No Probate Court in Vacaville: Department 22 in Fairfield
- Courthouse
- Old Solano Courthouse, Courtroom 3 (Solano County Superior Court)
- Address
- Hearings: 580 Texas Street, Fairfield, CA 94533. Filing: probate clerk, Hall of Justice, 600 Union Avenue, Fairfield, CA 94533.
- Phone
- Department 22 judicial assistant (707) 207-7322; hearing scheduling (707) 207-7340; Old Solano Courthouse (707) 207-7300
- Probate department
- Department 22, Probate of Estate and Trust Matters
A Vacaville address does not bring the probate court any closer. The Solano County Superior Court's locations page lists three courthouses in downtown Fairfield and a fourth, the Solano Justice Building, in Vallejo, and its estates and trusts page assigns probate of estates and trusts to Department 22, which holds court in Courtroom 3 of the old courthouse building at 580 Texas Street. The case is heard there because Probate Code §7051 sends a California resident's estate to the county where he or she was domiciled; a Vacaville resident who dies while visiting family in another county is still probated in Solano County.
Filing happens in a second building. Petitions are delivered to the probate clerk on Union Avenue, in the Hall of Justice at number 600, and the court's probate filing page says the division works by phone, email or in-person appointment only, with phone hours from 8:00 a.m. to noon and from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. A drop box under the stairs on the second floor of the Hall of Justice is open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; papers left there by 4:00 p.m. are treated as deposited for filing that day, and anything later counts for the next court day. The only other probate drop box the court lists is at its Vallejo branch. There is none in Vacaville.
Once a petition is on file, Department 22's setting guide controls the date. The 9:00 a.m. calendars on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays take trust, estate and other probate petitions, capped at 12 matters a morning with no more than 5 of them trust matters. Tuesday morning is the conservatorship calendar, and probate estate compliance hearings are set for Friday at 11:00 a.m. The day before a hearing, after 2:00 p.m., the court posts pre-grants, its intended rulings on new petitions and several other kinds of probate filings. If the pre-grant finds a defect, someone has to appear, and if the petitioner needs time to fix it, the court asks that the department's judicial assistant be told by 4:30 p.m. one court day before the hearing.
A funded trust takes the family out of that sequence. The successor trustee you name steps in under the trust document itself, signs for the house and the trust accounts, and never files in Department 22 unless a real dispute needs a judge.
Recording the Deed to a Vacaville Home
- Recorder
- Recorder Division of the Solano County Assessor/Recorder
- Address
- Suite 2700, 675 Texas Street, Fairfield, CA 94533. Solano lists a single recording office and none in Vacaville. The Assessor is at the same address, (707) 784-6210, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays.
- Phone
- (707) 784-6290; the document recording counter is open weekdays from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
- Recording fee
- The county's schedule updated July 1, 2026 lists $13.00 for page one and $3.00 per added page. Confirm the current fee with the recorder before mailing.
- SB 2 fee
- Government Code §27388.1 sets a $75 fee per document, capped at $225 per transaction, unless an exemption is declared on the document itself or on Solano's SB 2 exemption cover page. Our deed for the home you live in declares the owner-occupier exemption, Government Code §27388.1(a)(2), so the $75 is usually not collected on it. A deed for a rental, a second home or vacant land pays it.
- PCOR
- Required with a transfer, says the Recorder; if a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (BOE-502-A) is required and missing at recording, the Recorder may charge $20 more (Revenue and Taxation Code §480.3).
The deed that funds the trust names you, as owner, granting the property to you as trustee of your trust. It describes the parcel by its legal description and Assessor's Parcel Number, and the Solano County Assessor's own answers to common questions make the same two points: a recorded document should carry the complete legal description and the parcel number, and a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report should go in with the deed. The report has a checkbox for a transfer to a revocable trust, and that is the one you mark. Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) says that transfer is not a change in ownership while the trust is revocable, so the Proposition 13 base value on your Vacaville home does not move and no supplemental bill follows. The Assessor will not fill out a deed for you; its FAQ sends owners to an attorney, paralegal or title company.
Solano County charges documentary transfer tax at 55 cents per $500 of value, $1.10 per $1,000. Among the exemptions the Recorder recognizes is a deed moving the grantor's own interest into or out of a revocable trust that benefits the grantor, when nothing is sold (Revenue and Taxation Code §11930), and the Recorder asks for a Transfer Tax Affidavit with any claimed exemption. The City of Vacaville has a transfer tax too. California City Finance's table of rates effective December 1, 2025 lists Vacaville as a general law city taking $0.55 per $1,000, with the county's $0.55, for the same $1.10 total that unincorporated Solano County pays; the only Solano city the Recorder names as adding a separate tax is Vallejo. 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.
