Simi Valley Living Trust: Keep Your Home Out of Ventura County Probate
Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
Simi Valley has a courthouse on Alamo Street, but it does not hear probate: every Ventura County estate is filed and heard at the Juvenile and Probate Courthouse in Oxnard. On Zillow's August 2026 typical Simi Valley home value of $833,307, the statutory attorney and executor fees alone would total $39,332.28. A funded living trust keeps the house out of that courtroom for a $400 trust plus a $100 deed.
To keep a Simi Valley home out of probate, sign a revocable living trust and record a deed putting the home into it with the Ventura County Clerk and Recorder. Left in your own name, a house at Zillow's August 2026 typical Simi Valley value of $833,307 goes through probate in Oxnard, where the statutory attorney and executor fees under Probate Code §10810 and §10800 come to $39,332.28. The trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple, and the deed is $100.
Key Takeaways
The East County Courthouse at 3855-F Alamo Street in Simi Valley serves criminal, small claims and traffic cases. Ventura County probate is filed and heard at the Juvenile and Probate Courthouse, 4353 E. Vineyard Avenue, Oxnard.
Zillow's typical Simi Valley home value for August 2026 was $833,307. Statutory fees on that gross value: $19,666.14 for the attorney and the same for the executor, $39,332.28 combined, before the $435 filing fee.
That value is $83,307 above the $750,000 cap on the Probate Code §13151 primary residence petition, so a typical Simi Valley house left out of a trust needs a full probate.
The recording counter nearest Simi Valley is the Clerk and Recorder's East County Office at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, by appointment. Most documents cost $14.00 for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page.
Simi Valley levies its own transfer tax of 27.5 cents per $500, adopted under the state Documentary Transfer Tax Act (Municipal Code §3-5.101) and charged only on realty sold (§3-5.103). A deed into your own revocable trust with nothing paid owes no city tax.
Attorney-prepared trust: $400 single, $500 married couple. Deed preparation is a separate $100 per property.
Ventura County Probate: Oxnard, Not Alamo Street
Courthouse
Superior Court of California, County of Ventura, Juvenile and Probate Courthouse (listed on the court's locations page as the Juvenile Justice Center)
Address
4353 E. Vineyard Avenue, Oxnard, CA 93036
Phone
Probate (805) 289-8820. Probate clerk's office open 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays
Probate department
Hearings are typically set in Courtroom J6. New probate estate petitions are set on Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.
Simi Valley does have a courthouse of its own, and families sometimes assume an estate would be handled there. It would not. The Ventura Superior Court's page for the East County Courthouse, 3855-F Alamo Street, lists three kinds of cases served in that building: criminal, small claims and traffic. Its traffic window opens only on Mondays and Tuesdays. The court's probate page is direct about the rest: all probate matters are filed and heard at the Juvenile and Probate Courthouse in Oxnard. Neither the Alamo Street building nor the Hall of Justice in Ventura takes a probate case.
Which county handles an estate depends on where the person lived, not where the person died. Probate Code §7051 places the case in the superior court of the county of the decedent's domicile. A Simi Valley resident who dies in a Los Angeles hospital, or while visiting family in another state, still has a Ventura County estate, and that estate goes to Vineyard Avenue.
Probate in Ventura County runs on fixed days. Motions and miscellaneous petitions in wills, estates and trusts cases are heard on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9:00 a.m., new estate petitions on Thursdays at 10:30 a.m., and the court says most calendars have limits. Remote appearance is available for the proceedings listed on the court's Remote Appearances page, under California Rules of Court, rule 3.672, which can spare a Simi Valley executor the drive across the county. It does not shorten the case.
Attorneys have had to file probate documents electronically since May 5, 2025, through one of the court's approved filing service providers. The court's own filing page reminds users that many filed documents can be viewed by the public on its eCourt Public Portal. In a probate, the petition and the papers that follow it go into that case file. A trust administration is handled by your successor trustee without a court case, so none of that is filed.
One court charge applies even when there is a trust. The court's probate page lists a $50 fee for lodging a will with the court, and the clerk accepts a will only after the person who signed it has died. The pour-over will in our package is a backstop for anything left outside the trust; the less that is left outside, the less the will has to do.
