Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
Sacramento County probate is heard at the William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse on Power Inn Road. On a home at Zillow's August 2026 typical Sacramento value of $473,797, the statutory attorney and executor fees alone come to $24,951.88. A funded living trust keeps the home out of that courthouse: a $400 trust plus a $100 deed for one person, or a $500 trust plus a $100 deed for a married couple.
Sign a revocable living trust, then record a deed putting your Sacramento home into it at the Sacramento County Clerk/Recorder on American River Drive. Without that deed, a home at the typical Sacramento value of $473,797 passes through Sacramento County Superior Court: a full probate with $24,951.88 in statutory attorney and executor fees under Probate Code §10810, or a §13151 court petition if it was the primary residence. The trust costs $400, or $500 for a couple.
Key Takeaways
Probate for Sacramento County is heard at the William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse, 3341 Power Inn Road, in Department 126 or 129 depending on the last digit of the case number.
The Sacramento County Clerk/Recorder, 3636 American River Drive, Suite 110, charges $20 for the first page of a deed and $3 for each added page, and $20 more if the PCOR is missing.
Zillow's typical Sacramento home value was $473,797 in August 2026. Statutory probate fees on that value: $12,475.94 to the attorney and the same to the executor.
Inside city limits the City of Sacramento adds its own transfer tax of $2.75 per $1,000 on non-exempt transfers, collected by the county recorder.
Sacramento County had 89,148 active state employees in June 2026. CalPERS benefits follow CalPERS beneficiary rules and Savings Plus accounts pass by beneficiary designation, outside the trust.
Attorney-prepared trust: $400 single, $500 married couple. Deed preparation is a separate $100 per property.
Sacramento County Probate at the Ridgeway Courthouse
Courthouse
Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento, William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse
Address
3341 Power Inn Road, Sacramento, CA 95826
Phone
(916) 875-3400, option 2. Business hours 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; building open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Probate department
Department 126 (case numbers ending 1, 3, 5, 7, 9) and Department 129 (ending 0, 2, 4, 6, 8)
Probate is not heard downtown near the Capitol. Sacramento County Superior Court houses its Family Law and Probate Divisions together in the Ridgeway courthouse on Power Inn Road, south of Folsom Boulevard, and the probate court there handles decedents' estates, trusts, guardianships of minors, conservatorships and adoptions. The court splits probate between two departments by the last digit of the case number: odd numbers go to Department 126 and even numbers to Department 129.
The court publishes probate case information, calendars and probate notes on its public case portal, so a family can see what the court has flagged before a hearing. Filings can be made electronically through an approved electronic filing service provider, each document uploaded as its own PDF with only one petition or other lead document per filing. Hearings in the Ridgeway departments can be attended by Zoom or by toll-free phone after a Notice of Remote Appearance (form RA-010) is filed and served.
Sacramento also assigns the probate referee by case number. The court lists five referees, each taking cases that end in two particular digits, and the referee appraises the estate's non-cash property for a statutory commission. In a trust administration none of this happens: no petition, no department assignment, no notes to clear, no referee, and no public file showing what the family inherited. The successor trustee works from the trust document and the recorded deed.
Recording a Sacramento Trust Deed
Recorder
Sacramento County Clerk/Recorder, main office
Address
3636 American River Drive, Suite 110, Sacramento, CA 95864. Satellite Office South, 8239 E. Stockton Boulevard, accepts documents but does not record the same day. The Assessor is at the same street address, Suite 200.
Phone
Recorder (916) 874-6334. Same-day recording for documents received by 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Recording fee
$20.00 for the first page and $3.00 for each additional 8½ x 11 page (county fee schedule, checked October 2026)
SB 2 fee
$75 per document under Government Code §27388.1, capped at $225 per transaction; the county's exemption list includes a transfer of a residential dwelling to an owner-occupier. Our deed of your own home into your trust claims that exemption under §27388.1(a)(2), so the fee is usually not charged. Rentals, second homes and vacant land pay it.
PCOR
The county requires a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (BOE-502-A) with any deed transferring ownership; without it the recorder adds $20.00, the fee Revenue and Taxation Code §480.3 allows.
