Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
The courthouse on Pomona's Civic Center Plaza does not hear probate, so a Pomona estate goes to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. On a house at Pomona's typical value of $682,283, the statutory attorney and executor fees together come to $33,291.32. A $400 trust plus $100 deed keeps that house out of the case.
To keep a Pomona home out of probate, sign a revocable living trust and record a deed with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder that moves the home into it. Left in your own name, a house at Zillow's August 2026 typical Pomona value of $682,283 would be probated at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, where Probate Code §10810 and §10800 allow attorney and executor fees of $33,291.32 combined. Our trust is $400 for one person and $500 for a married couple.
Pomona has a courthouse of its own at 400 Civic Center Plaza, and the court's judicial directory groups it in the East District. The directory for the week of October 5, 2026 shows civil, family law, criminal, dependency and juvenile departments in that building and no probate department. Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3 requires every conservatorship, guardianship, probate and trust proceeding to be filed in the Central District. The rule's exceptions are for North District cases, which may be filed at the Antelope Valley Courthouse in Lancaster and are now heard at Mosk. A Pomona estate is therefore filed and heard downtown at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, about 28 miles west of the center of Pomona in a straight line. Under Probate Code §7051 the case belongs to the county of the decedent's domicile, so a Pomona resident's estate is a Los Angeles County case even if the death happens in another state.
The same rule covers trusts. If a beneficiary or trustee ever needs a judge to settle a question about your trust, that petition also goes to the Central District, unless the trustee administers the trust in the North District. Most trusts never need that step. A successor trustee can collect the assets, pay the final bills, send the notices the Probate Code requires and sign the deed to your beneficiaries without opening any court case.
Without a trust, a Pomona house goes through these steps in a downtown courtroom: the petition that asks the court to appoint an executor or administrator, notice published in a newspaper, a probate referee's appraisal of the inventory, at least four months for creditor claims after letters issue, and a final petition for an order distributing the estate. The first petition costs $435 to file under the statewide civil fee schedule effective January 1, 2026; Los Angeles County is not one of the counties where that fee is higher. Long cause probate trials have been heard at the Metropolitan Courthouse, 1945 S. Hill Street, since September 15, 2025. Everything filed in a probate case is open to the public.
Your trust owns only what is titled in its name, and a house is titled by deed. Until a deed from you as owner to you as trustee is recorded, the Pomona house is still yours personally and still headed for probate. The new deed repeats the legal description and the Assessor's Identification Number from your current vesting deed. The new deed must carry the legal description word for word, with every exception, easement or partial lot, or the trust could hold less than you own.
The Preliminary Change of Ownership Report goes in with the deed. The form has a box for a transfer into a revocable trust. Under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) that transfer is not a change in ownership, and the Los Angeles County Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value. Our living trust property tax guide covers the reassessment rules.
On the $75 SB 2 fee: our trust transfer deeds claim the owner-occupier exemption of Government Code §27388.1(a)(2) on the face of the deed, so the fee is usually not charged when you move the home you live in into your trust. It is charged on rentals, second homes and vacant land, up to $225 per transaction. A Pomona owner with a duplex or a house rented to tenants should expect to pay it on that deed.
Pomona is a charter city with its own transfer tax in Article VI of Chapter 50 of the Pomona Municipal Code. Section 50-251 imposes $1.10 for each $500 of value on a deed by which realty "sold within the city" is conveyed, when the consideration, not counting any loan that stays on the property, exceeds $100. The county recorder collects it under §50-258, and the county's own page names Pomona as one of five cities with special rates, alongside Culver City, Los Angeles, Redondo Beach and Santa Monica. Nothing is sold when you deed your own house to yourself as trustee, and no price is paid, so a deed into your own revocable trust owes no city tax under §50-251. The tax line on the deed reads $0.00, with the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption stated for the county's tax, because the county requires the reason for any exemption to appear on the face of the document.
We prepare the deed and the PCOR for $100 per property, and you record them in person or by mail. Recording 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, with county program fees still added. Our trust transfer deed guide explains the form itself.
