Probate Real Estate Agent in Placentia, CA
Paula Aragone represents executors, administrators and personal representatives selling Placentia property through the Orange County probate court, usually a long held house on a flat lot where the sale is simple and the entire paper record behind it has to be rebuilt from public sources.
In Placentia the court process is the ordinary one and the difficulty is evidential. The personal representative has to file an inventory and appraisal within four months of letters under Probate Code 8800, and then sign a disclosure package, for a house whose family kept almost nothing. Everything the estate needs exists, but it exists in public records: the state's well database, the county tax bill, the district's boundary and the city's own fire department.
| Who signs for the property | The personal representative named in the Letters |
|---|---|
| The clock that starts first | Four months to file the inventory, Probate Code 8800 |
| Which route applies | Full or limited authority, Probate Code 10402 and 10403 |
| Who sets the value | A probate referee appointed under Probate Code 8920 |
| The Placentia search | CalGEM Well Finder by address, on the north side above all |
| Fire agency | Placentia Fire and Life Safety. The city left the OCFA in 2020. |
The Court Wants an Inventory. The Family Kept Nothing to Build It From.
Placentia is 6.63 square miles, incorporated on 2 December 1926, flat, and mostly built as a bedroom community between the 1950s and the 1970s. The house is usually the easy part. The record behind it does not exist, and the estate has four months.
Probate Code 8800 requires the inventory and appraisal to be filed within four months after letters are first issued, and Probate Code 9100 runs the creditor claim period alongside it, due the later of four months after letters or sixty days after notice to that creditor. Both clocks start whether or not anyone has begun looking for documents.
The referee cannot fill the gap. Appointed from the State Controller's list under Probate Code 8920, 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 under 8963, he prices what the representative describes. Orange County expects the appraisal back within 60 days, and that 60 days runs from the point the representative supplies the description, not from the date of the letters.
The consequence of a thin description is arithmetical. 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 in that year, and the sum offered is at least 90 percent of the appraised value. And Probate Code 10800 and 10810 compute the representative's and the attorney's compensation on the gross inventory plus gains and receipts, without reference to encumbrances, so the same number does both jobs.
The first search is the one nobody thinks of. Oil was discovered in Placentia in 1919 and produced numerous wells along with the worker communities of Atwood and La Jolla. The state's public record is CalGEM Well Finder, searchable by address, latitude and longitude, API number, PLSS township and range or field name, reading from the WellSTAR database, refreshed nightly and substantially updated in January 2026. Placentia also carries an entire municipal code title on the subject, Title 17 Oil and Gas Wells, with abandonment procedures at section 17.12.070.
The second is the fire agency, because it changed. Placentia was the first city to leave the Orange County Fire Authority, in 2020, and now runs Placentia Fire and Life Safety. Its code, Title 18 Fire Protection, adopts the California Fire Code 2025 Edition at Chapter 18.04 and the California Wildland Urban Interface Code 2025 Edition at Chapter 18.05. No separately codified fire hazard severity zone designation chapter was found in Title 18, which is consistent with a flat city, so verify the parcel's 2025 class directly with the department rather than assuming it from a neighbouring city's ordinance.
The rest is county and district work. The only authoritative answer on special taxes and assessments is the parcel's secured property tax bill and its direct assessment lines through the Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector, billing enquiries (714) 834-3411, with Civil Code 1102.6b then requiring a good faith effort to obtain the disclosure notice from the levying agency. Permit history runs through the Building and Safety counter and, for anything the counter cannot produce, a California Public Records Act request through the City Clerk under Placentia Municipal Code Title 20.
How a Probate Property Sale Works in Placentia
The court steps are California law and do not change. What is local is the second one, because in a city where the family archive was a single drawer, the file the referee needs has to be assembled from four separate public sources before he can be briefed at all.
Start with what the court actually authorised
Probate Code 10402 gives a representative with full authority every power under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. Probate Code 10403 withholds four, all real property powers, and 10501(b) sends exactly those four back for court supervision. The grant appears on the Letters. Read it before the family agrees a plan, because the two routes produce different calendars and different buyers.
Rebuild the record, then hand the referee a file
The referee is appointed 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, and Orange County expects the appraisal within 60 days. Before briefing him, run the well search, pull the tax bill, ask the counter for the permit history and confirm the school attendance area.
Lock it up, keep the power on and re paper the cover
Tell the insurer the house is now unoccupied, because a policy written for an owner occupant may not respond once it stands empty. Change the locks, keep the utilities live so the referee and the inspectors can work, and arrange for someone to see the property weekly. A flat lot is easier to hold than a hillside one, and it is still an empty house.