A trust you have signed owns nothing until property is titled in it. For a Sacramento house that means a deed from you, as owner, to you, as trustee. The recorder's checklist for a transfer deed asks for the grantor and grantee names, a legal description, the Assessor's Parcel Number, a documentary transfer tax declaration, a "when recorded mail to" address, the address for future tax statements, the city or unincorporated area, and the owner's notarized signature. On the PCOR you check the box for a transfer into a revocable trust. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) treats that transfer as no change in ownership, so the Sacramento County Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value. Our living trust property tax guide explains the rule.
The county's documentary transfer tax is $0.55 for each $500 of value on a sale. The county's own transfer tax FAQ lists placing real property in a revocable trust for the grantor's benefit as a transfer that is not a sale. The tax line on your deed reads $0.00 with the exemption written under it, which the county requires to cite the Revenue and Taxation Code section; for a trust transfer that is §11930. The City of Sacramento is different from the rest of the county: it receives no share of the county tax and instead levies its own additional real property transfer tax, which the county recorder has collected at recording since September 1, 2013. The City says the tax has existed since 1978 and applies to non-exempt transfers within city limits. Sacramento City Code §3.16.020 levies it on realty sold, at 0.275% of the value of consideration, and a deed into your own trust has no buyer and no price. The City's Permits and Taxes unit answers questions at (916) 808-1202.
Our office prepares the deed and the PCOR for a separate $100 per property. You record them yourself, in person at American River Drive or by mail with a check payable to the Sacramento County Clerk/Recorder, and that recording is the step that moves the home into the trust. From January 1, 2027, AB 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) sets the Government Code §27361 base recording fee at $15.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page; county add-on fees are charged on top of that base. Our trust transfer deed guide walks through the form.
Probate Fees on a Typical Sacramento Home
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical Sacramento home value at $473,797 with data through August 31, 2026, down 0.9% from a year earlier, and the math below uses that figure. 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. Gross means before the mortgage is subtracted. Probate Code §10800 gives the executor an equal fee.
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 $474 on this home.
Creditor period: four months after letters issue (Probate Code §9100), so no estate closes sooner.
Sacramento differs from the coastal counties in one respect. At $473,797 the typical home is under the $750,000 limit of the Probate Code §13151 petition, which since April 1, 2025 lets heirs ask the court to pass a decedent's primary residence without a full probate. That route is real, but it is still a petition in the Ridgeway courthouse with a $435 filing fee and notice to heirs within five business days of filing, and it reaches only the home the person lived in. A rental duplex in Oak Park or a second house in the foothills does not qualify, and if the rest of the estate, real and personal property, is over the $208,850 small estate limit of Probate Code §13100, it still needs its own proceeding. Typical values in East Sacramento and Land Park are above $750,000, so homes there get no shortcut at all. Our California probate fees guide explains each charge; compare them with a $400 trust for one person or $500 for a couple.
Sacramento Homes, State Pensions and Your Trust
A capital city of state workers
Sacramento had 524,943 residents in the 2020 Census, and the Census Bureau estimated 536,449 for July 1, 2025. It is the state capital and the county seat. The State Controller's Office counted 89,148 active state employees working in Sacramento County in June 2026, 83,514 of them full time, out of 245,912 statewide. CalPERS has its headquarters at 400 Q Street downtown. For many Sacramento households the two largest assets are the house and a public pension, and they pass in completely different ways.
CalPERS and CalSTRS death and survivor benefits are paid under each system's own rules and beneficiary forms, not under your trust or will. CalPERS pays death benefits to the valid designation on file, treats a marriage, a divorce or the birth or adoption of a child as revoking that designation, and without one pays a member's benefits in a statutory order in which a trust comes only after the spouse, children, parents, siblings and probated estate. CalSTRS lets a member name a trust for one-time death benefits but not as the option beneficiary of a monthly allowance. The state's supplemental plans run through Savings Plus, the CalHR program that offers state employees a 401(k) and a 457(b) alongside their CalPERS pension, and those accounts also pass by beneficiary designation. The Savings Plus 401(k) plan document lists a trust among the beneficiaries a participant may name. None of these accounts is retitled into a living trust. When we prepare a Sacramento trust we ask for the current designations so the trust and the forms point the same way, and so a plan you joined decades ago still names the people you intend.