Zillow's Home Value Index gives a typical Pomona home value of $682,283 for August 2026 (Zillow research data through August 31, 2026), and the table uses that figure. Probate Code §10810 pays the estate attorney a percentage of the gross estate on a sliding scale: 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000 and 2% of the next $800,000. The fee runs on gross value, before any mortgage: a Pomona house with a large loan is charged as though it were free and clear. Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same amount again.
Run your own numbers in the probate cost calculator
Our California probate fees guide goes through each charge. The typical Pomona home is below $750,000, the limit of the Probate Code §13151 petition for a primary residence when the owner died on or after April 1, 2025. That petition can pass a modest Pomona home without a full probate, but it is still a petition filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court with the $435 fee, and the heirs and devisees must be given notice within five business days of filing. It covers only the home the person lived in. A rental duplex, a second house, or a primary residence worth more than $750,000 is outside it, and the §13100 small estate affidavit stops at $208,850. For a comparison of a trust, a transfer on death deed and joint tenancy for a house, see how to avoid probate on a California home.
Pomona was incorporated on January 6, 1888 and adopted a charter in 1911. The Census Bureau's estimate for July 1, 2025 is 147,807 residents, against a 2020 base of 151,444, on about 23 square miles of land. The 2020 Census counted 43,352 housing units, and 53.0% of the occupied units were owner occupied, so close to half of Pomona households rent. Cal Poly Pomona sits on the city's western side, on the former W.K. Kellogg ranch, and the city is home to Fairplex, where the Los Angeles County Fair is held.
The line between Los Angeles County and San Bernardino County forms most of Pomona's southern and eastern boundary, with Montclair and Chino to the east and Chino Hills and Diamond Bar to the south. For a trust, the county line decides two things. Recording follows the parcel: a deed for a Pomona parcel goes to Norwalk, and a deed for a parcel in Montclair, Chino or Chino Hills goes to the San Bernardino County Recorder. Probate follows the owner's home: a Pomona resident's estate is a Stanley Mosk case wherever in California the property sits, and the estate of a Montclair, Chino or Chino Hills resident is filed and heard at the Fontana Courthouse, 17780 Arrow Boulevard. The city line matters too: Pomona's transfer tax, its rent ordinance and its Mills Act program reach only parcels inside the City of Pomona, not La Verne, Claremont or Diamond Bar. Check the legal description and the tax bill for each property you list.
The deed that puts your house into your trust costs nothing in Pomona transfer tax. A later sale is another matter. If your successor trustee sells the house at the typical value of $682,283 with no loan assumed, the tax is figured on 1,365 units of $500: $1,501.50 to the city at $1.10 per unit and $750.75 to the county at $0.55 per unit, $2,252.25 in all. A living trust does not remove that tax; an executor selling in probate would owe the same amount. What the trust changes is the timing and the process: the trustee can list the house soon after your death without waiting for court authority. Section 50-252 makes the tax payable by the person who makes or signs the deed or for whose benefit it is made, so the purchase agreement should say which side pays it.
The City of Pomona counts 5 historic districts and 27 local historic landmarks, plus properties on the National Register. Lincoln Park was designated a historic district on May 4, 1998. It covers 45 blocks and 230 acres between roughly McKinley Avenue, Towne Avenue, Pasadena Street and Garey Avenue, with 821 structures, mostly single-family houses built from the 1890s to the 1940s in Victorian, Craftsman and revival styles. It was entered in the National Register of Historic Places on April 9, 2004. The landmark list runs from the Phillips Mansion and the Adobe de Palomares to individual houses on Los Robles Place and Hillcrest Drive.
Designation goes with the land, not with the owner, so putting a historic house into your trust changes nothing about its status. What a successor trustee inherits is the review process. The Planning Division's historic preservation program issues Certificates of Appropriateness and publishes design guidelines for historic properties, and those rules will apply to whoever repairs the house next. Keep the designation information, any approvals and the permit history with your trust papers so the next owner does not start from nothing.
