Living Trust Ontario: Keep Your Home Out of the Fontana Probate Court
Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
Probate for every Ontario ZIP code is filed and heard at the Fontana Courthouse, 17780 Arrow Blvd., Fontana, not at the courthouse in Rancho Cucamonga. On Zillow's August 2026 typical Ontario home value of $661,918, statutory attorney and executor fees would total $32,476.72. A $400 trust plus $100 deed keeps the house out of that court; a married couple's trust is $500.
An Ontario home stays out of probate when you sign a revocable living trust and record a deed putting the house in the trust's name with the San Bernardino County Recorder. Skip the deed, and a house at Zillow's August 2026 typical Ontario value of $661,918 goes to the Fontana Courthouse, where Probate Code §10810 and §10800 allow the attorney and the executor $32,476.72 between them. Our $400 trust plus $100 deed avoids that; a couple's trust is $500.
Key Takeaways
Ontario ZIP codes 91758, 91761, 91762 and 91764 are assigned to the Fontana Courthouse, 17780 Arrow Blvd., Fontana, CA 92335, for probate (General Order GO26-032). The Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse does not hear probate.
Zillow's typical Ontario home value was $661,918 for August 2026. Statutory probate fees on that value are $16,238.36 for the attorney and the same for the executor, $32,476.72 together.
Deeds are recorded at the Hall of Records, 222 W. Hospitality Lane, San Bernardino, in person or by mail: $14.00 for the first page ($24.00 for document types with the Real Estate Fraud fee), $3.00 per additional page, plus $20 without a PCOR.
Ontario has its own transfer tax of 27.5 cents per $500, but it reaches only realty sold (Ontario Municipal Code §3-7.02), so a deed into your own revocable trust with nothing paid owes no city tax.
Every new project in Ontario Ranch, the former dairy preserve annexed in 1999, forms a Mello-Roos district. The trust does not change that special tax or your Proposition 13 base.
Attorney-prepared trust: $400 single, $500 married couple. Deed preparation is a separate $100 per property.
San Bernardino County Probate for Ontario Residents
Courthouse
Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, Fontana District (Fontana Courthouse)
Address
17780 Arrow Blvd., Fontana, CA 92335
Phone
Probate (909) 521-3388, Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; courthouse main line (909) 350-9322
Probate hearings
Probate courtrooms at the Fontana Courthouse; most hearings can be attended by Zoom (see below).
An Ontario family does not go to the closest courthouse for probate. The Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse at 8303 Haven Avenue is just north of Ontario, but the court lists only criminal cases and civil courtrooms there. The Probate Division says its clerk's office and courtrooms are at the Fontana, Needles and Victorville districts, and the Presiding Judge's General Order GO26-032, "Where Probate Cases Are Filed and Heard," puts Ontario on the Fontana list. The order sorts cases by the ZIP code where the person lived. Ontario appears with 91758, 91761, 91762 and 91764, and the neighboring Guasti area with 91743. The order runs from January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027.
Hearings can often be attended by video. The court's civil and probate Zoom page gives a link for each Fontana probate courtroom and asks people to check in 15 minutes before the hearing; evidentiary hearings, trials and settlement conferences are not open to remote appearance. Electronic filing in the Probate Division is voluntary for attorneys and self-represented parties. Before each hearing, the probate examiners' notes, which list what a petition is missing, are posted on the court's Court Access Portal two weeks ahead and stay up for seven days afterward, so the person running the estate has to check and cure them in time.
A trust administration skips all of this. When an Ontario homeowner dies with the house titled in the trust, the successor trustee steps in under the trust document. No petition is filed, no probate notes are posted, and no court file on the family's assets is opened to the public.
Recording an Ontario Trust Transfer Deed
Recorder
San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder-Clerk, Recorder-Clerk Division
Address
Hall of Records, 222 W. Hospitality Lane, 1st Floor, San Bernardino, CA 92415-0022 (in person, with appointments encouraged, or by mail). The Assessor's Ontario District Office, which handles assessments for Ontario parcels, is at 8575 Haven Avenue, Suite 210, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730.
Phone
Recorder-Clerk (909) 387-8306; PCOR help (909) 387-8307; Ontario Assessor District Office (909) 948-5088
Recording fee
$14.00 first page; $24.00 first page for document types the county lists with the Real Estate Fraud fee (the list names quitclaim deeds and deeds of trust); $3.00 each additional page (Recorder-County Clerk fee schedule, Rev. 07/01/2026)
SB 2 fee
$75 per title under Government Code §27388.1, capped at $225 per transaction. The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust, because the owner-occupier exemption in §27388.1(a)(2) is claimed on the deed. It is charged on rentals, second homes and vacant land.