Which "Sacramento" is your house in?
A Sacramento mailing address covers more than the city. The county's transfer tax declaration lists only seven incorporated cities: Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Folsom, Galt, Isleton, Rancho Cordova and Sacramento. Large communities with Sacramento addresses, such as Arden-Arcade (94,659 people in 2020), are unincorporated, and the recorder notes that only the City of Sacramento in this county has its own city transfer tax. The deed has to say which it is, and the answer decides whether the City of Sacramento's additional transfer tax of $2.75 per $1,000 can apply to a later sale. The Assessor's Parcel Number on your property tax bill settles the question, and we put it on the deed.
Neighborhood values and the $750,000 line
Values inside the city spread widely. Zillow's August 2026 neighborhood figures put Land Park at $849,145, East Sacramento at $777,310 and Curtis Park at $728,724, with the Pocket at $624,553, Greenhaven at $622,900 and Natomas Park at $605,625. South Natomas was $439,605, Central Oak Park $370,368, Meadowview $398,907 and Del Paso Heights $356,062. Every one of them is above the $208,850 small estate limit. A house in Land Park or East Sacramento is also above the §13151 limit, so without a trust it needs full probate. A house in Meadowview or Oak Park may qualify for the petition, but only if it was the owner's own residence, and the heirs still file in court and wait for an order. A trust handles both cases without a filing.
Levees, Natomas and flood insurance
Sacramento depends on levees along the Sacramento and American Rivers. The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency reported that going into 2025 the Army Corps of Engineers had 11 major contracts under construction on the system, including four rebuilding the levees around the Natomas Basin, four at Folsom Dam and two on the lower American River. SAFCA also records that in 2015 FEMA mapped the Natomas Basin into an A99 zone, which lifted some building restrictions but not the flood insurance requirement, and the City's floodplain code has its own section for that zone. A trust does not change any flood zone or insurance requirement. What it does change is the named owner: after the deed records, ask your homeowner's and flood carriers to show the trust on each policy, and keep any elevation certificate with your trust papers so your successor trustee can file a claim without first proving title.
Homeowners, renters and rental property
The Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 survey put Sacramento's owner-occupied housing rate at 51.7% and the median value of owner-occupied homes at $506,300, and 14.2% of residents were 65 or older in 2025. If you also own a second unit or a small rental, it is deeded the same way as a home, but it does not get the owner-occupier SB 2 exemption, so expect the $75 fee on that deed. Leases and security deposits should move to you as trustee, and the trust should say who manages the property if you cannot.
Passing the house to your children
A trust avoids probate; it does not avoid reassessment when children inherit. Under Proposition 19 a child keeps the parent's assessed value only if the child makes the home his or her principal residence, and only up to the parent's taxable value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. The claim, form BOE-19-P, goes to the Sacramento County Assessor within three years of the death, or earlier if the home is sold to someone outside the family first. Our Prop 19 inheritance guide covers the details.
How to Create and Fund a Living Trust in Sacramento
Answer the questionnaire onlineTell us about your family, your Sacramento County real estate, your accounts and your choice of successor trustee from home. You can stop and come back later, and you can call (818) 337-4071 with questions.
The attorney drafts and reviews your documentsRozsa Gyene, a California attorney, prepares 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 in front of a notaryThe trust and the power of attorney are signed before a California notary public; there are notaries throughout Sacramento County. The pour-over will is signed in front of two witnesses, as the signing instructions explain.
Record the trust deed on American River DriveDeed your Sacramento home from yourself to yourself as trustee and record it at the Sacramento County Clerk/Recorder, 3636 American River Drive, Suite 110, with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report. Fill in the city or unincorporated box on the transfer tax declaration. The deed for your own home claims the owner-occupier SB 2 exemption; a rental or vacant lot pays the $75 fee.