A local landmark, a contributing house in a local historic district, or a property listed in the National or California Register can apply for a Mills Act contract with the city. Pomona's 2024 guide sets the calendar: applications by June 1, staff review and site visits in June and July, the Historic Preservation Commission in September, and the City Council in October or early November, so the county can record approved contracts by December 31. The city will not approve a contract where the tax savings are not going back into the house, and every applicant must get an estimate for seismic retrofitting.
For a trust, three things follow. Government Code §50281 makes every Mills Act contract binding on all successors in interest of the owner, with the same rights and duties, so the deed into your revocable trust does not end the contract, and Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) keeps that deed from being a change in ownership. Once the house is in the trust, the owner of record is you as trustee, so a new application's Consent by Property Owner should be signed in that capacity. And the contract carries a ten-year rehabilitation and maintenance plan, so the trust should let your successor trustee spend trust money to finish the promised work and keep the records the city reviews.
Pomona's Rent Stabilization and Eviction Control Ordinance, Ordinance No. 4359, took effect on January 1, 2026 and replaced the urgency ordinances adopted before it. Rent increases on covered units are limited to 5% a year, with one increase in any 12 months. A landlord needs an at-fault or no-fault reason to end a tenancy, owes relocation assistance on a no-fault termination, and must send the city a copy of any unlawful detainer within ten calendar days after serving the tenant. Not every rental is covered. The city's summary lists exemptions that include units exempt under Costa-Hawkins or other state or federal law, single-family homes and condominiums that can be sold separately, units with a certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995, and a duplex where the owner lives in the other unit. A rented house or condo is often outside the rent cap, while an older duplex or apartment building usually is covered. The city asks a landlord who believes a unit is exempt to file a Notice of Exemption.
If you own a Pomona rental, your successor trustee becomes the landlord the day you die or can no longer manage. Deed every rental parcel into the trust separately, and keep the leases, rent history, deposit records and any city notices together so the trustee can show what the lawful rent is. If your plan is for the trustee to take a unit back as someone's residence or off the rental market, the city lists both as no-fault reasons, and a no-fault termination requires relocation assistance. The city's Rent Stabilization Program answers questions at (909) 620-3777.
Pomona permits accessory dwelling units and junior units inside the house, and the city publishes estimated permit and plan check fees for both a 749 square foot and a 1,200 square foot unit. An ADU on your lot is part of the same parcel, so the one deed that moves the house into the trust carries the ADU with it. The city also notes that under AB 2533, since January 1, 2025, it generally cannot deny a permit to legalize an ADU or junior unit built without a permit before January 1, 2020, and generally cannot charge impact fees for it, with exceptions where health and safety work or utility infrastructure is required. If there is an old unpermitted unit behind your house, deal with it while you can sign the application yourself; otherwise your trustee or your children inherit the question along with the property.
The State Fire Marshal issued its 2025 recommended fire hazard severity zone maps for local responsibility areas in Southern California on March 24, 2025, and the city received Pomona's maps that day. The maps rate areas Very High, High or Moderate based on fuel, slope and fire weather, and the city may add to the zones but cannot lower them. Whether your parcel is in a zone matters for insurance and for any rebuild, not for the trust document. What the trust does is let a named successor trustee deal with an insurer, a contractor and the Assessor if you are ill or have died, without waiting for a court appointment. After the deed records, tell your homeowners insurer that the house is held in your trust.
The city's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the year ended June 30, 2023 lists Pomona Valley Hospital (4,042 employees), the Pomona Unified School District (4,120), California State Polytechnic University (2,244), Lereta (732) and the City of Pomona (630) among the largest employers in town, with Fairplex further down the list. For a nurse, a teacher or a university employee, a pension, a 403(b) or a 457 plan can be worth as much as the house. Those accounts pass by their own beneficiary forms, never by the trust or the pour-over will. When a Pomona trust is set up, each of these forms should be read, contingent beneficiary included, so the retirement accounts and the trust name the same people. Our funding guide walks through each kind of asset.
