San Francisco Living Trust: Protecting TIC Units & AI Sector Wealth
Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
San Francisco is one city and one county, so a San Francisco estate is probated at the Civic Center Courthouse, 400 McAllister Street, where the first petition costs $450. On a home at the city's typical value of $1,424,767, statutory attorney and executor fees come to $54,495.34. A funded living trust keeps the home, or your TIC share, out of that process.
To keep a San Francisco home out of probate, sign a revocable living trust and record a deed moving the home, or your TIC share, into it at the Assessor-Recorder in City Hall, Room 190. A transfer into your own revocable trust usually pays no transfer tax because no price is paid; the deed states the exemption. Confirm with the county recorder. Without a trust, attorney and executor fees on a home at the typical value of $1,424,767 total $54,495.34 under Probate Code §§10810 and 10800, before the $450 filing fee. Our attorney-prepared trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a couple.
Key Takeaways
Probate for a San Francisco resident is filed at the Civic Center Courthouse, 400 McAllister Street, and heard in Department 204. The first petition costs $450 here, not the $435 charged in most counties.
Deeds are recorded at the Office of the Assessor-Recorder, City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 190, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
San Francisco's own transfer tax runs from $2.50 to $30.00 per $500 of value. A transfer into your own revocable trust usually pays no transfer tax because no price is paid; the deed states the exemption. Confirm with the county recorder. A Transfer Tax Affidavit is still required with the deed.
A TIC share has no right of survivorship. Without a trust it usually goes through probate, not to your co-owners.
Zillow's typical San Francisco home value was $1,424,767 on August 31, 2026, so statutory probate fees on that home are $54,495.34.
Where San Francisco Probate Is Heard
Courthouse
Civic Center Courthouse, Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco
Department 204; filing at Room 103, Windows 23, 24 and 25
Because the City and the County of San Francisco are one government, there is no question of which branch courthouse hears a San Francisco estate. The court's probate page lists a single address, the Civic Center Courthouse at 400 McAllister Street, and names Department 204 as its probate department. Appearance hearings on probate matters, other than guardianships, conservatorships and motions, are set at 9 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Department 204. The filing clerk assigns the hearing date when the petition is filed. Ex parte matters that need an appearance go to Department 202 at 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
The clerk's office in Room 103 is open 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on court days and closes from noon to 1 p.m. The court posts probate tentative rulings online and by phone at (415) 551-4000, one to three days before the hearing, and the tentative ruling names the probate examiner who reviewed the file. The court also publishes a checklist of common problems that cause a hearing to be continued. Every one of those steps is public: the petition, the will, the inventory and the final accounting all go into a court file anyone can look up.
Two points from the court's own pages are worth knowing. First, its wills and estates page still quotes the small estate limit as $184,500 for deaths on or after April 1, 2022. That figure was raised to $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, according to the Judicial Council's table of adjusted amounts. Second, the court's trusts page reminds readers that a living trust can still come before the probate court if its language is unclear or a beneficiary asks the court to review the trustee. A clearly written trust and a successor trustee who keeps records are what keep a trust out of Department 204.
Recording a Trust Deed at San Francisco City Hall
Recorder
Office of the Assessor-Recorder, City and County of San Francisco
Address
City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 190, San Francisco, CA 94102. In-person recording 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; after-hours drop box in the window at the Grove Street entrance.
Phone
(628) 652-8100
Recording fee
$14.00 for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page (county fee schedule effective January 1, 2025, as posted January 1, 2026)
SB 2 fee
$75 per parcel per document, capped at $225 per transaction, unless an exemption is declared on the face of the document or on the city's SB 2 coversheet
PCOR
A Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (BOE-502-A) is required with a transfer; without it the recorder adds a $20 fee under R&T §480.3
A trust transfer deed of your own home is a quiet document for property tax purposes. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says a transfer into a revocable trust is not a change in ownership, and the Assessor-Recorder lists "transfers of real property to a revocable trust, where the transferor retains the power to revoke the trust" among the exclusions that need no claim form. The home keeps its Proposition 13 base year value. The deed still goes in with a PCOR, and the city asks owners to answer Part 1(L) for a transfer to their own trust.
The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust, because the owner-occupier exemption under Government Code §27388.1(a)(2) is claimed on the deed. San Francisco's fee page lists that exemption ("documents transferring real property that is a residential dwelling to an owner-occupier") and requires the declaration on the face of the document or on its coversheet; declarations are subject to review. The fee is charged on rentals, second homes and vacant land, capped at $225 per transaction. That matters for an owner who also holds a rental flat or a small rental building: each of those deeds carries the fee unless another exemption applies.
