Probate Real Estate Agent in Anaheim Hills, CA
Paula Aragone represents executors, administrators and personal representatives selling Anaheim Hills property through the Orange County probate court, in a district of the City of Anaheim where two statutes read the referee's appraised value and neither of them asks whether a buyer can insure the parcel.
An Anaheim Hills probate sale is run by the personal representative under Letters issued out of the Costa Mesa Justice Complex, on a parcel that sits in a district of the City of Anaheim rather than a city of its own. Two numbers govern the file. Statutory compensation under Probate Code 10800 and 10810 is computed on the gross inventory without reference to encumbrances. The 90 percent floor under Probate Code 10309(a) is measured against the referee's appraisal, not against what a buyer can insure.
| The city on the documents | Anaheim. Anaheim Hills is a district, not a municipality. |
|---|---|
| Which route applies | Full or limited authority, Probate Code 10402 and 10403 |
| Who sets the value | A probate referee from the State Controller's list, Probate Code 8920 |
| The confirmation floor | Probate Code 10309(a), measured against the referee's appraisal |
| The fee base | Gross inventory, without reference to encumbrances, 10800 and 10810 |
| The Anaheim item | Fire zone adopted by Ord. 6612 on 17 June 2025, and the engineered slope |
Two Statutes Read the Referee's Number. Neither of Them Reads the Insurance Quote.
The appraisal the referee returns is the base for every statutory fee and the floor under every offer the court can confirm. Nothing in either statute asks whether a hillside parcel in a mapped fire zone can be insured by the person buying it.
Statutory compensation is set by Probate Code 10800 for the representative and 10810 for the attorney. The tiers are identical and both are payable: 4 percent of the first 100,000 dollars, 3 percent of the next 100,000 dollars, 2 percent of the next 800,000 dollars, 1 percent of the next 9,000,000 dollars, 0.5 percent of the next 15,000,000 dollars, and above 25,000,000 dollars a reasonable amount set by the court.
The base is the gross inventory value plus gains and receipts, expressly without reference to encumbrances. A house appraised at 2,000,000 dollars carrying a 1,500,000 dollar mortgage counts at 2,000,000. That is 33,000 dollars each and 66,000 dollars combined, plus any extraordinary fees the court allows, computed against a figure the family has no say in and the lender has already claimed most of.
The same figure sets the confirmation floor. Probate Code 10309(a) allows the court to confirm a private sale only where the property was appraised within one year prior to the confirmation hearing, the valuation date falls inside that year, and the sum offered is at least 90 percent of the appraised value. One number, produced by an appointee the estate did not choose, doing two different jobs.
In Anaheim Hills that number is unusually hard to get right, because the parcel carries a fire history and a slope history that the referee will not see from the street. The record is specific: a significant fire in October 1982, the Freeway Complex Fire of November 2008, Canyon Fire 2 running from 9 to 17 October 2017 with 9,217 acres burned, 25 structures destroyed and 55 damaged, and 16,570 residents evacuated across Anaheim, Orange and Tustin. The Santa Ana Canyon below is a water gap named for winds more intense than the ground around it.
The insurance market then converts that history into an underwriting decision. The California FAIR Plan is the insurer of last resort, covers fire, lightning and smoke only, excludes water damage, theft and liability, and caps a residential policy at three million dollars, so a Difference in Conditions companion is normally needed to approximate an ordinary homeowners package. Policies statewide reached 668,609 in December against 8.3 million active homeowner policies excluding the FAIR Plan, and 662 ZIP codes are designated distressed.
The slope is the second half of it, and it is documented. A landslide in January 1993 destroyed over 30 homes and impacted over 200 others. A twenty day rain event in the winter of 2005 produced a slide along Ramsgate Drive that destroyed three homes and a private street. The area's initial master plan proved unsustainable against the topography and geology, and Anaheim Hills was the first residential development to use landform grading. An appraisal built without any of that is a floor set on the wrong facts.
How a Probate Property Sale Works in Anaheim Hills
This is the representative's sequence on a hillside parcel, in the order the court, the city and the insurance market actually impose it. The two that slip are always the same two: the description handed to the referee, and the carrier position nobody established until a buyer asked for it.
