles County, a local escrow company and California banks far more easily. One common choice is a trustee who lives in Southern California, with the relatives abroad named as beneficiaries; another is to name co-trustees.
A living trust avoids probate, not reassessment. Under Proposition 19, a child who inherits a parent's home keeps the parent's taxable value only if at least one inheriting child makes it a primary residence and files for the homeowners' exemption within one year, and the BOE-19-P claim goes to the Los Angeles County Assessor within three years. The exclusion is limited to the parent's taxable value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027; market value above that sum is added to the assessment. At the typical Glendale value of $1,180,773, the limit only bites if the parent's taxable value is below $136,187, which can happen with a home bought decades ago. The trust can say which child may keep the house and how the others are paid. See our Prop 19 inheritance guide.
The package is $400 for one person and $500 for a married couple, and a deed for your Glendale home or any other parcel is $100 per property. You can reach the attorney at (818) 337-4071. The office is at 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505; you do not need to come in, because the documents are signed before a notary near you. For other ways to get a trust and what they cost, see what a California living trust costs.
Not to the Glendale Courthouse at 600 E. Broadway, which does not hear probate. Under Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3, probate cases are filed in the Central District, and almost all Los Angeles County probate cases are heard at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 N. Hill Street, in downtown Los Angeles. A Glendale home held in a funded living trust passes to your beneficiaries without a case there.
Zillow's typical Glendale home value was $1,180,773 on August 31, 2026. On that gross value, Probate Code §10810 gives the estate attorney $24,807.73, and §10800 lets the executor claim the same, $49,615.46 in total. The fees are figured on value, not equity, so a mortgage does not reduce them. The $435 filing fee and a probate referee commission of about $1,181 are added. A living trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple.
Not our office. The Law Offices of Rozsa Gyene are in Burbank, at 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505, in the city that borders Glendale on the west. Rozsa Gyene has been licensed to practice law in California since 2000 (State Bar #208356). You do not need to visit: the questionnaire is online and you sign before a notary near you.
With the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. Glendale has no recorder office. Deeds can be recorded in person at 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk, at 14340 W. Sylvan Street in Van Nuys, at 44509 16th Street West in Lancaster, or at the LAX/Courthouse office, 11701 S. La Cienega Boulevard, or mailed to the Document Analysis and Recording Section, P.O. Box 1250, Norwalk, CA 90651.
No. Glendale is not one of the five Los Angeles County cities with their own transfer tax rate, which are Culver City, Los Angeles, Pomona, Redondo Beach and Santa Monica. The county tax of $0.55 for each $500 applies to sales, and a deed of your home into your own revocable trust is not a sale, so the documentary transfer tax is $0.00, with the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption stated on the deed.
Yes. Some Montrose and La Crescenta homes are inside the City of Glendale and others are in unincorporated La Crescenta-Montrose, but all of them are in Los Angeles County. The same county recorder records the deed, the same Assessor keeps the tax roll, and the same court would hear a probate. The deed identifies the property by its legal description and Assessor's Parcel Number, not by the mailing address.
No. Under Government Code §50281 a Mills Act contract runs at least ten years and binds all successors in interest of the owner, so the contract and its preservation duties stay with the property when it moves into your trust and later when it passes to your beneficiaries. A transfer into a revocable trust is also not a change in ownership under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d). Keep a copy of the recorded contract with your trust papers.
No. A trust avoids probate, not reassessment. Under Proposition 19 a child keeps your taxable value only if at least one inheriting child makes the home a primary residence and claims the homeowners' exemption within one year. The exclusion is capped at your taxable value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027, and the BOE-19-P claim is filed with the Los Angeles County Assessor within three years.
Checked October 6, 2026. Fees and addresses change; confirm with the office before you file or record.
Fill out the questionnaire at home, sign before a notary, and record one deed with Los Angeles County.
Law Offices of Rozsa Gyene, 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505. California State Bar #208356.
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California State Bar #208356 | Licensed Since 2000
25+ years estate planning experience in California