Reviewed by Rozsa Gyene, California attorney. Last reviewed October 2026.
Zillow's typical Sunnyvale home value was $1,994,916 on August 31, 2026. Left in your own name, a house at that value would be probated at the Downtown Superior Court in San José, with statutory attorney and executor fees of $65,898.32. A $400 trust plus $100 deed keeps it out of court.
A Sunnyvale house stays out of probate when you deed it to yourself as trustee of a revocable living trust and record the deed with the Santa Clara County Clerk-Recorder. If it stays in your own name, Probate Code §10810 and §10800 fees on Zillow's August 2026 typical Sunnyvale value of $1,994,916 come to $65,898.32, before the $435 filing fee. Our attorney-prepared trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple.
Sunnyvale has a city hall, a public safety department and a library, but no probate court. When a Sunnyvale resident dies with a house or an account in his or her own name, the case is opened in San José. The court's probate location page says it plainly: "Probate Court is at Downtown Superior Court (DTS) in San Jose," and the Probate Clerk's Office is in Room 107 of that building. The courthouse is open to the public weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
How the filing works matters to the family, because it sets the pace. Attorneys must file the petition and notice of hearing electronically and leave the date, time and department blank; the clerk then puts the case on the next available calendar. Someone without a lawyer can file over the counter in Room 107. Before the hearing, a probate examiner employed by the court reads the papers against the Probate Code, title 7 of the California Rules of Court and the county's local rules. Missing notices or defective declarations have to be fixed before a judge will grant the petition.
A funded trust avoids all of this. The court's own probate FAQ says that a successor trustee "does not need to ask the court to get involved" and will probably need only the trust document and a death certificate. The same court warns about the opposite case. If a settlor listed a house on the trust schedule but never deeded it to the trust, the trustee can petition under Probate Code §17200 to have it treated as trust property. That is a court case in San José all the same, so the deed is the step that counts. Our guide on how to avoid probate in California covers the statewide rules.
Signing the trust does not move your Sunnyvale house into it. Until a deed from you, as owner, to you, as trustee, is recorded, the county's records still show the house in your individual name, and that is the record a title company and a court will rely on after your death. The county posts a figure of $102.00 for a one page document. That figure is the $25.00 base plus the $75 SB 2 fee and a $2.00 restrictive covenant program fee. The $75 part is the fee the owner-occupier exemption, described next, is meant to address.
The $75 SB 2 fee is usually not charged on a deed moving your own home into your trust, because our deed claims the owner-occupier exemption in Government Code §27388.1(a)(2) on its face. It is charged on rentals, second homes and vacant land, capped at $225 per transaction. No recorder promises the result in advance, which is why the exemption is written on the document.
The PCOR you file with the deed has a box for a transfer into a revocable trust. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says that transfer is not a change in ownership, so the Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value. The county documentary transfer tax line reads $0.00 with the Revenue and Taxation Code §11930 exemption stated. Sunnyvale's own transfer tax is explained below. Our office prepares the deed and PCOR for $100 per property; you sign the deed before a notary and record it. The trust transfer deed guide walks through the form.
Recording fees are about to change statewide. 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, and county add-on fees such as the fraud prevention fee are charged on top of that base. Santa Clara County's 2027 schedule had not been checked when this page was reviewed.
Zillow's Home Value Index put the typical Sunnyvale home at $1,994,916 on August 31, 2026 (a smoothed, seasonally adjusted typical value for all homes, not a median sale price). Probate Code §10810 sets the estate attorney's ordinary fee at 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000 and 1% of the next $9 million. Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same amount. Both are figured on the gross value, so a mortgage does not reduce them.
