Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
San Bernardino is the county seat, yet a city resident's probate case is filed and heard at the Fontana Courthouse on Arrow Boulevard. On Zillow's August 2026 typical San Bernardino home value of $492,161, the statutory attorney and executor fees come to $25,686.44. A funded trust keeps the home out of that courthouse altogether.
To keep a San Bernardino home out of probate, sign a revocable living trust and record a deed moving the home into it at the county Hall of Records on Hospitality Lane. Without that deed, a city resident's estate goes to the Fontana Courthouse, and on Zillow's typical San Bernardino value of $492,161 the statutory attorney and executor fees under Probate Code §§10810 and 10800 come to $25,686.44. The trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple.
The Superior Court still prints 247 West Third Street, downtown San Bernardino, at the top of its orders, including the one that matters here. General Order GO26-032, "Where Probate Cases Are Filed and Heard," signed by Presiding Judge Rod Cortez and in effect from January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027, tells probate filers to find their ZIP code and file in the courthouse it names. The San Bernardino line lists fifteen ZIP codes: 92401, 92402, 92403, 92404, 92405, 92406, 92407, 92408, 92410, 92411, 92413, 92415, 92418, 92423 and 92427. All of them go to the Fontana Courthouse. So do the neighboring valley cities of Colton, Grand Terrace, Highland, Loma Linda, Redlands, Rialto and Yucaipa, the mountain communities of Crestline, Running Springs and Lake Arrowhead, and, for probate, even the Morongo Basin towns of Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms.
Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley, Barstow, Big Bear City and Big Bear Lake file at the Victorville District, 14455 Civic Drive. The Needles Courthouse, 1111 Bailey Avenue, takes certain petitions for the Needles area ZIP codes, such as a petition to determine succession to real property or a spousal property petition. The order assigns a case by the place of residence, so a San Bernardino resident's estate goes to Fontana even when it includes a cabin in Big Bear.
Once a case is open, the court posts the probate notes for a hearing on its Court Access Portal two weeks before the hearing and for seven days after it. The court's Probate Business Office takes filings and also accepts wills for deposit. In a conservatorship, court investigators interview the person the petition is about before any appointment and check on the conservatee afterward; they also investigate guardianships. A funded trust, with a durable power of attorney for anything outside it, usually lets your family manage your finances without a conservatorship of the estate if you lose capacity.
The deed is what moves a San Bernardino house into the trust. It runs from you as owner to you as trustee, describes the parcel by its legal description and Assessor's Parcel Number, and is recorded on Hospitality Lane. For in person recording the county strongly encourages appointments booked online and gives them priority, with a limit of five documents per appointment and two appointments per customer per day. By mail, the original deed and the fees go to San Bernardino County Recorder, 222 W. Hospitality Lane, 1st Floor, San Bernardino, CA 92415-0022. The county is strict about form: notary acknowledgments must be legible and in blue or black ink, and liquid correction or correction tape is never accepted on an acknowledgment. If one needs a correction, the county says to attach a new acknowledgment.
Which first page fee applies depends on how the county classifies the document. Its schedule lists the titles associated with the Real Estate Fraud Fee, including quitclaim deeds, and the recorder makes that call when it reviews the deed. A card payment carries a 3.5% surcharge. The fees change again on January 1, 2027, when AB 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) sets the Government Code §27361 base fee at $15.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page; county add-on fees come on top of that base.
Under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d), a transfer into a trust you can revoke is not a change in ownership, so the Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value and no supplemental bill follows. San Bernardino County collects documentary transfer tax at $0.55 for each $500 on taxable conveyances over $100, but the tax is $0.00 on a deed into the grantor's own revocable trust, with the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption stated on the face of the deed. Our office prepares the deed and the PCOR for a separate $100 per property. You record it, and that recording is what actually funds the home into the trust. See our trust transfer deed guide and our page on living trust property tax rules.
One more county rule matters to whoever settles the trust. The Assessor must be told of an owner's death within 150 days on the Change in Ownership Statement, Death of Real Property Owner, and the county says the form is required even if the decedent held the property in a trust. For questions about these forms, the county lists the Assessor's Exclusions Department at (909) 387-8307, option 6, or toll free (877) 885-7654.