PCOR
The county says state law requires a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (BOE-502-A) filed with any document that changes ownership, and charges $20 more if it is missing (Revenue and Taxation Code §480.3).
The trust document alone does not move your Ontario house. The deed does: it conveys the parcel from you as owner to you as trustee, using the legal description and Assessor's Parcel Number from your current vesting deed. On the PCOR you check the box for a transfer into a revocable trust. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says that transfer is not a change in ownership, so the Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value and no supplemental bill follows. Our living trust property tax guide walks through that rule.
If you record by mail, the county wants the original completed deed with the fees, sent to the San Bernardino County Recorder at the Hall of Records address. Checks are made payable to the San Bernardino County Recorder, must have your name and address preprinted, and may be written as "not to exceed" checks with the limit on the memo line; temporary checks are refused. Card payments carry a 3.5% surcharge. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope if you want a conformed copy back.
Two assessor offices, one address
The office that values Ontario homes is in Rancho Cucamonga, not Ontario. The county's Ontario Assessor District Office serves Chino, Chino Hills, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Upland from Suite 210 at 8575 Haven Avenue. The county also lists "portions of" Ontario under its Fontana Assessor District Office, which works from the same suite under a different phone number, (909) 948-6488. Call one of them about your assessed value, a homeowners' exemption or a Proposition 19 claim; neither office records deeds.
County and city transfer tax
San Bernardino County charges documentary transfer tax of $0.55 per $500 on taxable conveyances over $100, and the deed must state the amount due and whether the land is in a city or unincorporated. Our deed shows $0.00 for the county tax with the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption written on its face. Ontario also levies its own tax, 27.5 cents per $500, under the Real Property Transfer Tax Law of the City of Ontario. That chapter is adopted under the state Documentary Transfer Tax Act, Part 6.7 of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code (Ontario Municipal Code §3-7.01). It taxes only realty sold, and only when the price, not counting any loan that stays on the property, is over $100 (§3-7.02). Section 3-7.13 repeats the §11930 exemption for transfers by gift or by reason of death, outright or in trust, and §3-7.14 has the County Recorder administer the city tax under the same state law. A deed of your Ontario home into your own revocable trust with nothing paid therefore owes no city tax.
Our office prepares the deed and PCOR for a separate $100 per property, and you record them. Page fees change on January 1, 2027: AB 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) raises the Government Code §27361 base to $15.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page, and the county's own add-on fees stay on top of that base. Our trust transfer deed guide shows what the deed contains.
Probate Fees on a Typical Ontario Home
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical Ontario home value at $661,918 for August 2026 (data through August 31, 2026), about 0.4% lower than a year earlier. This is Zillow's typical value for the middle range of homes, not a sale price median. Probate Code §10810 pays the estate's 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 Probate Code §10800 pays the executor the same amount. Gross means the mortgage is not subtracted, so an Ontario owner with a large loan pays fees on the full value.
Court filing fee: $435 for the first petition. The Judicial Council's 2026 schedule notes a local courthouse construction surcharge in San Bernardino County, but its probate total there is still $435.
Probate referee: one-tenth of one percent of the appraised property (Probate Code §8961), about $662 on this home.
Creditor period: four months after letters issue (Probate Code §9100), so no estate closes sooner.
Our California probate fees guide covers each charge, and the total here is about $32,477 in statutory fees alone, against a $400 trust for one person or $500 for a married couple. The Probate Code §13100 small estate affidavit stops at $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, far below any Ontario house. The Probate Code §13151 petition for a primary residence, $750,000 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, does reach the typical Ontario value, but it is a court petition filed at the Fontana Courthouse with the same $435 fee, and it does nothing for a rental, a second lot or farmland.
Ontario Housing, Ontario Ranch and Your Trust
Ontario is two cities in one for estate planning purposes. In the north is the original Model Colony that George and William Chaffey laid out along Euclid Avenue in 1882, and incorporated as a city in 1891. To the south is Ontario Ranch, about 8,000 acres of the historic San Bernardino Agricultural Preserve, once used mostly for dairy and cattle, which the city annexed on November 30, 1999 and first called the New Model Colony. The Census Bureau counted 175,262 residents at the April 2020 base and estimated 187,013 on July 1, 2025, growth of about 6.7% in five years.