Pick the route, and say so in the listing
With full authority, Probate Code 10503 states the confirmation requirements do not apply to the sale, so it runs on a Notice of Proposed Action. With limited authority the report of sale, the petition, the hearing and the overbid all apply. Buyers behave differently under each, so the marketing has to say which one this is from the first day.
Sell it to a buyer who has read the search results
A Placentia estate sale goes well when the well search, the permit response, the assessment lines and the attendance area are on the table before the first offer. Broad exposure produces the number the court and the beneficiaries can both read, and a documented record of every offer is the representative's own protection against a later question.
Serve the heirs, or take the petition to Costa Mesa
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 Probate Code 10586. On the court track, Probate Code 10308 governs the report of sale and the petition.
Three weeks before the date, then the courtroom
Orange County examiners review petitions three to four weeks before the hearing, which is when any defect in the file appears. At the hearing the property is open to a higher bid under Probate Code 10311(a), the court takes the highest qualifying offer, and title does not pass until confirmation. Calculate the minimum first overbid before accepting anything.
Escrow, with the search results attached rather than described
Give the buyer the documents themselves: the CalGEM well records, the county assessment detail, whatever the Building and Safety counter and the City Clerk produced, and the district's written answer on the attendance area. An estate that summarises a search it never ran has kept the risk and told the buyer nothing.
Final distribution, and what the two fees come to
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. Probate Code 10800 and 10810 then set identical, separately payable compensation for the representative and the attorney, computed on the gross inventory without reference to encumbrances.
Placentia Corner by Corner, and What Each One Sends the Estate to Look Up
A flat city of 6.63 square miles still asks different questions in different places. The oil camps, the tract grid and the redevelopment corridor each put something different into the file.
Old Town Placentia
The historic core around Melrose Avenue and Crowther Avenue, where the town grew up around a Santa Fe Railroad stop by 1910. The small pre war layer sits here, and so does the redevelopment intent and the stalled station site.
Atwood
A formerly unincorporated oil worker community with a street pattern and a history distinct from the tract Placentia around it. Pre war stock, and the first address on the list for a CalGEM well search before anything is described to the referee.
La Jolla
The other oil era worker neighbourhood, small lots and a strong community identity that came out of the same 1919 discovery. Asbestos era materials and pre 1978 paint are the routine findings rather than the exceptions.
Alta Vista
North Placentia around the Alta Vista corridor and the country club edge, with established postwar and 1960s stock. North side ground, which means the well search matters and the high school is El Dorado rather than Valencia.
Morningside
A consistent tract identity of mid century single storey houses, the kind of street where the whole block came from one builder. That uniformity gives a referee a genuine comparison set, which is rarer here than families assume.
Placentia Heights
A slight rise on the north side, and one of the few places in a flat city where the word hills is defensible. Still no meaningful slope or landslide exposure, which is worth stating plainly rather than leaving unsaid.
Bradford Place
Around Bradford Avenue, the historic spine, near Valencia High School at 500 North Bradford Avenue. Southern Placentia ground, so the attendance area answer differs from the north side of the same city.
Kraemer
Named for Daniel Kraemer, who arrived in 1865 and bought 3,900 acres of what had been granted to Juan Pacifico Ontiveros in 1837. Kraemer Boulevard and Kraemer Middle School anchor the area.
Golden, Ruby Drive and Tynes
Named for their elementary schools, with consistent 1960s and 1970s tract stock. Squarely inside the aluminium branch circuit wiring window, which a buyer's inspector and their carrier will both raise.
The Melrose and Crowther corridor
The redevelopment focus of the city. Construction activity and rail proximity are live disclosure items, and the estate is better describing the station project accurately than repeating what a neighbour heard.
The Valencia Avenue corridor
North Placentia's main residential spine, around El Dorado High School at 1651 Valencia Avenue. The corridor that most often produces the school boundary question a southern Placentia seller never has to answer.
The Chapman Avenue corridor
The civic and library spine, with the Placentia Library District at 411 E. Chapman Ave, a separate special district rather than a city department. Mixed eras and a walkable set of amenities buyers ask about.
The RPC and PUD tracts
Placentia's zoning code carries Residential Planned Community and Planned Unit Development districts, and these are where an association or a special tax is most likely to exist. Confirm both from the tax bill and the recorded documents.