Read the grant on the Letters, then read the fee tiers
The Letters print the grant. Probate Code 10402 gives full authority every power under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. Probate Code 10403 withholds four, all of them real property powers, and 10501(b) sends exactly those four back to the court. Read the fee tiers in 10800 at the same meeting, because they run on the gross appraised figure the referee is about to produce.
Hand the referee the zone class and the slope, not an address
The referee is appointed from the State Controller's list under Probate Code 8920 and paid one tenth of one percent of the value appraised plus expenses under 8961, with a 75 dollar floor and a 10,000 dollar ceiling per estate under 8963. Orange County states the appraisal should return within 60 days. Give the referee the parcel's 2025 zone class, the engineered slope and the association that maintains it.
Re paper the insurance the day the house goes empty
A policy written for an owner occupant may not respond once the property stands vacant, and in this market a lapsed hillside policy is not easily replaced. Tell the carrier the day the house empties, change the locks, keep the utilities live for the referee and the inspectors, and keep the defensible space cleared while the estate holds the property.
Fix the route while the referee is still working
With full authority, Probate Code 10503 states the requirements applicable to court confirmation do not apply to the sale, so it proceeds on a Notice of Proposed Action. With limited authority the report of sale, the petition, the hearing and the overbid all apply. A representative who wants full authority and does not hold it can petition, and that belongs with the estate's attorney before the listing.
Take it to buyers who can actually obtain a binder
Broad exposure produces a number the court and the beneficiaries can both read, and here it also filters for the buyer who can finish: one whose lender accepts the geotechnical picture and whose carrier will write the parcel. Put the zone class, the slope obligation and the estate's own insurance position in front of buyers rather than waiting for them to find it.
Give the notice under 10586, or lodge the report and petition
Under full authority the notice goes to each known devisee and each known heir whose interest would be affected, to anyone who filed a request for special notice, and to the Attorney General where the state's interest is affected, not less than 15 days before the date specified. Under the court track, Probate Code 10308 governs the report of sale and petition, and title does not pass until confirmation.
The hearing at Costa Mesa, and the bid from the floor
Orange County examiners review petitions three to four weeks before the hearing at the Costa Mesa Justice Complex, 3390 Harbor Blvd., which is when a defect in the file surfaces. At the hearing the property is open to a higher bid under Probate Code 10311(a). Price the first overbid before accepting an offer, because a bidder has to beat the accepted bid rather than the appraisal.
Open escrow with the AB 38 package already assembled
Where the parcel carries a High or Very High designation, Civil Code 1102.19 requires documentation of defensible space compliance and Civil Code 1102.6f requires the fire hardening disclosure with its list of vulnerable features and, since 1 July 2025, the Government Code 51189 low cost retrofit list showing which the seller has completed. Assemble both before escrow rather than inside it.
Close the estate, pay the statutory fees and divide
Probate Code 12200 requires a petition for final distribution or a status report not later than one year after letters, or eighteen months where a federal estate tax return is required. Statutory compensation under 10800 and 10810 is then computed for the representative and for the attorney alike, on the gross inventory, before the mortgage is subtracted from anything.
What Each Anaheim Hills Tract Puts in Front of the Referee
The tract decides the build era, the slope obligation, the association structure and the zone class. These are the ones that come up most often in estate files on this side of the Santa Ana Canyon.
Peralta Hills
Pre master plan ground from the 1940s and 1950s on the west edge, large lots and the district's genuine equestrian pocket. Horse keeping is a zoning and covenant question parcel by parcel here, so the estate verifies it rather than describing it.
Mohler Loop
The other pre master plan pocket, individually designed houses that do not read to a tract type. Old enough that galvanised supply lines and a panel the carrier objects to are ordinary findings rather than exceptions.
Anaheim Hills Estates
Early 1970s Texaco era custom and semi custom houses on the original large pads. The first phase of the master plan, and the phase where aluminium branch circuit wiring is most likely to be waiting in the attic.
The Highlands
The large 1970s and 1980s tract most people picture when they hear the name. Conventional lot geometry by local standards, which makes it the easiest part of the district for a referee to compare against a real set of sales.