Move bank and brokerage accountsTake the certification of trust to each bank, credit union and brokerage and have the account retitled to you as trustee, or name the trust as payable on death beneficiary where the institution offers it.
Check every beneficiary designationCalPERS and CalSTRS benefits, Savings Plus and other 401(k), 403(b) and 457(b) accounts, IRAs and life insurance follow their own beneficiary forms. Update each one so it 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
One person pays $400 and a married couple $500. A deed for the Sacramento house, or for any other parcel, is $100 per property on top of that. You can reach the attorney at (818) 337-4071, and the documents are signed before any California notary, of which Sacramento County has many. See what a California living trust costs for how the price compares.
Sacramento Living Trust Questions
Where is probate heard for someone who lived in Sacramento?
Sacramento County Superior Court hears probate at the William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse, 3341 Power Inn Road, Sacramento, CA 95826, not at the downtown courthouse. The court assigns probate cases to Department 126 or Department 129 by the last digit of the case number, and its probate line is (916) 875-3400, option 2. Assets held in a funded living trust are not part of that case.
What would probate cost on a typical Sacramento home?
Zillow put the typical Sacramento home value at $473,797 for August 2026. On that gross value, Probate Code §10810 sets the attorney's statutory fee at $12,475.94, and Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same amount, $24,951.88 combined. The $435 filing fee, the probate referee's fee of about $474 and publication costs come on top. A mortgage does not reduce the figure.
My Sacramento home is worth less than $750,000. Do I still need a trust?
For deaths on or after April 1, 2025, Probate Code §13151 lets heirs ask the court to transfer a primary residence worth up to $750,000 without full probate. It is still a court petition with a $435 filing fee and notice to heirs, it covers only the home the person lived in, and a rental or a second house does not qualify. A trust deed recorded during life avoids the petition entirely.
How do I record a trust deed in Sacramento County, and what does it cost?
Record it at the Sacramento County Clerk/Recorder, 3636 American River Drive, Suite 110, Sacramento, CA 95864, in person by 3:00 p.m. for same-day recording or by mail. The county charges $20 for the first page and $3 for each additional page, plus $20 if no Preliminary Change of Ownership Report is filed with the deed. Our deed of your own home claims the owner-occupier exemption from the $75 SB 2 fee under Government Code §27388.1(a)(2), so that fee is usually not charged; rentals, second homes and vacant land pay it, up to $225 per transaction. Documentary transfer tax is $0.00 under Revenue and Taxation Code §11930.
Is my home inside the City of Sacramento or unincorporated, and why does it matter?
A Sacramento mailing address does not mean the home is inside city limits. Communities such as Arden-Arcade are unincorporated. The deed's transfer tax declaration must name the city or check unincorporated, and the City of Sacramento's additional real property transfer tax of $2.75 per $1,000 on non-exempt transfers applies only inside its city limits. The parcel number on your tax bill settles which applies.
I am a state worker. Does my CalPERS pension or Savings Plus account go into the trust?
No. CalPERS death and survivor benefits are paid under the system's own rules and beneficiary forms, and a Savings Plus 401(k) or 457(b) account passes by the beneficiary designation on file with the plan, not by your trust or your will. They are not retitled. What matters is that the designation is current and fits the trust; the Savings Plus 401(k) plan document lets a participant name a trust as beneficiary if that is what you want.
Will moving my Sacramento home into my trust change my property taxes?
No. Under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) a transfer into a trust you can revoke is not a change in ownership, so the Sacramento County Assessor keeps your existing base year value and no supplemental bill follows. File the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report with the deed and mark the revocable trust box. Transfer questions go to the Assessor's property transfer line, (916) 875-0750.
My home is in Natomas. Does the trust affect my flood insurance?
The trust does not change whether a lender requires flood coverage. Once the deed is recorded, tell your homeowner's and flood insurers that the home is now held by you as trustee and ask them to list the trust on each policy, so a claim made by your successor trustee is not delayed by a title mismatch. Keep the policy numbers with your trust papers.