Six Placentia Gaps That Surface After the Offer Rather Than Before It
Placentia, California
None of these is about the market. Every one of them is a record that exists somewhere public, and that nobody had gone to get.
The family kept nothing and the inventory is due in four months
Probate Code 8800 gives four months from the issue of letters to file the inventory and appraisal, and Probate Code 9100 runs creditor claims alongside, due the later of four months after letters or sixty days after notice to that creditor. Neither deadline pauses while the family looks through a drawer.
In a city where the same family held the house for forty or fifty years, there is often no survey, no permit copy, no association document and no idea what was ever done to the property. Everything needed is public, but it is in four different places and each has its own turnaround. The four months are consumed by the retrieval, not by the appraisal.
Nobody ran a well search and the buyer's lender did
Oil was discovered here in 1919 and produced numerous wells plus the worker communities of Atwood and La Jolla. CalGEM Well Finder is the public record: searchable by address, latitude and longitude, API number, PLSS township and range or field name, reading from WellSTAR and refreshed nightly. Read the individual well records rather than only the map pins.
A well plugged to 1920s or 1930s standards is not plugged to current standards, and a buyer's lender, a buyer's insurer or a future accessory dwelling unit permit can each surface it. On a north Placentia or Atwood parcel the search takes minutes, and it is the only defensible answer when the question is put to the estate.
The city left the Orange County Fire Authority in 2020
Placentia was the first city to leave the OCFA and now runs Placentia Fire and Life Safety. That changes who inspects, who issues documentation and who answers a zone question. Placentia Municipal Code Title 18 adopts the California Fire Code 2025 Edition at Chapter 18.04 and the California Wildland Urban Interface Code 2025 Edition at Chapter 18.05.
No separately codified fire hazard severity zone designation chapter was found in Title 18, which is consistent with a mostly flat city whose 2025 recommendations would be predominantly Moderate. That is a reason to verify the parcel's class with the department directly before completing a Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement, not a reason to leave the question blank or to borrow a neighbouring city's ordinance.
Nobody read the direct assessment lines on the tax bill
Most Placentia stock predates Mello Roos entirely, which makes it easy to assume there is nothing to disclose. The Residential Planned Community and Planned Unit Development tracts are where a special tax or an association is most likely, and Civil Code 1102.6b also captures Improvement Bond Act of 1915 assessments and contractual assessments, which is how a PACE lien for solar or air conditioning financing appears.
The authoritative answer is the parcel's secured property tax bill and its direct assessment lines through the Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector, billing enquiries (714) 834-3411. Civil Code 1102.6b then requires a good faith effort to obtain the disclosure notice from the levying agency and deliver it. The line item on the bill is the lead, not the notice.
North Placentia and south Placentia feed different high schools
Placentia Yorba Linda Unified serves Placentia, Yorba Linda and portions of Anaheim, Brea and Fullerton across 45 square miles, roughly 22,500 students in 34 schools, with 8 National Blue Ribbon Schools and 25 California Distinguished Schools. That is a strong story, and it is not the question a buyer is asking.
Valencia High School at 500 North Bradford Avenue, founded in 1933 with roughly 2,500 students, serves southern Placentia and northeast Anaheim. El Dorado High School at 1651 Valencia Avenue serves northern Placentia and Yorba Linda, plus far eastern Fullerton east of the 57 freeway and a small area of Brea. A buyer who wrote the offer expecting one and found the other cancels, and the estate absorbs the lost weeks.
The Old Town station is on hold, and somebody described it as coming
Placentia was the first city to establish a train quiet zone, in 2007, which is a genuine amenity for rail adjacent property and worth naming. The Metrolink station planned at Melrose Avenue and Crowther Avenue in Old Town is a different matter: estimated at 35 million dollars with a city contribution of 5.4 million dollars and a tentative completion of June 2022, with construction now on hold pending further negotiations.
Describe it as on hold, because that is what it is. An estate that markets an Old Town property on a station that has not been built is setting up a complaint from a buyer who will check, and a personal representative is the last person who should be making a forward looking claim on behalf of a city.
Two Ways Out, and Only One of Them Has a Courtroom in It
The Letters normally settle which applies. Understanding both still matters, because in a city where the estate is already rebuilding a record from scratch, the route decides how much calendar there is left to do it in.
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 inside it.
Notice takes the place of the hearing. 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 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 permits a written waiver, so a family in agreement can gather consents before the property is listed. The honest downside is Probate Code 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 a single objection puts the representative in front of the court after the buyer has already spent money.