Two smaller charges sometimes appear on a Solano County recording. The $10 Real Estate Prosecution Trust Fund fee of Government Code §27388 applies to the titles on the county's list, which names quitclaim deeds, deeds of trust and affidavits; neither a grant deed nor a trust transfer deed appears on it, so a trust transfer deed pays the ordinary first-page fee. A $10 Survey Monument Preservation Fund fee applies to a deed, other than a quitclaim deed, easement or deed of trust, that conveys land not described as a complete lot on a recorded tract map. Starting January 1, 2027, AB 2224 (Stats. 2026, ch. 292) raises the base fee that Government Code §27361 allows every recorder to $15.00 for page one and $4.00 per added page; county add-on fees are still charged in addition, so Solano's posted totals will change.
Our office prepares the deed and the ownership report for $100 per property, and recording them is your step: take them to the Texas Street counter or mail them. Our trust transfer deed guide walks through the form line by line.
Probate Fees on a Typical Vacaville Home
For August 2026 Zillow's Home Value Index gives a typical Vacaville home value of $601,486 (data through August 31, 2026), down about 0.5% from $604,217 a year earlier; that is the figure used below. Under Probate Code §10810 the estate's lawyer earns 4% on the first $100,000 of gross estate value, 3% on the second $100,000 and 2% on the following $800,000, and Probate Code §10800 gives the executor the same amount. A mortgage does not shrink either fee, because the schedule ignores what is owed against the house.
Run your own numbers in the probate cost calculator
- 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 $601 on this home.
- Creditor period: four months after letters issue (Probate Code §9100), so no estate closes sooner.
The table shows only the two statutory fees. Our California probate fees guide covers the rest, from publication to bond premiums. Against $30,059.44, the trust is a $400 trust plus $100 deed for one owner, or $500 and one $100 deed for a married couple who own the home together.
You may wonder whether the newer primary residence petition makes a trust unnecessary. Probate Code §13151 lets heirs take a home that was the decedent's primary residence, worth $750,000 or less, by petition rather than full probate, for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. Zillow's August 2026 ZIP code index puts the typical home at $575,078 in 95687 and $657,089 in 95688, so a typical house in either ZIP is under the line, by about $175,000 in 95687 but only about $93,000 in 95688. The petition is still a court case: it is filed with the probate clerk in Fairfield with a $435 fee, has to wait until 40 days have passed since the death, and covers the house alone. Everything else, a rental, a vacant lot or the bank accounts, must stay within the $208,850 small estate limit set by Probate Code §13100, or it goes to probate. A trust covers all of it with no petition.
Vacaville Tax Bills, Districts and Land: What Your Trust Should Cover
The Census Bureau estimated Vacaville's population at 103,850 on July 1, 2025, up from an April 2020 estimates base of 102,381, which makes it the third largest city in Solano County after Vallejo and Fairfield. Several of the community facilities districts described below are labeled for police and fire services, but the city has no probate courtroom, so the decisions that matter for a Vacaville trust are mostly about the property itself: what the county tax bill carries, what districts the parcel sits in, what happens to land outside the city, and who can act when the owner cannot.
Tax rate area 6000: what the trust does and does not change
The Solano County Auditor-Controller publishes a 2025-26 tax rate sheet for each city. The Vacaville sheet, tax rate area 6000, totals 1.144337 percent of assessed value: the 1 percent general levy, then voter-approved debt that includes Vacaville city debt service bonds at 0.030350 percent, several Vacaville Unified School District bond series, Solano Community College bonds and a 0.020000 percent Solano County Water Agency State Water Project charge. The same sheet shows a total of 1.170330 percent for 2024-25.
A trust has no effect on those rates. What it protects is the number the rates are multiplied by. Because the deed into your own revocable trust is not a change in ownership, the assessed value stays at your Proposition 13 base, plus the annual inflation factor, for as long as you live. Check the tax rate area printed on your own bill, and keep that bill with the trust papers so the successor trustee knows what is due at each installment.
Community facilities districts and neighborhood assessments
Below the general levy, a Vacaville parcel may also carry direct charges. The Auditor-Controller's 2025-26 list of special assessments, which lists a contact for most charges, includes City of Vacaville community facilities districts (CFD 8, North Village police and fire; CFD 9, Portofino police and fire; CFD 10, Cheyenne police and fire; CFD 11; CFD 12; CFD 13 with two improvement areas; and community facilities district 1) alongside dozens of neighborhood landscaping, lighting, detention basin and park districts with names such as Southtown, Brighton Landing, Roberts Ranch, Farmstead, Nut Tree and Alamo Creek.