Neighborhood values close to the $750,000 line
The citywide figure hides a wide spread. Zillow's August 2026 neighborhood values for Ontario:
Neighborhood (Zillow)
Typical value, August 2026
First month Zillow reports
Ontario Center
$542,076
January 2000
Creekside
$568,151
January 2000
Edenglen
$605,863
January 2012
The Avenue
$681,672
February 2021
West Haven
$767,737
February 2022
Borba Village
$784,857
February 2019
The last column shows how young some of these neighborhoods are: Zillow has no figures for The Avenue, West Haven or Borba Village before 2019. Two of them, West Haven and Borba Village, are already above the $750,000 limit of the Probate Code §13151 home petition. A Borba Village house at $784,857 would carry statutory fees of $18,697.14 a side, $37,394.28 for attorney and executor together. The test under §13151 is the gross value at death, and Zillow's citywide Ontario figure was $354,660 in August 2016, so the typical home has gained about 87% in ten years. A house under the line today can be over it when it matters. A recorded trust deed makes the value irrelevant.
Mello-Roos districts in Ontario Ranch
The City of Ontario's own tax administration report explains that the city has formed a Mello-Roos Community Facilities District on each new project in Ontario Ranch. Every new development there must form a district that pays for public services, and residential projects typically form another that pays for part of the streets, bridges, water and recycled water lines, sewers and storm drains built to serve them. The city plans more than 47,000 new homes in Ontario Ranch and expects full buildout to take 20 years or more, so these special taxes will be part of south Ontario ownership for a long time.
For a trust, the points are practical. The deed into your trust does not end or reduce the special tax; it stays on the San Bernardino County tax bill, and you pay it as trustee. After your death the successor trustee pays it from trust funds until the house is sold or deeded to your beneficiaries, and a buyer will ask about it. Keep your latest tax bill, which itemizes the district charges, with your trust papers so the trustee is not guessing. If you own a newer Ontario Ranch home with a homeowners association as well, give the association a copy of the recorded deed so its records show you as trustee.
Older homes, long ownership and Proposition 19
The Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey counts 58,170 housing units in Ontario. 12,612 of them, about 22%, were built before 1960, and the largest single decade is the 1980s with 13,202 units. 59.6% of occupied homes are owner occupied, and owner households average 3.51 persons. An older house owned for decades usually carries a Proposition 13 value far below what it would sell for, and that gap is what a child can lose.
That is where Proposition 19 bites. A child who inherits the family home keeps the parent's tax base only if at least one inheriting child makes it a principal residence and files for the homeowners' exemption within one year, and the protection is capped at the old taxable value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. The BOE-19-P claim goes to the San Bernardino County Assessor within three years. A trust lets you decide in advance whether the child who lives in the house keeps it, buys out the others over time, or whether it is sold. Our Prop 19 inheritance guide covers the rule. If your current deed shows you and your spouse as joint tenants, the trust deed replaces that vesting, so we read your current deed before preparing the new one.
Dairy land and farm parcels in south Ontario
Not every family in the old preserve sold to a builder; Wikipedia's article on the city notes that much of southern Ontario still holds dairy farms and other farms. Farm acreage, a farmhouse and outbuildings are real property, so each parcel needs to be described in a recorded trust deed, at $100 per property for our preparation. Livestock, tools and equipment you own personally can be covered by the assignment of personal property in the package, while a dairy run through a corporation, LLC or partnership is handled by assigning your ownership interest, not by a deed. Proposition 19 also covers a family farm passing from parent to child, claimed on the same BOE-19-P form within the same three years. Rentals and second homes do not qualify for either exclusion.
Manufactured homes
The same 2024 survey counts 1,823 mobile homes in Ontario. A manufactured home titled with the California Department of Housing and Community Development is not deeded at the Hall of Records. For a home on local property tax, which HCD identifies by a decal number beginning with "L," HCD's instructions for a transfer into a trust ask for the original title signed by every owner, the registration card, a tax clearance certificate from the county tax collector naming the trust as applicant, and the department's Multi-Purpose Transfer Form signed by each trustee, with a $35 transfer fee, a $23 registration fee per section and, if you do not own the land, a $5 park purchase fee per section. If you own the lot under the home, that lot is real property and needs its own recorded deed.
The airport, employers and accounts outside the trust
The city opened the Ontario Municipal Airport in 1929, and Wikipedia's article on the city describes today's Ontario International Airport as the city's largest employer. Jobs at the airport and at other large employers usually come with 401(k), 403(b) or pension plans and group life insurance. Those pass by beneficiary designation, outside both the trust and the will, so we go through each designation with you when the trust is prepared.
Property across the county line
Ontario lies just east of Los Angeles County, and Riverside County is close by to the south. If you also own a parcel in Pomona or in Eastvale, each parcel is deeded in the county where the land lies. A trust that holds the Ontario house but not an Eastvale rental leaves the rental for a separate probate in Riverside County, where the first petition fee is $450, not $435. A Los Angeles County parcel left outside the trust would be probated at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.