Full authority shortens the court calendar and shortens nothing else. The well search, the counter response, the public records request, the assessment detail and the district's written answer all take the same time they would have taken anyway. On a Placentia estate that is the real risk of full authority: a shorter escrow leaves less room for a record that has to be built rather than retrieved.
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. Some estates take it deliberately, because an order signed by a judge is a strong answer to a beneficiary who may object later.
The referee's appraisal comes first under Probate Code 8920, at 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 and an Orange County expectation of 60 days. After 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, and under 10309(a) the sum offered must be at least 90 percent of the appraised value. Publication is live on this track as well: Probate Code 10300(a) requires the notice of sale published under Government Code 6063a, meaning at least ten days, three publications, with at least five days intervening between the first and last publication dates, subject to the exceptions in 10301, 10302 and 10303, while 10503 exempts a full authority sale entirely.
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 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. Placentia sells largely to families and to first time move up buyers rather than to investors, and that buyer will not usually stand in a courtroom to defend an accepted offer after paying for inspections. Examiners review the petition three to four weeks before the date at the Costa Mesa Justice Complex, so the file has to be right early. The estate trades the chance of a higher number against a thinner field.
A Representative Signs for Facts the Family Never Wrote Down
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 background 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 survive an examiner's review three to four weeks before the date.
In a city with no family archive, the representative's exposure is everything they assert without a document behind it. Beneficiaries litigate over a sale that looked arranged and buyers litigate over a disclosure that turned out to be a guess. Both are answered the same way: the well records, the assessment detail, the counter response, the records request and the district's written answer, all retrieved, all kept, all handed to the buyer rather than summarised for them.
The honest part is what this office cannot promise. Some Placentia records simply do not exist, the counter cannot produce a permit that was never issued, and a public records request returns what the city holds rather than what the family wishes it held. Where a fact cannot be established, the estate says so in writing and does not fill the gap with a recollection. That is a weaker sentence in the marketing and a much stronger position afterwards.
Placentia Probate Sales, and the Records Behind Them
The questions executors, administrators and personal representatives actually ask, answered for California law and for a small flat city with a long oil history.
There is no paperwork at all. Where does a personal representative start?
With the deadline, then with the four public sources. Probate Code 8800 requires the inventory and appraisal within four months after letters are first issued, so the retrieval has to begin immediately. Run CalGEM Well Finder by address. Pull the parcel's secured property tax bill and read the direct assessment lines through the Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector, billing enquiries (714) 834-3411. Ask Placentia Building and Safety for the permit history, and file a public records request through the City Clerk for anything the counter cannot produce. Then confirm the school attendance area by address.
How does an estate find out whether there is a well on the parcel?
CalGEM Well Finder is the public record and it is free. It shows wells and related facilities, well type, permits and individual well records, and is searchable by address, by latitude and longitude, by API number, by PLSS township and range or by field name. It reads from the WellSTAR database, updates nightly and was substantially updated in January 2026. Read the individual well records, not only the pins on the map, and run it on every north Placentia and Atwood address.
Does an old plugged well still matter to a buyer's lender?
It can. Oil was discovered in Placentia in 1919, and a well plugged to 1920s or 1930s standards is not plugged to current standards. That distinction can surface with a buyer's lender, with a buyer's insurer, or later when a new owner applies for an accessory dwelling unit permit. The estate is not being asked to solve it. The estate is being asked to know about it and to disclose it, which is a very different and much cheaper obligation than discovering it in escrow.
What does the Placentia municipal code say about oil wells?
There is an entire title on it. Placentia Municipal Code Title 17 Oil and Gas Wells carries Chapter 17.02 License Provisions, requiring a licence to produce crude oil, gas, petroleum or other hydrocarbons from any well in the city, with fees, terms and production reporting; Chapter 17.04 General Provisions covering enforcement, operator transfers and equipment replacement; Chapter 17.08 Permits and Appeals, including bonding; Chapter 17.12 Operation and Drilling Requirements, with abandonment procedures at 17.12.070 and safety enforcement at 17.12.080; and Chapter 17.16 Summary Abatement.
Which fire department covers Placentia, and why does that matter to an estate?
Placentia Fire and Life Safety. Placentia was the first city to leave the Orange County Fire Authority, in 2020, and it now runs its own department. That matters because a buyer relocating from an OCFA city cannot assume the same inspection process, documentation or defensible space procedure, and neither can the estate. Placentia Municipal Code Title 18 adopts the California Fire Code 2025 Edition at Chapter 18.04 and the California Wildland Urban Interface Code 2025 Edition at Chapter 18.05.
