Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
Without a funded trust, a San Rafael house goes through probate at the Marin County Hall of Justice on Civic Center Drive. On Zillow's typical San Rafael value of $1,298,041, the statutory attorney and executor fees alone come to $51,960.82. An attorney-prepared living trust costs $400 for one person and $500 for a couple.
To keep a San Rafael home out of Marin County probate, sign a revocable living trust and record a deed with the Marin County Recorder that moves the house into it. Without that step, probate on a $1,298,041 home carries statutory attorney and executor fees of $51,960.82 under Probate Code §§10810 and 10800. The trust and deed together cost a fraction of that.
San Rafael is the county seat, so a San Rafael family does not travel far for probate. Marin has one courthouse for this work: the Hall of Justice wing of the Marin County Civic Center, the Frank Lloyd Wright complex off North San Pedro Road. The court's probate division covers decedents' estates and trust matters, guardianships and conservatorships. Its judicial assignments page lists probate in Courtroom C, shared with the juvenile calendar.
A few local rules shape how an estate moves through that courtroom. Since April 26, 2024, every party represented by an attorney must file electronically through an approved eFiling service provider. Self-represented people may still file on paper. Some papers stay paper even for lawyers: the court lists original wills, codicils and probate bonds among the documents exempt from eFiling. The court's probate page says a will must be lodged with the court within 30 calendar days after the death, which is why a pour-over will matters even when a trust holds everything. Paper documents that reach the clerk after 3:30 p.m. are stamped with that day's date but processed the next court business day.
Before a hearing, the court's probate examiner reviews the petition for procedural correctness, and the court issues a tentative ruling on every probate matter on calendar except ex parte matters. Anyone who wants oral argument must notify the other parties and leave a message for the clerk at (415) 444-7046, option 5, by 4:00 p.m. one court day before the hearing, under Marin local rule 6.2.D. If no one asks, the tentative ruling becomes the order. Every one of those steps costs time and attorney fees. A funded trust keeps the house out of this process entirely.
The deed that funds your trust is recorded in the same building as the court that would otherwise handle your estate. The Recorder, the Assessor and the County Clerk share the Civic Center with the Hall of Justice. The Assessor's office reviews every deed recorded in Marin to decide whether a property will be reassessed. A transfer into a trust you can revoke is not a change in ownership under Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d), so your assessed value and your Proposition 13 base stay where they are, provided the PCOR goes in with the deed. We prepare the deed for $100 per property, and you record it at Room 232 or by mail. Recording costs rise slightly in 2027: 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 from January 1, 2027.
Transfer tax is the other local cost people ask about. Marin County's documentary transfer tax is $0.55 per $500 of value, and the City of San Rafael adds its own tax, which was $2.00 per $1,000 (0.2 percent) when this page was reviewed in October 2026. Both are charged on transfers for value. For the county's tax, a deed that moves your own home into your own revocable trust carries the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption on its face. The city's ordinance taxes a transfer only when the value of the consideration exceeds $100 (San Rafael Municipal Code §3.22.020), and it counts any loan that stays on the property as part of the consideration (§3.22.160). 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. Measure W, on the November 3, 2026 ballot, proposed raising the city rate from 0.2 percent to 1 percent; if voters approve it, the new rate takes effect ten days after the City Council certifies the result. Either way, the measure changes only the rate, not what is taxed. It will matter when a successor trustee later sells the house, so check the city's current rate at that time.
We prepare the trust transfer deed for a separate $100 per property. You or your title company records it with the Marin County Recorder.
The deed choices are explained in our trust transfer deed guide.
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical San Rafael home at $1,298,041 as of August 31, 2026, up 2.5 percent over the prior year. Redfin's median sale price for San Rafael was $1,301,639 in August 2026. Because a sale price median reflects only the homes that closed that month, it moves more from month to month, so the math here uses Zillow's typical home value (Zillow research data, August 31, 2026). California sets the attorney's fee in a probate by statute, as a percentage of the gross estate: 4 percent of the first $100,000, 3 percent of the next $100,000, 2 percent of the next $800,000 and 1 percent of the next $9,000,000 (Probate Code §10810). The executor is entitled to the same amount under Probate Code §10800. The fee is figured on the gross value, so a mortgage does not reduce it.