Run your own numbers in the probate cost calculator
At this value the house alone reaches the 1% tier, so the fee keeps climbing with everything else in the estate. A brokerage account worth $300,000 in the decedent's own name would add $3,000 to the attorney's fee and $3,000 to the executor's. The shortcuts do not help: the Probate Code §13151 petition for a primary residence is limited to $750,000 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, and the small estate affidavit under Probate Code §13100 stops at $208,850. A typical Sunnyvale house is more than two and a half times the first limit. The California probate fees guide explains each charge. Against those numbers, a $400 trust plus $100 deed for a single owner, or $500 plus $100 for a married couple, is the whole cost of keeping the house out of court.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated Sunnyvale's population at 156,577 on July 1, 2025 (estimates base 155,607 for April 2020). The city sits between Mountain View, Los Altos, Cupertino, Santa Clara and the Bay, and its housing runs from Eichler tracts and mobilehome parks to newer mixed-use buildings near downtown. Several local rules change how a trust is funded here, and a few change what your successor trustee will find.
Sunnyvale is a charter city, and charter cities can write their own transfer taxes. Sunnyvale has one: Chapter 3.08 of the Municipal Code, the "Real Property Transfer Tax of the City of Sunnyvale," on the books since 1967. Section 3.08.010 says the chapter is adopted under Part 6.7 of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, the state's documentary transfer tax law. Section 3.08.020 taxes deeds by which realty "sold within the city" is conveyed, when the consideration, "exclusive of the value of any lien or encumbrances remaining thereon," is more than $100. The rate is 27.5 cents for each $500. Section 3.08.090 has the county recorder administer it under the same state law.
That wording decides the trust question. A deed of your own Sunnyvale home into your own revocable trust sells nothing, and a mortgage that stays on the house is not counted as consideration, so the deed owes no Sunnyvale tax. This is not true everywhere in Santa Clara County: the Clerk-Recorder lists San José, Palo Alto and Mountain View as cities that add a separate city conveyance tax of $1.65 per $500. Sunnyvale is not on that list. The California City Finance table effective December 1, 2025 shows Sunnyvale at $0.55 per $1,000 for the city and $0.55 for the county, $1.10 per $1,000 in all.
The tax does come back when the trust sells. If your successor trustee sells the house after your death for $1,994,916 with no loan assumed, that is 3,990 units of $500, and the county and city taxes together come to $2,194.50 on the escrow statement. It is a cost of selling, not of inheriting; a trustee who deeds the house to your children instead of selling it is handing it out under the trust, not selling it.
Sunnyvale's inclusionary housing law requires ownership projects of seven or more new homes or lots to include Below Market Rate (BMR) units (Municipal Code §19.67.030). The city's Home Buyer Programs page says BMR prices are restricted by the city, the program is run by the Housing Division, and current maximum prices run from $491,000 for a two bedroom home to $614,000 for four bedrooms. Buyers must be first-time buyers who meet income limits.
A BMR owner should plan the trust around Municipal Code §19.67.080. Before a building permit issues for a BMR unit, the property owner and the city record a declaration of restrictions that is "binding to the heirs, assigns and successors in interest of the property owner." The restrictions last 30 years, and a new 30-year term starts each time the unit is resold to another eligible buyer. The owner must live in the home as a primary residence, cannot rent it out except for a temporary rental the director allows on a finding of hardship, and cannot refinance without the director's written approval. "Certain transfers of title by marriage, divorce proceeding, devise or inheritance" are not subject to the required sale procedures, and the code defines an eligible buyer to include a household that acquires a BMR unit through devise or inheritance and meets the chapter's requirements to occupy it.
Three practical points follow. First, the chapter does not mention a deed into the owner's own revocable trust, so call the Housing Division at (408) 730-7250 before recording one and keep the city's answer with your trust papers. Second, the trust can name who inherits, but an heir who wants to live in the unit still has to qualify under the program; an heir who does not may end up selling at the restricted price. Third, your successor trustee should expect the city to be involved in any sale. A trust does not remove the deed restriction. It does keep the unit out of probate, so a sale needs the city's process but not a court order on top of it.