How does the estate answer the fire zone question on the hazard disclosure?
By asking the department, not by inference. The Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement under Civil Code 1103.2 covers six categories including High and Very High fire hazard severity zones. No separately codified fire hazard severity zone designation chapter was found in Placentia's Title 18, which is consistent with a mostly flat city whose 2025 recommendations would be predominantly Moderate, but that is a reason to verify the parcel's class directly with Placentia Fire and Life Safety before completing the statement rather than to leave it blank.
Which high school does the property actually feed?
It depends which half of the city the property is in, and this is the most consequential school fact in Placentia. Valencia High School at 500 North Bradford Avenue, founded in 1933 with roughly 2,500 students, serves southern Placentia and northeast Anaheim. El Dorado High School at 1651 Valencia Avenue serves northern Placentia and Yorba Linda, plus the far eastern section of Fullerton east of the 57 freeway and a small area of Brea. Confirm it by address with Placentia Yorba Linda Unified before it appears anywhere in the marketing.
Is there a special tax or an assessment on the parcel?
Most Placentia stock predates Mello Roos, so often there is none, but that has to be checked rather than assumed. The Residential Planned Community and Planned Unit Development tracts are where a special tax or an association is most likely. The authoritative answer is the parcel's direct assessment lines on the secured tax bill through the Orange County Treasurer Tax Collector, billing enquiries (714) 834-3411. Civil Code 1102.6b then requires a good faith effort to obtain the disclosure notice from the levying agency, and it also captures 1915 Act assessments and PACE style contractual assessments.
Is the Old Town Metrolink station going ahead?
It is on hold. The station planned at Melrose Avenue and Crowther Avenue was estimated at 35 million dollars with a city contribution of 5.4 million dollars and a tentative completion date of June 2022, and construction is now on hold pending further negotiations. Describe it that way. Separately, Placentia was the first city to establish a train quiet zone, in 2007, and that is a real and current amenity for rail adjacent property rather than a future one.
Can the estate advertise the lot as horse property?
Not without checking the zoning, and read the code carefully because it is easy to misread. Placentia Municipal Code Title 9 Animals and Fowl contains Chapter 9.16 Horses, but that chapter regulates riding, including section 9.16.010 on riding upon private property, rather than keeping. Keeping is a zoning question under Title 23, and Placentia has no dedicated equestrian or estate district, with R-A Residential Agricultural the closest classification. This is materially different from Yorba Linda one city over, where the entitlement is written into the code by lot size.
Does the estate have to worry about slope or landslide here?
Generally no, and it is worth saying plainly because so much of the regional conversation is about hillsides. Placentia is essentially flat, with no significant slope or hillside pool issue, and Placentia Heights is about as much elevation as the city offers. None of the 2008, 2017 or 2020 fires burned Placentia, and CAL FIRE's 2025 incident archive lists no Orange County incident at all for that year. In the current insurance market that absence is a genuine advantage and a seller should be told to lean on it.
Is there a route that avoids a full probate?
The date of death decides it, not the filing date. 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, and those figures hold through 31 March 2028.
Which powers does limited authority hold back?
Probate Code 10402 gives a representative with full authority all powers under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. Probate Code 10403 withholds four: 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. In practice, full authority means no confirmation hearing and no overbid because Probate Code 10503 removes the confirmation requirements, subject only to the Notice of Proposed Action.
What is the 90 percent rule, and can it stop the sale?
It can. 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 in that year, and the sum offered is at least 90 percent of the appraised value. It is a floor, not a target. If the referee's number sits above what the market will pay, no confirmable offer exists and the estate has to obtain a new appraisal or run a new marketing period while carrying the property.
What does a bidder in the courtroom have to beat?
Probate Code 10311(a) requires a 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. Note the baselines differ: that increment is measured against the accepted bid, while the 90 percent floor is measured against the referee's appraisal. Commissions are excluded from the computation.
What do the representative and the attorney get paid, and where is the hearing?
Probate Code 10800 and 10810 set identical tiers 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, computed on the gross inventory without reference to encumbrances. On a 2,000,000 dollar gross estate that is 33,000 dollars each and 66,000 dollars combined. Probate is heard at the Costa Mesa Justice Complex, 3390 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, assistance line 657-622-8452.
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If you are the personal representative of an estate holding a Placentia property, the first conversation is about the authority you were granted and the four public records that have to replace the file your family never kept. 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.