From January 1, 2027, Assembly Bill 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) sets the statewide base recording fee at $15 for the first page and $4 for each additional page, so expect the San Francisco schedule to change then. The Assessor-Recorder's electronic recording program is limited to submitters who meet its insurance requirement, so an individual owner records over the counter, by mail to Room 190, or through the drop box. Our office prepares the trust transfer deed for a separate $100 per property; you sign it before a notary and record it.
San Francisco's transfer tax and your trust deed
Most California counties charge documentary transfer tax at $0.55 per $500. San Francisco charges its own tax under Article 12C of the Business and Tax Regulations Code, and the rate is set by the entire value or consideration, not by slices of it:
Entire consideration or value
Tax per $500
More than $100 up to $250,000
$2.50
More than $250,000, less than $1,000,000
$3.40
$1,000,000 or more, less than $5,000,000
$3.75
$5,000,000 or more, less than $10,000,000
$11.25
$10,000,000 or more, less than $25,000,000
$27.50
$25,000,000 or more
$30.00
The top two rates come from Proposition I, approved by San Francisco voters on November 3, 2020 and operative January 1, 2021. It raised the rate on transfers of at least $10,000,000 and less than $25,000,000 from 2.75% to 5.5%, and on transfers of $25,000,000 or more from 3% to 6%. Because the rate applies to the whole price, a sale at the typical value of $1,424,767 would carry $10,687.50 in city transfer tax (2,850 units of $500 at $3.75), and a sale that crosses $5,000,000 jumps from $3.75 to $11.25 on the entire amount.
A transfer into your own revocable trust usually pays no transfer tax because no price is paid; the deed states the exemption. Confirm with the county recorder. San Francisco's ordinance counts any loan that stays on the property as part of the value taxed (Business and Tax Regulations Code §1102). You claim the exemption on the Transfer Tax Affidavit (question 7), which San Francisco requires with every deed even when no tax is due. If the trust is revocable and its name includes your name, the office says no additional documents are required; if not, you must show that the trust is revocable and that you created it, for example with a certification of trust. The Assessor-Recorder's guidance lists gifts and inheritance among transfers that are generally exempt, which is why a successor trustee's later deed to your children is usually tax free too. A sale by the trustee is not.
What Probate Would Cost on a Typical San Francisco Home
Zillow's typical home value for the city of San Francisco was $1,424,767 on August 31, 2026 (Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier), up from $1,400,347 a month earlier. We use that figure for the math. Under Probate Code §10810 the attorney receives 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000 and 1% of the next $9,000,000, figured on the gross value of the estate without subtracting the mortgage. Section 10800 gives the executor the same amount.
Court filing fee: $450 for the first petition in San Francisco. The statewide fee is $435; San Francisco adds a $50 local courthouse construction surcharge under Government Code §70625, and the $35 share that normally goes to the State Court Facilities Construction Fund is dropped to offset part of it.
Probate referee: one tenth of one percent of the appraised property (Probate Code §8961), about $1,425 on this home.
Creditor period: four months after letters issue (Probate Code §9100), so no estate closes sooner.
That is about $54,495 in statutory fees alone, against $400 for a single person's trust or $500 for a couple's. The California probate fees guide explains the full schedule. The shortcuts rarely help here. The small estate affidavit stops at $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, and the Probate Code §13151 petition for a primary residence stops at $750,000, roughly half the typical San Francisco value. That petition also costs $450 to file in San Francisco.
The same math, neighborhood by neighborhood
Zillow publishes a typical value for each San Francisco neighborhood. The figures below are for August 31, 2026, rounded to the dollar, with the combined attorney and executor fee under §§10810 and 10800.
Neighborhood (Zillow)
Typical value, Aug. 31, 2026
Attorney plus executor fee
South of Market
$810,546
$38,421.84
Bayview
$954,650
$44,186.00
Mission
$1,177,619
$49,552.38
Outer Sunset
$1,620,284
$58,405.68
Pacific Heights
$2,106,791
$68,135.82
Noe Valley
$2,245,677
$70,913.54
Seacliff
$4,833,351
$122,667.02
Seacliff's typical value sits just under the $5,000,000 line where the city transfer tax on a later sale rises to $11.25 per $500. In each case the statutory fee is set by the gross value of what passes through probate, whether that is a whole house or a TIC percentage.