Recording a Simi Valley Trust Deed
Recorder
Ventura County Clerk and Recorder
Address
Nearest to Simi Valley: East County Office, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 East Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Suite A, Thousand Oaks, CA 91362, Monday through Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and alternate Fridays 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Main office: Ventura County Government Center, Hall of Administration, Main Plaza, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura, CA 93009, Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. In-person service at both offices is by appointment.
Phone
East County Office (805) 449-2157; Clerk (805) 654-2263; Recorder (805) 654-3665
Recording fee
$14.00 for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page for most documents (fee schedule effective July 1, 2026). The $24.00 first page fee is only for the document types on the county's list, such as quitclaim deeds and deeds of trust; a grant deed or trust transfer deed is not on that list. Deeds also pay a $10.00 survey monument fee unless the legal description refers to a recorded subdivision map. Confirm the current fee with the recorder before mailing.
SB 2 fee
$75 under Government Code §27388.1, capped at $225 per transaction. It is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust, because our deed claims the owner-occupier exemption in §27388.1(a)(2) on its face. It is charged on rentals, second homes and vacant land. Ventura County applies the fee unless a valid exemption is declared on the document or a cover page, and does not refund an exemption claimed after recording.
PCOR
Every document evidencing a conveyance of real property must have a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report or pay an additional $20.00 (Revenue and Taxation Code §480.3)
Signing the trust does not move your Simi Valley house into it. The deed does, and the deed only counts once it is recorded. Ventura County has two recording counters. For Simi Valley the closer one is the East County Office in the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks; the Government Center in Ventura is the main office. Both serve customers by appointment, and the Thousand Oaks office is closed every other Friday while Ventura stays open, so check the county's calendar before you go. A deed can also be mailed to the recorder.
The county's recording rules are specific, and our deed is drafted to meet them. The first page shows the document title just below the 2.5 inch recording space, the name and address the recorded deed goes back to, and the Assessor's Parcel Number. The signature must be original and acknowledged before a notary. The county's deed guidance also lists a mailing address for tax statements and a documentary transfer tax declaration among the items it examines before recording.
The $10.00 monument fee is worth a look in Simi Valley. The county charges it on deeds, except a deed whose legal description refers to a recorded subdivision map. Simi Valley grew through tract developments, and a house described by lot number in a recorded tract falls within that exception. A parcel described by metes and bounds pays the fee.
Transfer tax: county and city
Ventura County collects documentary transfer tax at $0.55 per $500 of value under Revenue and Taxation Code §11911. The county publishes a list of exemption statements that must appear on the face of a deed to record it with no tax due, and the list includes a "conveyance to revocable family trusts for the benefit of the Grantors" under R&T §11930. Our deed carries that statement, and the county tax line reads $0.00.
Simi Valley adds a tax of its own. The Real Property Transfer Tax Law of the City of Simi Valley, Municipal Code Chapter 3-5, Article 1, says it is adopted under Part 6.7 of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code (§3-5.101), the same state law that contains the §11930 exemption, and the County Recorder administers it under that law (§3-5.102). Section 3-5.103 taxes deeds by which realty sold within the City is conveyed, at 27.5 cents per $500, when the consideration or value, not counting any loan or lien that stays on the property, exceeds $100. Deeding your own home to yourself as trustee sells nothing, so it owes no city tax, and a mortgage that stays on the house does not change that. The tax does apply if your trustee later sells the house to a buyer.
Property tax, the PCOR and 2027 changes
On the PCOR you check the box for a transfer to a trust that you can revoke. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says that transfer is not a change in ownership, so the Ventura County Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value and no supplemental bill follows. The Clerk and Recorder's 2026 mid-year newsletter adds two points about PCOR signatures: if a PCOR is signed electronically, certified DocuSign is the only platform the State Board of Equalization has approved, and when a deed is submitted electronically the deed and the PCOR must be signed the same way. A mismatch draws a non-conformance fee. A deed you mail, signed in ink before a notary, with a PCOR signed in ink, avoids both problems.