Sunnyvale has kept its mobilehome parks. The city's mobilehome page names parks including Fair Oaks, Fox Hollow, Rancho La Mesa and Willow Ranch, and the city keeps Mobile Home Exclusive zoning, in which land can generally be developed only as a mobilehome park, and has a Mobile Home Park Conversion Ordinance (Chapter 19.72). Since 2021 a city Memorandum of Understanding with park owners has governed annual rent increases and rent increases on sale of a home for residents who sign the city's lease addendum; the city lists Aloha, Ranchero and Thunderbird as rental parks outside the MOU.
For a trust, the important fact is that a mobilehome on a rented park space is usually not conveyed by a recorded deed. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) titles and registers it. A trust transfer deed recorded on West Tasman Drive does nothing for it. HCD has its own instructions for putting a mobilehome into a trust: the original HCD certificate of title signed off by every owner shown on it, with the trust's name in the new owner section; the last registration card; a Multi-Purpose Transfer Form (HCD RT 476.6G) signed by each trustee; and a $35 transfer fee. A home on local property tax, with a decal number starting with "L," also needs an original tax clearance certificate from the County Tax Collector, plus a $23 registration fee per section and a $5 park purchase fee per section unless you own the land. A home on yearly registration, with an "A" decal, pays renewal fees if registration expires within 60 days. If the title is lost, a duplicate costs $25.
The space lease is a separate matter. Your trust can own the home, but the park's lease and the MOU addendum set the terms on which your family can keep it on the space or sell it in place. Keep a copy of the lease and the signed addendum with the trust so the successor trustee can see what rent a buyer would pay.
Sunnyvale runs north to San Francisco Bay, and FEMA has designated some areas of the city as Special Flood Hazard Areas, with at least a 1% chance of flooding in any year. The city says the current FEMA flood insurance rate maps are dated May 18, 2009, that every property in a Special Flood Hazard Area with a federally backed mortgage must carry flood insurance, and that its Community Rating System participation earns a 15% discount for policies in those areas. New flood policies have a 30-day waiting period.
When a house moves into a trust, tell the insurer that the owner is now you as trustee, for the homeowner's policy and for any flood policy. After a death, the successor trustee should check that the policies stay in force before doing anything else; a lapse in a flood zone cannot be cured overnight because of that waiting period. The city's Flood Zone Viewer shows the designation for a given address.
Southern Sunnyvale is mostly residential, and Wikipedia counts 16 tracts with more than 1,100 Eichler homes there. The city publishes Eichler Design Guidelines for remodels in those neighborhoods. In an older house bought by a couple, the deed on record may still show the vesting from the original purchase, such as husband and wife as joint tenants.
If one spouse has died and the deed shows joint tenancy or community property with right of survivorship, the survivor should clear title before funding the trust. Probate Code §210 lets a person record an affidavit of death, with a certified copy of the death certificate and a description of the property, in the county where the property sits. Once that is recorded, the trust transfer deed can move the house from the survivor to the survivor as trustee. Skipping the first step leaves the successor trustee two jobs instead of one, and a deceased owner still on title is exactly what a buyer's title company will ask about. Our page on joint tenancy versus a living trust compares the two forms of ownership.
The city's July 2025 Business and Community Profile lists Google, Apple, Amazon, Intuitive Surgical and Lockheed Martin Space Systems among the ten largest employers in Sunnyvale. Two kinds of assets come out of jobs like these, and a trust handles them differently. Vested shares in a brokerage account can be retitled to you as trustee or given a transfer on death beneficiary, so the trustee can manage them without a court order. A pension, 401(k) or IRA passes by its beneficiary form and should stay in your name; the trust is named only if you choose it on the form. Unvested awards follow the employer's plan, so keep the plan documents where the trustee can find them.
At Sunnyvale values the Proposition 19 numbers get large quickly. Suppose a parent's Sunnyvale house has a factored base year value of $400,000 and is worth Zillow's typical $1,994,916 when a child inherits it in 2026. If the child moves in and claims the homeowners' exemption within a year, the child keeps the parent's base plus the amount by which the market value exceeds that base plus $1,044,586 (the figure for transfers from February 16, 2025 to February 15, 2027). Here the excess is $550,330, so the new taxable value is $950,330. If no child lives there, the house is reassessed at full market value. This is a hypothetical to show the arithmetic; the trust decides who inherits, not how the house is taxed. Our Prop 19 inheritance guide covers the claim forms.