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical home value in San Bernardino at $492,161 for August 2026 (Zillow research data through August 31, 2026), and that figure drives the table. Probate Code §10810 sets the attorney's fee as a percentage of the gross estate: 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000 and 2% of the next $800,000. Gross means a mortgage is not subtracted. Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same amount again.
Run your own numbers in the probate cost calculator
Some neighborhoods run higher. Zillow's August 2026 figure for Verdemont is $619,574, and on that value the attorney and executor fees together are $30,782.96. Our California probate fees guide explains each charge. The small estate affidavit under Probate Code §13100 stops at $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, so it does not reach a San Bernardino house. The Probate Code §13151 petition for a primary residence worth up to $750,000 can, but it is still a petition filed in Fontana, with the same $435 fee. Compare those figures with a $400 trust for one person or $500 for a married couple.
San Bernardino had 222,101 residents in the 2020 Census and is the seat of San Bernardino County. The county government, the city school district, Stater Bros., Kohl's and California State University, San Bernardino are among the employers Wikipedia lists for the city. Being the county seat helps with funding a trust: the recorder and the Assessor sit in one building on Hospitality Lane. It does not help with probate, which left downtown for Fontana.
Zillow's August 2026 neighborhood figures show how wide the range is inside one city. At the low end are Curtis at $253,877 and Seccombe Lane at $384,009. In between are Shandin Hills at $408,477 and Arrowhead at $483,476. At the high end are North Park at $562,933, Verdemont at $619,574 and Ridgeline at $633,317. Every one of them is above the $208,850 small estate limit, so a house left outside a trust needs a court filing of some kind. Every one is also below the $750,000 limit of the Probate Code §13151 petition, which covers only a primary residence and only deaths on or after April 1, 2025. A rental, a second house or a lot in the same neighborhood gets no such route and goes through full probate unless it is deeded to the trust.
Lake Arrowhead, Crestline, Running Springs and Big Bear are all in San Bernardino County, so a cabin there is recorded at the same Hall of Records as your house in the city. It still needs its own deed and its own PCOR, and because it is not the home you live in, its deed does not claim the owner-occupier exemption and the $75 SB 2 fee applies. If the cabin stays outside the trust, it is part of the probate estate, and the statutory fees are figured on the gross value of everything that passes through the case. A cabin also brings practical questions the trust can answer in advance: who may use it, who pays the property tax and insurance, and whether it is to be sold or kept.
The northern neighborhoods back onto the San Bernardino Mountains. The Old Fire, which started on October 25, 2003, burned 91,281 acres, destroyed 993 homes, threatened San Bernardino and Highland as well as the mountain communities, and burned part of the Cal State San Bernardino campus. In 2025 the State Fire Marshal issued new fire hazard severity zone maps for local responsibility areas, now rated moderate, high and very high, and the state map viewer shows the zone for a given address. When your house moves into the trust, tell your insurer and ask that the trust be added to the homeowner's policy. A successor trustee can deal with the insurer and a contractor for property the trust holds; the durable power of attorney covers anything left outside it.
The San Andreas Fault runs at the base of the mountains and passes through the northern areas of the city. If you carry earthquake coverage, add the trust to that policy as well, and keep the policy numbers with your trust papers so a successor trustee can find them quickly. After a disaster the trustee's authority comes from the trust document and the certification of trust, without a court order.
San Bernardino has regulated mobile home space rents since 1984 under Municipal Code Chapter 8.90. A 2020 statewide survey by the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League counted 16 parks and 1,487 spaces under the city's ordinance. A home on a rented space is usually titled or registered with the California Department of Housing and Community Development rather than recorded as real property, so the trust transfer deed does not reach it. HCD publishes transfer to trust instructions for each type of registration, and the funding instructions in the package tell you when you need them. A home on land you own is different: the land is deeded to the trust like any other parcel.
The San Bernardino County Employees' Retirement Association (SBCERA) administers pensions for 17 participating employers and reports about 52,000 members. Pension survivor benefits, 457 and 401(k) plans and group life insurance pass by beneficiary designation, outside both the trust and the will. SBCERA keeps its own survivor benefit and beneficiary pages for members. When we prepare your trust we go through those designations with you so they fit the plan.