Recording costs change on January 1, 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 that date. The county's own fee schedule also lists a $5.00 Recorder Notification Program fee effective January 1, 2027. The county says the fee comes with the expansion of its Fraud Prevention Advisory program that the Board of Supervisors approved on August 18, 2026, which mails notification letters to the property tax bill address, and that it applies to recorded deeds, quitclaim deeds, deeds of trust and mortgages.
Our office prepares the deed and the PCOR for a separate $100 per property. You record the deed yourself, at a counter or by mail, and that recording is what puts the house in the trust. Our trust transfer deed guide explains the deed itself, and our guide to living trust property tax rules covers reassessment.
What Probate Would Cost on a Typical Simi Valley Home
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical home value in Simi Valley at $833,307 for August 2026 (Zillow research data through August 31, 2026), and the math below uses that figure. Zillow's ZIP code series for the same month is almost identical across the city: $832,742 for 93063 and $834,200 for 93065. Probate Code §10810 sets the attorney's fee as a percentage of the gross value of the estate: 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000 and 2% of the next $800,000. The value is gross, so a mortgage on the house does not reduce it. Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same amount.
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 $833 on this home.
Creditor period: four months after letters issue (Probate Code §9100), so no estate closes sooner.
Neither shortcut fits a typical Simi Valley house. The small estate affidavit under Probate Code §13100 is limited to $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. The Probate Code §13151 petition for a primary residence stops at $750,000 for deaths on or after that date, and the typical Simi Valley home is $83,307 over it. A condominium or a smaller house could come in under the limit, but the petition is still a court case in Oxnard with the $435 filing fee and notice to heirs, and it reaches only the house the person lived in. Our California probate fees guide explains each charge. Against those figures, a trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple.
Simi Valley Homes, Hillsides and Your Trust
A city built tract by tract
The Census Bureau estimated Simi Valley's population at 124,861 on July 1, 2025, from a 2020 base of 126,375. The city incorporated on October 10, 1969. Before that it was farm and ranch country; the first tract developments came in 1957 and 1958, and the valley grew from 8,110 people in 1960 to 59,832 by 1970. Wood Ranch, named for the ranch it replaced, is described as the newest major housing development in the city.
For a trust, that history mostly helps. A tract home has a clean legal description by lot and tract number, which our deed copies from your vesting deed, and it usually escapes the $10.00 monument fee. If your home is in a community with a homeowners association, give the association your name as trustee once the deed records, so its billing and notices match the county's records and your successor trustee is not starting from scratch.
Santa Susana Knolls and addresses outside the city
Not every Simi Valley address is inside the City of Simi Valley. Santa Susana Knolls is unincorporated county land. The Knolls began in the 1920s as Mortimer Park, sold in lots as small as 30 by 50 feet for cabins, and on that hillside several lots were often needed for one building. Two points follow. First, the city transfer tax in Municipal Code §3-5.103 reaches only realty within the City, so a Knolls parcel answers to the county tax alone. Second, a house that sits on more than one lot may have more than one parcel number, and the deed must describe every lot and parcel you own. A lot left out of the deed is left out of the trust.
Fire history and the 2025 hazard maps
CAL FIRE's incident records show how close fire comes to this city. The Simi Fire of October 2003 burned 108,204 acres in the Simi Valley and Moorpark area. The Woolsey Fire started on November 8, 2018 near E Street and Alfa Road, south of Simi Valley, and burned 96,949 acres across Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The Easy Fire began on October 30, 2019 near West Easy Street and West Los Angeles Avenue and burned 2,375 acres. Most recently, the Sandy Fire started off Sandy Avenue on May 18, 2026 and burned 2,183 acres before it was put out.
The state's fire hazard maps grew as well. The Simi Valley Acorn reported that at the April 7, 2025 City Council meeting, the Ventura County Fire Marshal described a 68% increase in mapped hazard areas for the city, including a 14% increase in very high fire hazard zones. The same report notes that owners in very high zones must keep 100 feet of defensible space and complete certain home hardening steps and a fire inspection before a sale.