Federal estate tax is a separate question. For deaths in 2026 the federal basic exclusion is $15,000,000 per person, so most Sunnyvale households, even with a $2 million house, owe no federal estate tax. A revocable trust is not a tax shelter; its job is to keep the house and accounts out of probate.
The trust package is $400 for one person or $500 for a married couple. A deed for your Sunnyvale house, or for a rental elsewhere in Santa Clara County, is $100 per property; you sign it before a notary and record it with the Clerk-Recorder in San José. You can reach the attorney's office directly at (818) 337-4071, and you can sign before any California notary in Santa Clara County. The page on what a California living trust costs compares the price with other options.
$400 for one person and $500 for a married couple, prepared and reviewed by a California attorney. The set includes the revocable trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and certification of trust. Moving a Sunnyvale house into the trust takes a deed, which we prepare for $100 per property, so keeping one home out of probate costs a $400 trust plus $100 deed.
In San José. Santa Clara County hears probate at the Downtown Superior Court, 191 North First Street, and the Probate Clerk's Office is in Room 107. The probate phone line is (408) 882-2654. Sunnyvale has no probate courtroom of its own, and attorneys must e-file the petition, leaving the hearing date for the clerk to set.
Zillow put the typical Sunnyvale home value at $1,994,916 on August 31, 2026. On that gross value Probate Code §10810 sets the attorney's fee at $32,949.16 and §10800 sets the executor's fee at the same amount, $65,898.32 together. The $435 filing fee and a referee commission of about $1,995 come on top, and the mortgage is not subtracted.
Sunnyvale, a charter city, has its own Real Property Transfer Tax in Chapter 3.08 of its Municipal Code. Section 3.08.010 says the chapter is adopted under Part 6.7 of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, the state documentary transfer tax law, and §3.08.020 taxes only deeds of realty sold, valuing the consideration without any loan that stays on the property. A deed of your home into your own revocable trust, with nothing paid, owes no city tax, and the county line shows $0.00 under Revenue and Taxation Code §11930.
Check with the city before you record anything. A Below Market Rate home carries a recorded declaration of restrictions for 30 years that binds your heirs and successors (Sunnyvale Municipal Code §19.67.080). The code exempts certain transfers by devise or inheritance from the BMR sale procedures but does not mention a deed into a revocable trust, and the heir who inherits must qualify as an eligible buyer to live there. Call the Housing Division at (408) 730-7250 before recording a trust deed on a BMR unit.
Through the state, not the county recorder. A mobilehome titled with the California Department of Housing and Community Development is moved into a trust by sending HCD the original certificate of title signed by every owner, the registration card, a Multi-Purpose Transfer Form signed by each trustee and the $35 transfer fee. A home on local property tax (decal starting with L) also needs a tax clearance certificate from the County Tax Collector.
If you held title as joint tenants or as community property with right of survivorship, the surviving owner records an affidavit of death with a certified copy of the death certificate, as Probate Code §210 allows, in Santa Clara County. Once the record shows you as sole owner, a trust transfer deed moves the house into your trust. Do this while you are able; otherwise your own successors face both steps.
No. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says a transfer into a trust you can revoke is not a change in ownership, so the Santa Clara County Assessor keeps your Proposition 13 base year value. You claim it on the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report filed with the deed. The trust does not change what happens later under Proposition 19 when a child inherits.
Checked October 7, 2026. Fees and addresses change; confirm with the office before you file or record.
An attorney-prepared trust is $400 for one person or $500 for a couple, and a deed for your Sunnyvale home is $100.
Law Offices of Rozsa Gyene, 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505. California State Bar #208356. Read client reviews.
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