San Francisco Housing, TIC Shares and Your Trust
A city of flats and small buildings
San Francisco had 873,965 residents in the 2020 Census. The Planning Department's 2024 Housing Inventory counts 417,824 housing units: 95,071 in single family buildings, 83,015 in buildings of 2 to 4 units, 39,321 in buildings of 5 to 9 units, 39,064 in buildings of 10 to 19 units and 161,353 in buildings of 20 or more. Fewer than one home in four is in a single family building. For a trust that means a San Francisco deed often describes a condominium, a flat in a small building, or a percentage of a whole building, and an owner of a small building may have rental units that do not qualify for the owner-occupier SB 2 exemption.
If you own your residence and a rental in a separate building, each parcel is its own deed, its own PCOR and its own Transfer Tax Affidavit. If you live in one unit of a building you own outright, the building is usually one parcel and one deed. Listing every parcel by its assessor's parcel number in the questionnaire helps make sure no property is left out of the trust.
What a TIC share is, in law
Civil Code §686 makes a tenancy in common the default form of co-ownership: an interest held by several people is an interest in common unless it is declared a joint tenancy, held in a partnership, or community property. A joint tenancy under Civil Code §683 must be expressly declared in the deed or will that creates it. Neither section uses the word survivorship. A 1996 California Law Revision Commission staff memorandum describes joint tenancy as ownership "with the right of survivorship" and tenancy in common as ownership "without the right of survivorship," and notes that tenancy in common interests survive the owner's death and can be left by will.
So when a San Francisco TIC owner dies holding the share in his or her own name, the share does not pass to the other owners in the building. It passes under the owner's will or, without one, to the heirs, and in either case through probate if it is worth more than the small estate limits. A married couple may hold their own share between themselves as joint tenants, so the survivor of the two takes it, but the same question returns at the second death. A deed from you, as an individual, to you as trustee of your trust conveys the same percentage interest to the trust. Your co-owners stay on title for their own shares. Before recording, read your TIC agreement and your loan documents for any clause about transfers, notice to the other owners or lender consent, and follow it.
Reassessment, the co-tenancy rule and TIC buildings
The transfer of your TIC share into your revocable trust is excluded from reassessment like any other transfer to a revocable trust. What happens at death is a separate question. The Assessor-Recorder explains a co-tenancy exclusion for a principal residence when one of two co-tenants dies: the two must together have owned 100 percent of the property, both must have been on title and lived there for the year before the death, and the survivor must end up with 100 percent and sign an affidavit. A building shared by several households as tenants in common does not fit that description, so a TIC share left to a child or a friend is generally reassessed at the death unless another exclusion, such as the Proposition 19 parent to child exclusion for a family home, applies. The office also notes that adding someone to title as a tenant in common is a change in ownership unless an exclusion applies.
Condominium conversion
A TIC building may later convert to condominiums. The Planning Department's Housing Inventory explains that the San Francisco Subdivision Code regulates conversions; since 1983 they have been limited to 200 units a year and to buildings of six or fewer units, and the cap can be bypassed for two-unit buildings with owners occupying both units. The city recorded 114 conversion units in 2024, 108 of them in two-unit buildings. Public Works' mapping division processes every conversion application, and its Expedited Conversion Program application for Group Seven was open from April 15, 2019 to January 24, 2020; the Public Works subdivision page now lists that Group 7 program as suspended. For conversion purposes the city treats a married couple or domestic partners as one owner. If your share is already in your trust when a conversion map records, you sign the paperwork as trustee, and the new condominium stays in the trust.
Stock, equity awards and accounts
If part of your wealth is employer stock, restricted stock units or options, note the difference between shares you own and awards you hold. Shares that have been delivered to a brokerage account can be retitled to your trust like any other account. Unvested awards and options are governed by the company's plan, which decides whether they can be transferred and who receives them at death, and retirement accounts pass by beneficiary designation. The trust works alongside those documents; it does not override them. List each plan in the questionnaire so the funding instructions cover it.
Older tax bases and Proposition 19
A trust does not change Proposition 19. For transfers from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027, a parent to child transfer of a family home keeps the old taxable value only if the child makes it his or her principal residence, and only up to the old value plus $1,044,586, per the Board of Equalization. A rental flat or a second unit does not qualify. See the Proposition 19 inheritance rules for the details.
What the trustee files after a death
The Assessor-Recorder asks for a Change in Ownership Statement, Death of Real Property Owner (BOE-502-D), within 150 days of the death. For property held in trust its guide for property after an owner's death asks for the death certificate, a copy of the deed and the entire trust with amendments, and it reassesses as of the date of death rather than the date of distribution. Late filing carries a penalty of $100 or 10 percent of the new taxes, whichever is greater, capped at $5,000 for a home with the homeowners' exemption when the failure was not willful. The trustee then records a deed out of the trust to the beneficiaries with a PCOR and a Transfer Tax Affidavit. None of it goes through 400 McAllister.