The Summit
The late 1980s and 1990s upper elevation build, gated in parts, taking in Summit Pointe, Summit Renaissance, Summit Springs, Summit Terrace and Lake Summit. The highest view inventory in the district and the highest exposure to wind driven fire.
Westridge
Ridge sited and view oriented, where slope maintenance is the recurring inspection item. An estate here should expect the buyer's geotechnical contingency to be the longest item on a calendar the court has already fixed.
Hidden Canyon Estates
Interior canyon siting, longer driveways and a heavier slope maintenance obligation. Access for the referee, the inspectors and a buyer's geotechnical consultant has to be arranged rather than assumed.
Sycamore Canyon
Canyon floor and lower slope with mature planting. Drainage and retaining walls are the questions, and both are answered by an engineer rather than by a general home inspection report.
Country Hills
Golf adjacent, more conventional lot geometry, one of the flatter walks in the district. Frequently still held by original purchasers, which is exactly the profile that produces a probate file rather than a trust file.
Rim Crest Villas
Attached and small lot product on the rim, governed by an association. Establish which entity owns and maintains the engineered slope before anyone describes the parcel to the referee or to a buyer.
Belsomet
Small, tucked and high identity, a name known locally rather than regionally. A pocket this size gives a referee very little to compare against, so what the estate writes in the description carries more weight than usual.
Canyon Rim and Sunset Ridge
Rim sited tracts above the Santa Ana Canyon, the water gap where the river cuts between the Santa Ana Mountains and the Chino Hills. Fires ran through it in 1969, in November 2008 and in October 2017.
Nohl Crest
Named for Louis Nohl, the rancher whose land Texaco Industries bought after 1970 to plan a community of roughly seven thousand homes. Early phase stock, and the early phase inspection profile comes with it.
Eastridge Estates
Eastern ridge product, view oriented, on engineered slope. Two documents decide the escrow here, the fire zone class and the geotechnical report, and neither of them arrives quickly.
Mountain Park
Part of the later 1990s and 2000s phase, with newer systems and fewer defect findings. The friction moves to assessments, association approval for anything a parent changed, and the fire disclosure package.
Firenze and Village at Fiesole
Tuscan influenced attached and small lot product from the 2000s phase. Modern construction, layered association structures, and architectural control tight enough to raise anything altered without written approval.
Six Anaheim Hills Items That Reach the File After the Appraisal Is Already Filed
Anaheim Hills, California
None of these is about demand. Each is a number, a map or a policy that somebody could have obtained in the first month and obtained in the sixth instead.
The family was quoted a fee on the equity, not on the appraisal
Probate Code 10800 and 10810 set identical tiers for the representative and the attorney, and both are payable: 4 percent of the first 100,000 dollars, 3 percent of the next 100,000 dollars, 2 percent of the next 800,000 dollars, 1 percent of the next 9,000,000 dollars, 0.5 percent of the next 15,000,000 dollars, and a reasonable amount set by the court above 25,000,000 dollars.
The base is the gross inventory plus gains and receipts, without reference to encumbrances. A hillside house appraised at 2,000,000 dollars with a 1,500,000 dollar mortgage counts at 2,000,000, which produces 33,000 dollars each and 66,000 dollars combined. Families who did the arithmetic against the equity are routinely surprised, and it is far better said at the first meeting than at the final account.
The referee received an address and priced a house, not a hillside
The referee is appointed under Probate Code 8920 and paid one tenth of one percent of the value appraised plus expenses under 8961, floored at 75 dollars and capped at 10,000 dollars per estate under 8963. Orange County states the appraisal should return within 60 days. The referee cannot see the fire zone class, the descending pad, the association that maintains the slope or the carrier position from a street address.
The error runs both ways and both ways cost. An appraisal set too high leaves no offer able to reach the 90 percent floor in Probate Code 10309(a), so the court cannot confirm and the estate carries the property while a new appraisal or a new marketing period is arranged. An appraisal set too low confirms a sale the beneficiaries are entitled to ask questions about.
The zone class moved under the parcel on 17 June 2025
Anaheim Municipal Code Chapter 16.40 designates the zones. Section 16.40.020 adopts the areas shown on the CAL FIRE Director's Fire Hazard Severity Zone Map consistent with Government Code 51179(a), and the map itself is filed with the Anaheim Fire Department and the Office of the City Clerk. The ordinance history reads Ord. 5523 on 3 October 1995, Ord. 6239 on 17 April 2012, and Ord. 6612 on 17 June 2025.