Run your own numbers in the probate cost calculator
That is about $51,961 in statutory fees on one typical house, before publication, bond and appraisal costs, against $400 for a single person's trust or $500 for a couple. San Rafael values sit far above the $750,000 limit for the primary residence petition under Probate Code §13151 and the $208,850 small estate limit, so neither shortcut will usually help. The California probate fees guide walks through the rest of the schedule.
San Rafael had 61,271 residents in the 2020 Census and has been Marin's county seat since 1851. Its housing ranges from hillside neighborhoods in Local High Fire Hazard Severity Zones to low-lying districts on filled marsh, with nearly half of its homes rented and unincorporated communities along its edges. Each of those facts changes some detail of how a trust is set up or funded.
For many San Rafael owners the house is worth more than everything else they own combined. That shapes the planning. A trust that holds the bank accounts but not the house saves very little, because the house alone pushes the estate past every shortcut California offers. Funding means the recorded deed. A refinance is a common way a funded house falls back out: some lenders ask the owner to deed the property out of the trust to close the loan, and the owner never deeds it back. Check the vesting on your most recent recorded deed. If it names you as an individual rather than as trustee, the house is outside the trust.
High values also matter after death. Under Proposition 19, a parent's home passes to a child at the parent's assessed value only if the child makes it a primary residence, and only up to that value plus an indexed amount, which the Board of Equalization lists as $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027. Above that, the difference is added to the child's assessed value. A San Rafael house bought decades ago can easily exceed the limit. The trust does not change this rule, but your successor trustee should know to file the exclusion claim with the Marin County Assessor promptly.
A San Rafael mailing address does not always mean the city of San Rafael. Santa Venetia, north of downtown with Gallinas Creek at its northern edge, is an unincorporated census-designated place with 4,289 residents in 2020. Lucas Valley-Marinwood, between San Rafael and Novato, uses San Rafael's 94903 ZIP code but is also unincorporated. For the trust itself this makes no difference: the deed carries the legal description from your current deed, it is recorded with the same Marin County Recorder, and probate would land in the same Marin court. It does matter for city taxes and services. The city's transfer tax, at whatever rate is in force, applies only inside city limits. The San Rafael Fire Department's own inspection fee schedule lists a separate charge for properties served by the Marinwood Community Services District.
Much of eastern San Rafael sits on filled marshland. The city's June 2026 summary of its sea level rise study describes that area as a low-lying, bowl-shaped district built on historic marshes and fill that has settled over time, and, citing FEMA's National Risk Index, reports that southeast San Rafael is at greater flood risk than 99 percent of census tracts nationally. The Canal neighborhood, bounded by the bay, the San Rafael Canal and Highways 101 and 580, lies in that low-lying southeast area. A trust does nothing about water. What it does is make sure someone has authority to act. After you record the deed, tell your homeowners and flood insurers that the property is now held by you as trustee, so the policy names the right owner. If you die or become unable to manage the property, your successor trustee can file a claim, deal with FEMA or the lender, and make repairs without waiting months for a court to appoint an executor.
The hillsides tell a different story. The San Rafael Fire Department says many properties in the city fall within a Local High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. When a home in a High or Very High zone is sold, state law (AB 38) requires the seller to provide wildfire home hardening disclosures and, in some cases, documentation of a defensible space inspection, and the city requires an inspection scheduled through the Fire Department once a covered property is listed. The city's fee is $271 per inspection, and properties in the Marinwood Community Services District pay $295 to that district. Putting your house into a trust is not a sale and triggers none of this. A successor trustee who later sells the house, though, should expect the inspection, and your trust should give that trustee clear power to sell, hire contractors and pay for work out of trust funds.