A living trust avoids probate. It does not decide whether your children's inherited home is reassessed. Under Proposition 19, the parent and child exclusion applies only if the family home becomes the child's principal residence, and it is limited to the home's taxable value plus an adjusted $1 million (value above that is added to the taxable value), which is $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. The claim, form BOE-19-P, is filed with the San Bernardino County Assessor within three years of the death or before a transfer to a third party, whichever comes first. A trust can say which child receives the house and give the successor trustee time to file the claim. Our Prop 19 inheritance guide covers the details.
The package is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple. A deed for your San Bernardino house, a rental or a mountain cabin is a separate $100 per property. You can reach the attorney directly at (818) 337-4071, and you sign before any California notary in San Bernardino County. For how the price compares, see what a California living trust costs.
Not in downtown San Bernardino. The Superior Court's General Order GO26-032, effective January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027, sends every probate case from the fifteen San Bernardino ZIP codes it lists to the Fontana Courthouse, 17780 Arrow Boulevard, Fontana, CA 92335. The probate line there is (909) 521-3388. High Desert residents go to the Victorville District, 14455 Civic Drive. Assets held in a funded living trust are not part of any of those cases.
Zillow put the typical San Bernardino home value at $492,161 for August 2026. On that gross value, Probate Code §10810 gives the attorney $12,843.22 and Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same, $25,686.44 together. The $435 filing fee, the probate referee (about $492) and publication are extra, and a mortgage does not reduce the base. On a Verdemont home at Zillow's $619,574 neighborhood figure the two fees total $30,782.96.
At the San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk, Hall of Records, 222 W. Hospitality Lane, 1st Floor, San Bernardino, CA 92415, phone (909) 387-8306, in person by appointment or by mail. The county fee schedule effective July 1, 2026 charges $14 for the first page of a title not associated with the Real Estate Fraud Fee, $24 for the first page of a title associated with it, and $3 for each additional page. Add $20 if no Preliminary Change of Ownership Report is filed. The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust, because the owner-occupier exemption of Government Code §27388.1(a)(2) is claimed on the deed. It is charged on rentals, second homes and vacant land, capped at $225 per transaction.
Possibly. For deaths on or after April 1, 2025, Probate Code §13151 lets heirs ask the court to transfer a California primary residence worth up to $750,000, and every San Bernardino neighborhood in Zillow's August 2026 data is under that figure. It is still a court petition: it costs $435, is filed at the Fontana Courthouse, cannot be filed until 40 days after the death, and requires notice to heirs. It does not cover a rental, a cabin or a second house. A trust needs no petition at all.
Yes. Each parcel needs its own deed into the trust, recorded at the same Hall of Records because the mountain communities are in San Bernardino County too. The statutory fees are figured on the gross value of everything that goes through probate, so a second property at the city's typical value of $492,161 would bring the base to $984,322 and the combined attorney and executor fees to $45,372.88. A deed of a rental or second home is not an owner-occupier transfer, so the $75 SB 2 fee applies to it.
No. Under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d), a transfer into a trust you can revoke is not a change in ownership, so the San Bernardino County Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value. File the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report with the deed and mark the revocable trust box. Reassessment questions come later, when your children inherit, and turn on the Proposition 19 parent and child exclusion, not on whether the home was in a trust.
A mobile home on a rented space is usually titled and registered with the California Department of Housing and Community Development, not recorded as real property, so a trust transfer deed does not move it. HCD publishes separate transfer to trust instructions for each kind of registration. The city's mobile home space rent rules are in Municipal Code Chapter 8.90. If you own both the home and the land under it, the land is deeded like any other parcel.
Yes, and one is included. The pour-over will sends anything left outside the trust into it at death. Anything that passes under the will alone can still need a court case at the Fontana Courthouse, so the goal is to fund the trust fully during your lifetime and leave the will as a backstop.
Checked October 6, 2026. Fees and addresses change; confirm with the office before you file or record.
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Answer the questionnaire online, sign before a local notary, and record your deed on Hospitality Lane.
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