How to Create and Fund a Living Trust in San Francisco
Answer the questionnaireList each San Francisco parcel you own, including any TIC percentage interest, how title is vested today, your beneficiaries and your successor trustee. Most people finish the questionnaire in 20 to 30 minutes.
Attorney preparation and reviewRozsa Gyene, California State Bar #208356, prepares and reviews the trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney and advance health care directive from your answers.
Sign before a notarySign the trust documents before a California notary public anywhere in San Francisco. A deed must be acknowledged, normally before a notary, before the recorder will accept it.
Record the deed at City HallRecord the trust transfer deed at the Assessor-Recorder, City Hall Room 190, with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report, a Transfer Tax Affidavit claiming the own trust exemption, and the SB 2 exemption declaration if the home is your residence. Our office prepares the deed for $100 per property; you record it.
Retitle bank and brokerage accountsAsk each bank and brokerage to change the account owner to you as trustee of your trust, using the certification of trust instead of the full trust.
Review beneficiary designationsRetirement accounts, life insurance and employer stock plans pass by their own beneficiary forms and plan rules, not by the trust. Check each form so it matches your plan.
Advance health care directive with HIPAA authorization
Certification of trust
Assignment of personal property
Personal property memorandum
Funding instructions
The package is $400 for one person and $500 for a couple. A trust transfer deed is a separate $100 per property, prepared by our office for you to record at City Hall. You can reach the attorney directly at (818) 337-4071, and you can sign before any California notary in San Francisco. See what a California living trust costs for how our pricing compares.
San Francisco Living Trust Questions
How much would probate cost on a typical San Francisco home?
Zillow's typical home value for San Francisco was $1,424,767 on August 31, 2026. On that value the statutory attorney fee under Probate Code §10810 is $27,247.67 and the executor fee under §10800 is the same, so the two together come to $54,495.34. The fee is figured on the gross value, so a mortgage does not reduce it. The first petition costs $450 to file in San Francisco, and the probate referee's commission is one tenth of one percent of the property appraised, about $1,425 on that home. A funded living trust avoids these costs for the assets it holds.
Where is probate filed for a San Francisco resident?
San Francisco is a single city and county, so a resident's estate is probated in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, at the Civic Center Courthouse, 400 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. Probate matters are heard in Department 204, and papers are filed at the probate windows in Room 103. The court lists the supervisor of the probate clerk's office at (415) 551-3673.
Do I pay San Francisco transfer tax when I deed my home into my own living trust?
A transfer into your own revocable trust usually pays no transfer tax because no price is paid; the deed states the exemption. Confirm with the county recorder. You still file a Transfer Tax Affidavit with the deed, answering question 7, and a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report answering Part 1(L). If the trust is revocable and the trust name includes your name, the office says no additional documents are required.
Can I put my San Francisco TIC share into a living trust?
Yes. Under Civil Code §686 TIC owners hold an interest in common, and a tenancy in common has no right of survivorship, so on your death your share does not pass to your co-owners. It passes under your will or, without one, to your heirs, which usually means probate if the share is still in your own name and worth more than the small estate limits. A deed from you to yourself as trustee moves your percentage interest into the trust. Read your TIC agreement and loan documents for any notice or consent clause before you record.
Will my property tax go up when I put my San Francisco home in my trust?
No. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) excludes a transfer into a revocable trust from change in ownership, and the Assessor-Recorder lists transfers to a revocable trust among the exclusions that need no claim form. File the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report with the deed; if it is missing, the recorder charges an extra $20 under R&T §480.3.
Is the $75 SB 2 recording fee charged on my trust deed?
It depends on the property. The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust, because the owner-occupier exemption under Government Code §27388.1(a)(2) is claimed on the face of the deed, and San Francisco accepts a declaration of exemption on the document or on its coversheet. The fee is charged on rentals, second homes and vacant land, capped at $225 per transaction. No county guarantees the exemption; the recorder reviews each declaration.
What does my successor trustee file with the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder after I die?
The Assessor-Recorder asks for a Change in Ownership Statement, Death of Real Property Owner (BOE-502-D), within 150 days of the date of death, with the death certificate, a copy of the deed and the entire trust including amendments. For trust property the reassessment date is the date of death, not the date of distribution. The penalty for not filing is $100 or 10 percent of the new taxes, whichever is greater, within the stated caps.