That June 2025 ordinance is Anaheim's adoption of the updated maps. Local Responsibility Area maps now carry Moderate and High as well as Very High, so a parcel that carried no designation in 2024 can carry one now. It flows straight into the Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement under Civil Code 1103.2. Order the report fresh; a prior transaction's report predates the adoption.
No offer in the file came with a carrier willing to write it
The California FAIR Plan has been the insurer of last resort since 1968. It covers fire, lightning and smoke, does not cover water damage, theft or liability, and caps a residential policy at three million dollars, so a Difference in Conditions companion policy is normally required to approximate a full homeowners package, with flood and earthquake still separate.
No fire burned Anaheim Hills in January 2025, and CAL FIRE's 2025 incident archive lists no Orange County incident at all that year. The market repriced the district anyway, through the FAIR Plan assessment on member companies collected in 2025 and the statewide underwriting reset. Establish before listing whether the estate is in the admitted market or on the FAIR Plan plus a companion policy, because a buyer will ask in week one.
The four month inventory deadline ran while the family argued
Probate Code 8800 requires the inventory and appraisal to be filed within four months after letters are first issued. The referee is allowed 60 days by Orange County's own expectation, and the referee cannot start until the representative supplies a description of the property. Probate Code 9100 runs creditor claims alongside it, due the later of four months after letters or sixty days after notice to that creditor.
The delay is almost never the referee. It is the weeks between the letters issuing and anyone sending the parcel number, the tract, the association name and the access arrangements. That time comes straight out of the marketing period, and no hearing date gives it back.
The slope behind the house belongs to somebody and nobody established who
The record here is documented rather than anecdotal. A January 1993 landslide destroyed over 30 homes and impacted over 200 others. A twenty day rain event in the winter of 2005 produced a slide along Ramsgate Drive that took three homes and a private street. The initial master plan proved unsustainable against the topography and the geology, which is why Anaheim Hills became the first residential development to use landform grading.
Anaheim Municipal Code Chapter 17.06 governs grading, excavations and fills in hillside areas, and the California Geological Survey maps earthquake induced landslide and liquefaction as Zones of Required Investigation, where any building permit triggers a site investigation and engineering countermeasures. Establish which entity owns and maintains the engineered slope. That one answer decides whether a failure is the estate's problem or the association's.
What the Grant on the Letters Costs, Whichever Way It Reads
Nobody picks this from a menu. The grant printed on the Letters normally decides it. What the family can choose is how much of the delay belongs to the court and how much belongs to paperwork the estate controls.
Selling under full authority
Full authority under Probate Code 10402 carries every power the Independent Administration of Estates Act grants, and Probate Code 10503 states that the requirements applicable to court confirmation of sales of real property do not apply to the sale. No confirmation hearing, no 90 percent appraisal floor, no courtroom overbid. The representative sells the way any owner sells, and escrow closes without a court date in the middle of it.
What replaces the hearing is notice. Probate Code 10580 to 10592 govern the Notice of Proposed Action, and under 10586 it must be mailed or personally delivered not less than 15 days before the date specified in the notice. Under 10581 the recipients are each known devisee whose interest would be affected, each known heir whose interest would be affected, anyone who has filed a request for special notice, and the Attorney General where the state's interest is affected.
It can be shortened by agreement. Probate Code 10582 removes the requirement for anyone who consents in writing, and 10583 allows the notice to be waived in writing, so a family in agreement can collect consents before the listing and take fifteen days out of the escrow. The honest downside sits in 10587: any recipient may object by delivering or mailing a written objection before the date specified or before the action is taken, whichever is later, and one objection puts the representative back in front of the court after a buyer has already spent money.
Full authority removes the court. It does not remove the hill. The defensible space documentation under Civil Code 1102.19, the fire hardening disclosure under Civil Code 1102.6f with its Government Code 51189 retrofit list added on 1 July 2025, the geotechnical review a buyer's lender will want and the carrier who has to agree to write the parcel all run on their own schedules. A shorter escrow makes starting those late more expensive, not less.