Those charges belong to the parcel, not to the person on title. Recording your deed into the trust does not end them, lower them or shift them to anyone else, and the trustee pays them with the regular installments. When a trustee later sells, the buyer takes the parcel with whatever districts still apply, so the escrow will ask for the current bill. The list does not give rates; for a district tax on your parcel, ask the City or the district administrator for the current amount and how long it runs.
Unpaid local charges that reach the tax bill
The same county list has entries titled Weed Cleanup Vacaville, Vacaville Unpaid Garbage and Sidewalk Repair/Other Vaca., plus delinquent water charges for the Rural North Vacaville Water District. Entries like these are how certain unpaid local bills end up on the secured property tax bill, where they are collected with the taxes.
That matters most in the months after a death, when a house can sit empty. In a probate, the executor has no authority over the property until the court issues letters. With a trust, the successor trustee can keep the garbage account, water and yard care current from the trust's bank account right away, so small charges do not turn into tax bill items for the heirs to clear before a sale.
August 2020: the LNU fires near Vacaville
In August 2020 the LNU Lightning Complex fires reached Vacaville. KTVU reported on August 20, 2020 that the fires had destroyed more than 100 homes, including some in Vacaville, showed English Hills Road, where homes once stood, and said flames had jumped Interstate 80 near Vacaville and Fairfield, forcing evacuations. The next evening CBS Sacramento quoted the Solano County Sheriff's Office as saying at least 154 homes in the county had been destroyed or heavily damaged and more than 62,000 acres had burned in Solano County alone.
A trust does not prevent a loss, but it decides who handles one. If the owner is hurt, displaced or dies, a successor trustee can deal with the insurance company, a contractor and the lender for a house titled in the trust, and the agent under your durable power of attorney can handle anything outside it. After you record the deed, ask your insurance agent to add the trust or its trustee to the homeowner's policy and keep a copy of the declarations page with the trust binder.
Farmland around Vacaville and Williamson Act contracts
If you also own farmland outside the city limits, in unincorporated Solano County, and that land is under a Williamson Act contract, the county's planning page explains what governs it: the contract restricts the land to agricultural, recreational or open space use for at least 10 years in exchange for lower taxes, and the Solano County Uniform Rules adopted by the Board of Supervisors on May 22, 2012 set minimum parcel sizes, permitted uses, incidental housing and the rules for splitting land. The Assessor's FAQ adds that contracted land is taxed on the lower of its base year value, its current market value or its restricted value.
One county policy deserves attention in an estate plan. The Board of Supervisors no longer accepts new agricultural preserve applications or new Williamson Act contracts, though existing contracts may adjust boundaries or be replaced. Government Code §51243 makes every contract binding on the owner's successors in interest, so deeding the parcel into your revocable trust leaves the contract in place; nonrenewal and cancellation have their own procedures on the county's page. Under that policy, an heir who lets a contract run out by nonrenewal should not count on enrolling the land again. The county's GIS parcel viewer shows whether an unincorporated parcel is under contract, and the Planning Services Division answers questions at (707) 784-6765.
Manufactured homes
A trust transfer deed conveys land. If you own a manufactured home, how it moves into the trust depends on how it is held. The Solano County Assessor says newly purchased mobile homes and those on permanent foundations are taxed like real property, with the same 2% annual limit on increases, while older mobile homes bought before June 30, 1980 generally are not subject to property taxes and are licensed under the state Department of Housing and Community Development. A home on a permanent foundation on a lot you own goes into the trust with the deed to the lot. A home on a rented space has no land to deed; if it is titled with HCD, as the Assessor describes for older homes, the change of title goes through HCD rather than the Recorder, and the space lease is a separate matter with the park.
State prisons and other employers: forms that bypass the trust
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation lists two state prisons with Vacaville addresses: the California Medical Facility at 1600 California Drive and California State Prison, Solano at 2100 Peabody Road. If you work for the state or another public employer, you may have a pension and a deferred compensation plan; private employers offer 401(k) plans and group life insurance.
None of those pass under a trust. Each goes to the beneficiary named on the plan's own form, and a pension survivor option is fixed by the election made at retirement. Reading those forms is part of funding the trust: if the trust is meant to manage money for a young child or a spendthrift heir, the beneficiary form may need to name the trust rather than the person.