Three things in a trust matter after a fire. The homeowner's insurance should list you as trustee once the house is in the trust, so a claim is paid to the right owner. The trust names a successor trustee who can deal with the insurer, the contractor and the Assessor if you are ill, away or gone, and the durable power of attorney covers anything left outside the trust. And the Ventura County Assessor offers disaster relief under Revenue and Taxation Code §170 when a calamity causes at least $10,000 in damage: on a timely application (form AO-V 365) the assessment is reduced while the house is rebuilt, and rebuilding the same or a substantially equivalent home may let you keep the prior tax base. If your trustee may need to sell rather than rebuild, the defensible space and inspection rules above become the trustee's job.
Junior units and the city's deed restriction
Simi Valley allows one accessory dwelling unit and one junior unit on a lot with a single-family house, under Municipal Code §9-44.160, and any rental of either unit, or of the main house when the owner lives in a unit, must be for 30 days or more. A junior unit comes with a condition that outlasts you. Before the city approves it, a deed restriction must be recorded stating that the owner will occupy either the junior unit or the main house. If a new owner takes title and does not keep that occupancy, the junior unit must be removed and any separate rental vacated within 90 days.
The trust deed itself covers the whole parcel, main house and units together, so nothing extra is recorded for an ADU. The planning point is what happens after your death. If none of your children will live there, the person who inherits may have to remove the junior unit or end the tenancy. Your trust can tell the successor trustee about the restriction, direct whether the house is to be sold or kept, and say who manages the rental in the meantime.
Manufactured homes
A manufactured home is not always real property, and that changes how it goes into a trust. The Ventura County Assessor explains that manufactured homes bought new on or after July 1, 1980, and those on permanent foundations, are assessed on the local tax roll, while older homes licensed by the state Department of Housing and Community Development pay a yearly fee instead. When the home is titled with HCD and on yearly registration, HCD's instructions (form HCD RT 804.7) move it into a trust by having the owners sign the HCD certificate of title, each trustee sign the Multi-Purpose Transfer Form, and a $35 transfer fee paid to HCD. No county deed is involved unless you also own the land. If you rent a space in a park, the space rental agreement is a separate matter between you and the park.
Leaving the house to your children
A trust avoids probate; it does not stop reassessment when children inherit. Under Proposition 19, a parent's home keeps its taxable value only if a child makes it his or her principal residence, and only up to the taxable value plus an adjusted $1 million, which is $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027. The Ventura County Assessor states that the homeowners' or disabled veterans' exemption must be claimed within one year of the transfer, and that the new value is billed until the Prop 19 claim is processed, which can take up to a year, with a refund afterward. A trust can say which child may live in the house, whether that child may buy out the others, and on what terms. A transfer between spouses, including at death, is not reassessed. Our Prop 19 inheritance guide has more.
School, hospital and aerospace paychecks
Wikipedia's summary of the city's 2023 to 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report lists the Simi Valley Unified School District as the largest employer, with 2,051 employees, followed by Adventist Health Simi Valley, AeroVironment, Meggitt Safety Systems and the City of Simi Valley itself. Teachers, nurses, engineers and city staff build up public pensions, 403(b), 457 and 401(k) plans and group life insurance. Those pass by beneficiary designation, outside both the trust and the will, so we go over the designations with you when we prepare the trust.
How to Create and Fund a Living Trust in Simi Valley
Answer the questionnaire onlineAnswer the online questions from home in Simi Valley: who is in your family, which Ventura County parcels and accounts you own, and whom you want as successor trustee. Your answers save, so you can stop and finish later.
Attorney prepares your documentsRozsa Gyene, a California attorney, drafts your trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and certification of trust from those answers and reviews each one before it is delivered.
Sign before a notarySign the trust and the power of attorney in front of a California notary public; any notary in Simi Valley or elsewhere in Ventura County will do. The pour-over will is signed before two witnesses, following the signing instructions.
Record a trust transfer deed with the Ventura County Clerk and RecorderDeed your Simi Valley home to yourself as trustee and record it with the Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, at the East County Office in Thousand Oaks or the Ventura office by appointment, or by mail, with a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report. The deed for the home you live in claims the SB 2 owner-occupier exemption, so the $75 fee is usually not charged on it; a rental or vacant lot pays it. A manufactured home titled with HCD is transferred through HCD instead.
Retitle bank and brokerage accountsHand each bank and brokerage firm the certification of trust and ask it to put the account in your name as trustee, or to name the trust as payable on death beneficiary where it allows that.