Selling with court confirmation
This is the route where authority is limited under Probate Code 10403, which withholds four powers: sell real property, exchange real property, grant an option to purchase real property, and borrow money secured by an encumbrance on real property. Probate Code 10501(b) requires court supervision for exactly those four. It is also available where the representative or the estate's attorney prefers the protection of an order signed by a judge.
The referee's appraisal comes first, under Probate Code 8920, at one tenth of one percent of the value appraised plus expenses under 8961, floored at 75 dollars and capped at 10,000 dollars per estate under 8963, with Orange County expecting a return inside 60 days. Once an offer is accepted the representative files a report of sale and a petition for confirmation under Probate Code 10308, and if it is not filed within 30 days the purchaser may file it. Title does not pass until the court confirms.
At the hearing the property is open to a higher bid. Probate Code 10311(a) requires the higher offer to be at least 10 percent more on the first ten thousand dollars of the original bid and 5 percent more on the amount of the original bid in excess of ten thousand dollars. On an accepted bid of 1,000,000 dollars that is 1,000,000 plus 1,000 plus 49,500, so the minimum first overbid is 1,050,500 dollars. The court accepts the highest qualifying offer, may decline to confirm and order a new sale, and may reject a higher bid made on less favourable credit terms. Commissions are excluded from the computation.
The honest accounting is that the overbid helps the estate and deters the buyer, and on a hillside parcel it deters the most serious ones first. An Anaheim Hills buyer who has already paid for a geotechnical review and spent three weeks chasing a carrier is not usually willing to watch a stranger raise the price in a courtroom. Examiners review the petition three to four weeks before the date at the Costa Mesa Justice Complex, so the file has to be right well ahead of the hearing. The estate trades a possibly higher number against a smaller and more cautious field.
The Estate Signs for the Slope and the Fire Class, and the Court Reads the File
Paula Aragone has worked Orange County transactions for 23 years, across 900+ transactions and $900M+ sold, and she came to real estate after four years of law school. That is why probate attorneys send court supervised files here rather than to a general listing agent: the sequence, the deadlines and the language of a confirmation petition are already familiar, so the attorney is not explaining them twice.
She holds the CPRES designation, Certified Probate Real Estate Specialist, and the SRES designation, Seniors Real Estate Specialist. CPRES matters at a court confirmation sale for a practical reason. Marketing does not stop when an offer is accepted, because the property stays open to a bid from the floor, so the listing has to keep producing interest through the petition and up to the hearing date. The purchase agreement has to tell the buyer plainly what happens in that courtroom, and the file has to reach the examiner in a form that survives review three to four weeks before the date.
The representative's exposure is a record, not a price. Beneficiaries rarely litigate over a number they were shown and can reconstruct. They litigate over a sale that looked arranged: a quiet transaction, a buyer nobody competed with, an appraisal built on a description nobody kept. Broad exposure, a written record of every offer, and a referee who was given the zone class, the slope and the association structure are what answer that, and they are the same things the court's own examiner looks for.
In Anaheim Hills the additional work is the hill and the policy. The 2025 zone class is confirmed against Anaheim's own adoption rather than an old report, the defensible space documentation is obtained rather than promised, the slope is put to an engineer rather than a home inspector, and the estate's carrier position is established before a buyer asks. The honest part: none of that guarantees a hearing date holds. Calendars move, examiners raise items and buyers withdraw. What the preparation buys is that the delay is never the estate's own paperwork.
Anaheim Hills Probate Sales, From the Letters to the Final Account
The questions executors, administrators and personal representatives actually ask, answered for California law and for a hillside district of the City of Anaheim.
What city does the estate actually file and market under?
Anaheim. Anaheim Hills is a planned community within the eastern portion of the City of Anaheim and is not an independent municipality: no city hall of its own, no separate council, no separate zoning code and no separate permit counter. Permits, zoning and code enforcement run through the City of Anaheim under the Anaheim Municipal Code, City Hall is at 200 S. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim, CA 92805, and the ZIP codes are 92807 and 92808. On a listing, an MLS entry or any legal document, the city is Anaheim.
Does the size of the estate decide whether you file at all?