San Rafael is close to evenly split between owners and renters. The 2020 Census counted 24,502 housing units; of the occupied ones, 50.8 percent were owner-occupied and 49.2 percent rented. Many of those rentals are owned by local residents who hold a duplex, a condominium or a unit in the Canal alongside their own home. Each parcel needs its own deed into the trust, and each deed gets its own PCOR. For rentals, we also recommend assigning your interest in the leases and security deposits to the trust and telling tenants where to send rent after a death. For a condominium, send the homeowners association a copy of the recorded deed so its records and insurance certificates show the trustee as owner.
The city's largest employers, per its 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, include Kaiser Permanente and BioMarin, along with San Rafael City Schools, the City of San Rafael and Dominican University of California. Pensions, 401(k) and 403(b) accounts, employer life insurance and stock plans pass under their own beneficiary forms and plan rules. The trust does not override them. A San Rafael household with a public school pension, a hospital retirement plan or company stock should review every designation when the trust is signed, so the forms and the trust point in the same direction.
Marin owners often hold a second property: a cabin in the Sierra, a rental in Sonoma County, a parent's house in another state. A trust can hold all of it, but each property is deeded into the trust in the county where it sits. A California parcel in another county is recorded with that county's recorder, not in San Rafael. Real estate in another state left outside the trust could mean a second probate in that state, so list every property in the questionnaire.
The package is $400 for one person and $500 for a married couple or registered domestic partners. Deed preparation for your San Rafael home, or any other property, is a separate $100 per property. You can reach the attorney directly at (818) 337-4071, and you sign before any California notary in Marin County. See what a California living trust costs for how that compares with other options.
The Superior Court of California, County of Marin, at the Hall of Justice, 3501 Civic Center Drive, San Rafael, CA 94903. The court's judicial assignments list probate in Courtroom C, and the probate clerk is in Room 113 at (415) 444-7040. A San Rafael estate with no trust ends up there, in the Civic Center north of downtown.
Zillow's typical home value for San Rafael was $1,298,041 as of August 31, 2026. On that value, Probate Code §10810 sets the attorney fee at $25,980.41, and the executor is entitled to the same amount under §10800, for $51,960.82 combined. The $435 first petition filing fee and the probate referee's one tenth of one percent (about $1,298) come on top.
Probably not. For deaths on or after April 1, 2025, Probate Code §13151 lets a successor ask the court to transfer a primary residence worth up to $750,000 without full probate. San Rafael's typical value is well above that figure, so most San Rafael houses would not qualify. A home held in a funded living trust passes to your successor trustee without either petition.
With the Marin County Recorder, 3501 Civic Center Drive, Room 232, San Rafael, CA 94903, phone (415) 473-6092. It is in the same Civic Center complex as the courthouse. The deed goes in with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report; without one the county charges a $20 fee.
The county documentary transfer tax on a deed that moves your own home into your own revocable trust is $0.00 under Revenue and Taxation Code §11930. 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 Rafael's city ordinance taxes a transfer only when the value of the consideration exceeds $100 (San Rafael Municipal Code §3.22.020), and the city counts any loan that stays on the property as consideration (§3.22.160). The rate was 0.2 percent in October 2026, and Measure W on the November 3, 2026 ballot proposed raising it to 1 percent.
No. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) excludes a transfer into a trust you can revoke from reassessment, so the Marin County Assessor keeps your current assessed value. Reassessment questions arise later, when the home passes to your children or others after death, and that is where the Proposition 19 rules matter.
The trust works the same way, and you still record with the Marin County Recorder and use the Marin court. The difference is local taxes and services: Santa Venetia and Lucas Valley-Marinwood are unincorporated communities, so city of San Rafael rules such as its transfer tax apply only inside city limits. The deed uses the legal description from your current deed, not the mailing address.
No. You sign the trust, pour-over will and powers of attorney in front of any California notary, and many San Rafael banks, shipping stores and mobile notaries can do it. The only Civic Center step is recording the deed with the Marin County Recorder, which you or a title company can handle.
Checked October 6, 2026. Fees and addresses change; confirm with the office before you file or record.
Start your attorney-prepared trust online today, then record one deed with the Marin County Recorder.
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