Review beneficiary designationsPensions, 401(k), 403(b) and 457 plans, IRAs and life insurance pass by beneficiary designation, not under the trust. Check that each one 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
The package is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple. A deed for your Simi Valley home, or for any other California parcel, is a separate $100 per property. You can reach the attorney directly at (818) 337-4071. You sign before a California notary, and there are notaries throughout Simi Valley and the rest of Ventura County. To compare prices, see what a California living trust costs.
Simi Valley Living Trust Questions
Does the courthouse in Simi Valley hear probate?
No. The East County Courthouse at 3855-F Alamo Street in Simi Valley serves criminal, small claims and traffic cases. The Ventura County Superior Court files and hears all probate matters at the Juvenile and Probate Courthouse, 4353 E. Vineyard Avenue, Oxnard, where hearings are typically set in Courtroom J6. The probate line is (805) 289-8820. A Simi Valley home held in a funded living trust passes without any filing there.
What would probate cost on a typical Simi Valley home?
Zillow's typical home value for Simi Valley was $833,307 for August 2026. On that gross value the statutory attorney fee under Probate Code §10810 is $19,666.14, and the executor may take the same amount under §10800, for a combined $39,332.28. The $435 filing fee and the probate referee's commission of about $833 come on top. A living trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple, plus $100 for the deed.
Can a Simi Valley home pass by the $750,000 primary residence petition instead?
Only if the home is worth $750,000 or less. Probate Code §13151 allows a court petition for a decedent's primary residence up to that amount for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. Zillow's typical Simi Valley value of $833,307 for August 2026 is $83,307 over the limit, and even a home that qualifies goes through a petition in the Oxnard courthouse.
Does Simi Valley charge its own transfer tax on a deed into my trust?
No tax is due on a deed into your own revocable trust with nothing paid. Simi Valley's Real Property Transfer Tax Law is adopted under Part 6.7 of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code (Municipal Code §3-5.101) and taxes only deeds of realty sold within the City, at 27.5 cents per $500, measured without any loan that stays on the property (§3-5.103). For the county's tax, Ventura County's exemption list includes a conveyance to a revocable family trust for the benefit of the grantors under R&T §11930, stated on the face of the deed.
Where do I record a Simi Valley trust deed, and what does it cost?
With the Ventura County Clerk and Recorder. The office nearest Simi Valley is the East County Office at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 East Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Suite A, and in-person service there and in Ventura is by appointment; a deed can also be mailed. The county's fee schedule effective July 1, 2026 charges $14.00 for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page of most documents; its $24.00 first page fee is for listed types such as quitclaim deeds and deeds of trust, and a trust transfer deed is not on that list. Deeds also pay a $10.00 monument fee unless the legal description refers to a recorded subdivision map, and $20.00 more if no PCOR is filed. The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on the deed for the home you live in, because the deed claims the owner-occupier exemption in Government Code §27388.1(a)(2). Confirm the current fee with the recorder before mailing.
Will moving my Simi Valley home into my trust raise my property taxes?
No. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says a transfer into a trust that you can revoke is not a change in ownership, so the Ventura County Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value. You claim the exclusion on the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report filed with the deed.
I have a junior accessory dwelling unit. Does the trust affect the city's deed restriction?
The trust does not remove it. Simi Valley Municipal Code §9-44.160 requires a recorded deed restriction before a junior unit is approved, stating that the owner will live in either the junior unit or the main house. If a new owner takes title and does not keep that occupancy, the junior unit must be removed and any separate rental vacated within 90 days. Your trust should tell your successor trustee and your children about the restriction so they can plan for it before the house changes hands.
How does a manufactured home in a Simi Valley park go into a living trust?
It depends on how the home is titled. A home titled with the state Department of Housing and Community Development and renewed each year, with a decal number beginning with A, moves into a trust through HCD, not the county recorder: the owners sign the HCD title, each trustee signs the Multi-Purpose Transfer Form, and HCD charges a $35 transfer fee. The Ventura County Assessor says manufactured homes bought new on or after July 1, 1980, and those on permanent foundations, are assessed on the local roll.