The date of death decides it, not the date you file. For deaths on or after 1 April 2025 the affidavit for personal property under Probate Code 13100 and 13101 reaches 208,850 dollars, the petition to determine succession to real property under 13151 to 13154 reaches 750,000 dollars but only for the decedent's California primary residence under AB 2016, and the affidavit for real property of small value under 13200 reaches 69,625 dollars. Anything larger is a full probate or a trust administration. Those figures hold through 31 March 2028.
Why is the statutory fee larger than the equity left in the house?
Because the fee is not computed on equity. Probate Code 10800 and 10810 set identical tiers for the representative and the attorney and both are payable, and the base is the gross inventory value plus gains and receipts, expressly without reference to encumbrances. A hillside house appraised at 2,000,000 dollars carrying a 1,500,000 dollar mortgage counts at 2,000,000. That produces 33,000 dollars each and 66,000 dollars combined, plus any extraordinary fees the court allows, on a property whose remaining equity is far smaller.
Who appraises the property, and what does that cost the estate?
Not an appraiser the estate chooses. A probate referee is appointed from the State Controller's list under Probate Code 8920. The commission under 8961 is one tenth of one percent of the value appraised plus actual and necessary expenses, with a floor of 75 dollars and a ceiling of 10,000 dollars per estate under 8963, and Orange County states the referee should return the appraisal within 60 days. The referee values the real property; the representative values cash and certain other assets.
Does the referee know the parcel sits in a fire hazard severity zone?
Only if somebody tells him. The referee works from what the representative supplies, and a street address produces an appraisal of a house. The zone class adopted by Anaheim, the engineered slope, the entity that maintains it and the estate's current insurance position are all facts that change value and none of them are visible from the kerb. That description also has to be assembled inside the four month window Probate Code 8800 allows for filing the inventory and appraisal.
Anaheim adopted new fire maps in 2025. What changed for an estate?
Anaheim Municipal Code Chapter 16.40 designates the zones, and section 16.40.020 adopts the areas shown on the CAL FIRE Director's map consistent with Government Code 51179(a), with the map filed with the Anaheim Fire Department and the Office of the City Clerk. The ordinance history is Ord. 5523 on 3 October 1995, Ord. 6239 on 17 April 2012 and Ord. 6612 on 17 June 2025. Local Responsibility Area maps now carry Moderate and High as well as Very High, so a parcel with no designation in 2024 can carry one now.
Can the estate challenge the zone class the parcel was given?
There is a defined route and it is the city's, not CAL FIRE's. Chapter 16.40 carries procedures for recommending exclusion or inclusion at 16.40.040, conditions for exclusion at 16.40.050, additions of areas at 16.40.060 and amendments to the zone map at 16.40.070. Understand the limit before spending estate money on it: under Government Code 51179 a local agency may increase a zone's severity relative to the State Fire Marshal's recommendation but may not decrease it, and the changes a local agency makes are final and not rebuttable.
What does the estate have to hand a buyer if the parcel is High or Very High?
Three things beyond the ordinary package. The Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement under Civil Code 1103.2 records the zone. For a home built before 1 January 2010, Civil Code 1102.6f requires the fire hardening disclosure with a list of vulnerable features and which exist on the property, including eave vents, wood shingle roofing, combustible landscaping, single pane windows, roof flashing defects and uncovered gutters, plus, since 1 July 2025, the Government Code 51189 low cost retrofit list showing which the seller completed. Civil Code 1102.19 then requires defensible space documentation.
How much defensible space does the law actually require here?
Public Resources Code 4291 and Government Code 51182 both require 100 feet from each side and from the front and rear of the structure, not beyond the property line, with graduated intensity: an ember resistant zone within 5 feet and more aggressive fuel reduction between 5 and 30 feet. Both require removal of limbs within 10 feet of a chimney outlet and of dead and dying vegetation. Zone 0 regulations were approved by the Board of Forestry on 19 August 2026 and are expected to take effect after review, with existing structures phasing in over roughly five years, so treat it as arriving rather than enforceable today.
A buyer says nobody will quote them. Is that the estate's problem?