How to Create and Fund a Living Trust in Ontario
Answer the questionnaire onlineTell us about your family, your Ontario home and any other San Bernardino County parcels, your bank and retirement accounts, and who should act as successor trustee. You can stop and come back later.
Attorney prepares your documentsRozsa Gyene, a California attorney, drafts the trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and certification of trust from your answers and reviews them before they reach you.
Sign before a notarySign the trust and the power of attorney before any California notary public in Ontario or elsewhere. The pour-over will is signed before two witnesses, following the signing instructions.
Record the trust transfer deedRecord the deed of your Ontario home to yourself as trustee at the San Bernardino County Hall of Records, 222 W. Hospitality Lane, in person or by mail, with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report. The deed for the home you live in claims the SB 2 owner-occupier exemption, so the $75 fee is usually not charged on it; a rental or vacant parcel pays it. Land in Los Angeles or Riverside County is recorded in that county.
Retitle bank and brokerage accountsGive each bank and brokerage firm the certification of trust and ask it to put the account in your name as trustee, or to name the trust as payable on death beneficiary where the institution allows it. A manufactured home titled with HCD is moved by an HCD title transfer instead of a deed.
Check beneficiary designationsRetirement plans, pensions and life insurance pass by beneficiary designation, not by the trust. Confirm each one names the people or the trust you intend, with a contingent beneficiary.
Advance health care directive with HIPAA authorization
Certification of trust
Assignment of personal property
Personal property memorandum
Funding instructions
The trust is $400 for one person and $500 for a married couple, and deed preparation for your Ontario home is a separate $100 per property. You can reach the attorney's office directly at (818) 337-4071, and you sign before any California notary in San Bernardino County. See what a California living trust costs for the full price list.
Ontario Living Trust Questions
Where is probate filed for someone who lived in Ontario?
At the Fontana Courthouse, 17780 Arrow Blvd., Fontana, CA 92335. General Order GO26-032, in effect from January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027, sends probate cases for Ontario ZIP codes 91758, 91761, 91762 and 91764 there. The Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse on Haven Avenue is closer to most of Ontario, but it does not hear probate: the court lists criminal cases and civil courtrooms there.
What would probate cost on a typical Ontario home?
Zillow's typical home value for Ontario was $661,918 in August 2026. On that figure Probate Code §10810 gives the estate's attorney $16,238.36, and Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same amount, $32,476.72 in all. The $435 filing fee, the probate referee and newspaper publication come on top. Both fees are figured on the gross value, so a mortgage does not lower them. A $400 trust plus $100 deed keeps the house out of that process.
My Ontario Ranch home pays a Mello-Roos special tax. Does putting it in my trust change that?
No. The city forms a Community Facilities District for each new project in Ontario Ranch, and the special tax is levied on the parcel itself and collected on the county's secured property tax bill no matter who holds title. After the deed is recorded you pay it as trustee, and after your death your successor trustee pays it until the house is sold or distributed. The deed also does not reassess the home, because Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) treats a transfer into your own revocable trust as no change in ownership.
Does the City of Ontario charge its own transfer tax on a deed into my trust?
No, in the ordinary case. Ontario's tax is adopted under the state Documentary Transfer Tax Act (Ontario Municipal Code §3-7.01) and applies only to realty sold, measured without any loan that stays on the property (§3-7.02). Section 3-7.13 also repeats the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption for transfers by gift or at death, outright or in trust. A deed of your home into your own revocable trust with nothing paid owes no city tax, and the county line reads $0.00 with the §11930 exemption stated on the deed.
Which assessor office handles my Ontario parcel?
The San Bernardino County Assessor's Ontario District Office, which is not in Ontario. It is at 8575 Haven Avenue, Suite 210, Rancho Cucamonga, phone (909) 948-5088, and serves Chino, Chino Hills, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Upland. The county lists some portions of Ontario under its Fontana District Office, which uses the same suite with phone (909) 948-6488. Deeds are not recorded there; they go to the Hall of Records in San Bernardino.
My family still owns dairy or farm land in south Ontario. Can it go into the trust?
Yes. Farm parcels are real property, so each one is described in a trust transfer deed recorded with the county, and our deed preparation is $100 per property. Equipment and other items you own personally can be covered by the assignment of personal property, while a dairy run through a corporation or LLC is handled by assigning your ownership interest. For your children, Proposition 19 can keep a family farm's tax base if a BOE-19-P claim is filed with the assessor within three years.
Do I have to come to Burbank to sign?
No. You answer the questionnaire online, the attorney prepares and reviews the documents, and you sign the trust and the power of attorney before any California notary public, including one in Ontario. The pour-over will is signed before two witnesses. The office prepares the deed and you record it by mail or in person at the Hall of Records. You can reach the attorney's office at (818) 337-4071.