When the problem is incapacity: Solano conservatorship fees
Department 22 hears conservatorships on Tuesday mornings, and the court charges for the investigations that come with them. Its posted fees include $400 for a temporary conservatorship investigation, $500 for a conservatorship investigation, and $500 for a conservatorship review with an accounting.
A durable power of attorney and a funded trust are the usual way to avoid a conservatorship of the estate. If you can no longer manage your affairs, the successor trustee takes over the trust property and your agent handles accounts outside it, without a petition. Our California durable power of attorney page explains the agent's role.
Passing the house to your children: the Assessor's rules
The trust avoids probate, but it does not avoid the Assessor. Solano County's Assessor says a change in ownership occurs on the date of death even when the property stays in the trust, because the beneficial interest moves from the owner to the beneficiaries, so a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report or a Change in Ownership Statement for the death of a real property owner is required. The Assessor asks for it within 150 days of the death and warns that not reporting can bring penalties.
Proposition 19 then decides whether a child keeps your tax base. The Assessor's page describes the parent to child and grandparent to grandchild exclusion for a family home or family farm; under the State Board of Equalization's figures, a child who makes the home a principal residence keeps the base value if the home's market value does not exceed that value plus $1,044,586, for transfers from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027; any excess is added to the assessment. A Vacaville home the children will rent out is reassessed. Our Proposition 19 guide goes through the claim forms.
Vacaville Living Trust Questions
Is there a probate court in Vacaville?
No. The Solano County Superior Court lists three courthouses in downtown Fairfield and a fourth in Vallejo, and none in Vacaville. Probate of estates and trusts is heard in Department 22, Courtroom 3 of the Old Solano Courthouse, 580 Texas Street, and petitions are filed with the probate clerk at the Hall of Justice, 600 Union Avenue. A home in a funded living trust needs neither building.
What would probate cost on a typical Vacaville home?
Zillow's typical Vacaville home value was $601,486 at August 31, 2026. On that value Probate Code §10810 sets the attorney's statutory fee at $15,029.72 and Probate Code §10800 sets the executor's fee at the same amount, $30,059.44 together. Both fees are figured on gross value, with no deduction for any loan on the house. The $435 filing fee and the probate referee, about $601, are added on top.
Does Vacaville charge its own transfer tax when I deed my home into my trust?
Vacaville is a general law city with a transfer tax share of $0.55 per $1,000, part of the same $1.10 per $1,000 total that unincorporated Solano County pays; it is not an extra layer like Vallejo's. 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. For the county's tax, the Solano County Recorder lists a deed to the grantor's own revocable trust, not part of a sale, as exempt under Revenue and Taxation Code §11930.
What does it cost to record my trust deed in Solano County?
The Recorder's schedule updated July 1, 2026 posts $13.00 for the first page and $3.00 for each additional page. 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. A deed recorded without a required Preliminary Change of Ownership Report can cost $20 more. Confirm the current fee with the recorder before mailing.
My Vacaville home is in a community facilities district. Does the trust change that tax?
No. Special taxes and assessments on the Solano County bill, including the City of Vacaville community facilities districts and neighborhood lighting, landscaping and park districts on the Auditor-Controller's list, are tied to the parcel. The deed into your trust does not end or reduce them, and the trustee keeps paying them. The trust also does not change your assessed value, because Revenue and Taxation Code §62(d) treats the transfer as no change in ownership.
Can my family use the $750,000 primary residence petition instead of a trust?
A typical Vacaville house fits under the limit: Zillow's August 2026 values were $575,078 in ZIP code 95687 and $657,089 in 95688. But a Probate Code §13151 petition is still filed in Fairfield with a $435 fee, waits at least 40 days after the death, uses the $750,000 limit only for a primary residence and only for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, and does nothing for a rental or for accounts above the $208,850 small estate limit.
What must my trustee file with the Solano County Assessor after I die?
The Solano County Assessor treats a death as a change in ownership even when the home stays in the trust, so the trustee files a Preliminary Change of Ownership Report or a Change in Ownership Statement for the death of a real property owner within 150 days. If a child will live in the home, the trustee also files the Proposition 19 parent to child exclusion claim to try to keep your tax base.
How much does a Vacaville living trust cost?
$400 for one person and $500 for a married couple, covering the revocable living trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and certification of trust. The deed for your Vacaville home is $100 per property; our office prepares it and you record it with the Solano County Recorder in Fairfield. Call (818) 337-4071 to reach the attorney's office.