It becomes the estate's problem, because an offer that cannot be insured cannot close and the calendar keeps running. The California FAIR Plan is the insurer of last resort, covers fire, lightning and smoke only, excludes water damage, theft and liability, and caps a residential policy at three million dollars, so a Difference in Conditions companion is normally needed for anything resembling a full package. Establish the estate's own position before listing and put it in front of buyers, because the alternative is discovering it during a fifteen day notice period.
No fire reached the district in 2025. Why did the cover change?
Because the reset was statewide rather than local. No January 2025 fire was in Orange County, and CAL FIRE's 2025 incident archive lists no Orange County incident at all for that year. What reached Anaheim Hills was the Department of Insurance approving a FAIR Plan assessment on member companies collected in 2025, part of which reaches policyholders as a surcharge, together with the Sustainable Insurance Strategy, 662 designated distressed ZIP codes and catastrophe modelling entering rate making. Do not let anyone tell the family it burned, and do not let anyone tell them it was irrelevant.
What does the estate have to say about the slope behind the house?
What the record shows. A landslide in January 1993 destroyed over 30 homes and impacted over 200 others, and a twenty day rain event in the winter of 2005 produced a slide along Ramsgate Drive that destroyed three homes and a private street. The Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement under Civil Code 1103.2 covers earthquake induced landslide and liquefaction zones. Check the California Landslide Inventory and Map Sheet 58 before listing a downslope parcel, remembering the inventory is not updated in real time, and expect a buyer's geotechnical contingency.
Is the slope the estate's responsibility or the association's?
That has to be established from documents, not from what the neighbours say. Anaheim Hills carries a wide range of structures across its named tracts, from full service master associations at the Summit and the gated pockets down to slope maintenance only associations. Read the covenants and the association's own maps to find which entity owns and maintains the engineered slope, and get the answer before the referee is briefed. It decides who pays for a failure, and it is one of the first things a buyer's counsel asks.
Is the referee's appraisal the number an overbidder has to beat?
No, and this is the pair most often conflated. The 90 percent floor in Probate Code 10309(a) is measured against the probate referee's appraised value, and it requires the appraisal to have been made within one year prior to the confirmation hearing with a valuation date inside that year. The overbid increment in Probate Code 10311(a) is measured against the accepted bid, whatever that turned out to be. Two different baselines, and a representative who treats them as one will brief the family wrong about what a bidder must beat.
Do we have to publish a notice of sale?
It depends on the route. Probate Code 10300(a) requires publication under Government Code 6063a, which means at least ten days, three publications, with at least five days intervening between the first and last publication dates, completed before the day specified for the sale, and 10304 sets what the notice states. The exceptions are real: 10303 where the will directs or authorises the sale, 10302 where the court shortens the period to not less than five days, 10301 for property under five thousand dollars, and 10503 which exempts a full authority sale entirely.
Which school district serves the property, and where is the probate heard?
Anaheim Hills sits in Orange Unified, with a portion in Placentia Yorba Linda Unified, so never state it from the tract name. Canyon High School is Orange Unified at 220 South Imperial Highway, Anaheim, CA 92807; Yorba Linda High School takes a small portion of Anaheim Hills north of Yorba Regional Park; Esperanza High School is a Placentia Yorba Linda Unified school physically in Anaheim at 1830 North Kellogg Drive. Probate is heard at the Costa Mesa Justice Complex, 3390 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, assistance line 657-622-8452, case portal probatepublic.occourts.org.
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Brief the Referee Properly, Because Two Statutes Read That Number
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If you are the personal representative of an estate holding an Anaheim Hills property, the first conversation is about the authority you were granted, the zone class, the slope and the carrier. Call or text, or have the estate's attorney call on your behalf.
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Paula Aragone, California DRE 01364746. Aragone & Associates is a team at First Team Real Estate, California DRE 01008773. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. This page is general information about California real estate practice and is not legal, tax or financial advice.
Aragone & Associates Real Estate Group, 4 Corporate Plaza Dr #100, Newport Beach, CA 92660. Paula Aragone, California DRE 01364746. Brokerage: First Team Real Estate, California DRE 01008773. Equal Housing Opportunity. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or financial advice, and no attorney client relationship is created by contacting this office. Consult your attorney, your accountant and your county assessor before acting on any statement here. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed and is subject to change without notice.