A living trust avoids probate; it does not avoid reassessment. Under Proposition 19, a child keeps a parent's taxable value only if the house was the parent's family home, at least one inheriting child makes it a primary residence and claims the homeowners' exemption within one year, and the BOE-19-P claim is filed with the Los Angeles County Assessor within three years. The exclusion is limited to the parent's factored base year value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. At Pomona's typical value of $682,283, that limit is not reached, because the added amount alone is larger than the house is worth, so a child who moves in keeps the parent's full Proposition 13 value. A rental the parent never lived in does not qualify and is reassessed. The trust can say which child may keep the house and how the others are paid. Our Prop 19 inheritance guide has the details.
The package is $400 for one person and $500 for a married couple. A deed for your Pomona house, a rental or a lot is $100 per property, and a property across the county line in San Bernardino County gets its own deed for that county's recorder. Call the attorney directly at (818) 337-4071. The office is at 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505, and you do not need to visit, because you sign before any California notary in Los Angeles County or wherever you are. For other ways to set up a trust and what they cost, see what a California living trust costs.
Not in Pomona. The courthouse at 400 Civic Center Plaza has no probate department in the court's directory. Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3 requires probate and trust proceedings to be filed in the Central District, and a Pomona estate is heard at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 N. Hill Street, in downtown Los Angeles. Property held in a funded living trust passes to your beneficiaries without a case there.
Zillow put the typical Pomona home value at $682,283 on August 31, 2026. On that gross value, Probate Code §10810 allows the estate attorney $16,645.66 and §10800 allows the executor the same amount, $33,291.32 together. A mortgage does not lower the figure, because the fee is based on value, not equity. The $435 filing fee and a probate referee commission of about $682 come on top. Our living trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple.
No tax is owed on that deed. Pomona taxes deeds at $1.10 for each $500 under Pomona Municipal Code §50-251, but only when realty is sold and the consideration, not counting any loan that stays on the property, exceeds $100. A deed of your own home into your own revocable trust is not a sale and no price is paid, so the tax line reads $0.00. The county's tax line also reads $0.00, with the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption stated on the deed. A later sale by your trustee does pay both taxes.
Probate Code §13151 lets heirs ask the court to pass a primary residence worth no more than $750,000 when the owner died on or after April 1, 2025, and the typical Pomona home value is under that figure. It is still a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court with a $435 filing fee and notice to heirs, and it covers only the home the person lived in. A rental, a second property, or a home whose value rises above the limit would still need probate. A funded trust passes all of them without a court filing.
Yes. The deed into your trust is the same as for any other Pomona house, recorded with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report. Government Code §50281 makes a Mills Act contract binding on every successor in interest of the owner, so the contract stays with the house, and a transfer into a revocable trust is not a change in ownership under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d). Give your successor trustee the contract and the work plan, and the power to pay for the work.
With the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, which has no office in Pomona. The closest office that records documents is the main office at 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk; the branches in Van Nuys, Lancaster and at the LAX/Courthouse office on La Cienega Boulevard also record. By mail, send the deed to the Document Analysis and Recording Section, P.O. Box 1250, Norwalk, CA 90651-1250.
Pomona's Ordinance No. 4359, in effect since January 1, 2026, limits rent increases on covered units to 5% a year, one increase in any 12 months, requires an at-fault or no-fault reason to end a tenancy, and requires relocation assistance on a no-fault termination. Many single-family homes and condominiums are exempt, so check whether your unit is covered. Your successor trustee steps into your place as landlord. Keep the leases, rent history and deposit records with the trust papers, and record a separate deed for the rental, which pays the $75 SB 2 fee because it is not your residence.
Not all of it. Montclair, Chino and Chino Hills are in San Bernardino County. A deed for a house there is recorded with the San Bernardino County Recorder, Pomona's transfer tax and rent ordinance do not apply, and the estate of a resident of those cities is filed and heard at the Fontana Courthouse, 17780 Arrow Boulevard. The trust itself works the same way, and one trust can hold property in both counties.
Checked October 7, 2026. Fees and addresses change; confirm with the office before you file or record.
Start your attorney-prepared trust online, sign before a notary near you, and record one deed for each Pomona parcel.
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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