Every Los Angeles County probate case is filed with the Superior Court, and Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) sends almost all of it to the Central District at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 North Hill Street. The exception is the North District.
Jonathan Khorsandi on Jun 05, 2026
Every probate case for a person domiciled in Los Angeles County is filed with the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, and under Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) almost all of it lands in one building. Conservatorship, guardianship, decedent's estate and trust proceedings must be filed in the Central District at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 North Hill Street. One narrow exception routes Antelope Valley matters to the North District, and that exception changed in February 2026.
LA County recorded 12,051 estate and trust probate filings in fiscal year 2024-25, 28.7% of the statewide total of 41,985, per the Judicial Council of California's 2026 Court Statistics Report. Counting conservatorship and guardianship matters as well, the Probate Division handled 18,304 filings in the year. No other California county is close.
One caution before you repeat that number. LA Superior Court's own statistics dashboard publishes a lower probate figure, 9,972, on a different counting basis. The two do not reconcile at a glance, so cite the Judicial Council report: it is the statewide series, and it is where the 41,985 comparison comes from.
This guide covers Los Angeles County only. For California's statewide framework, the county-by-county picture and the state's simplified transfer procedures, see the California probate records guide.
Yes. A probate case file is a public record held by the Superior Court clerk, and there is no requirement to be an heir, a beneficiary, a creditor or an attorney to read one.
What is public includes the Petition for Probate (Form DE-111), the order appointing the personal representative, the Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration showing whether authority under the Independent Administration of Estates Act is full or limited, the Inventory and Appraisal (Form DE-160) carrying the probate referee's valuation of any real property, notices of proposed action, petitions to confirm a sale, and the full register of actions.
Two limits are worth knowing before you build a workflow on top of that. Public does not mean free: LA Superior Court charges $4.75 for an online name search whether or not it returns a result, and $1.00 per page for document images. And public does not mean searchable the way prospecting needs it to be: the free online lookup runs on case numbers, not names.
In the county of the decedent's domicile, and then in the Central District within it.
Probate Code § 7051 fixes venue at the county where the decedent was domiciled, "regardless of where the decedent died". Someone who lived in Long Beach and died in a Pasadena hospital is a Los Angeles County estate. A Nevada resident who owned a duplex in Inglewood is not, unless ancillary administration is opened here.
Within the county, Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) sends all conservatorship, guardianship, probate and trust proceedings to the Central District. The exception is the North District: conservatorship and guardianship where the petitioner or the proposed conservatee or ward lives there, decedent's estates where the decedent lived or the petitioner lives there, and trusts whose principal place of administration is there.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | LASC Probate Division, Central District |
| Address | 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 |
| Covers | Every LA County probate matter except North District filings |
| Filing | In person at the courthouse or electronically through the court's approved e-filing service providers |
| Case access | Probate Case Access by case number, free. Name search is a separate paid service |
| Public terminals | Case searches on the courthouse public access computers are free |
LASC does not publish a single probate records telephone line, and third-party directories carry several conflicting numbers for the building. Use the Probate Division page above for current department contacts rather than a number copied from a directory, and confirm it before making a trip.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Address | 42011 4th Street West, Lancaster, CA 93534 |
| Covers | North District decedent's estates, conservatorships, guardianships and trusts |
| Filing | Still accepts in-person and electronic probate filings |
| Hearings | Heard by Department 18 at Stanley Mosk, Thursdays and Fridays |
| Appearance options | Remotely through LACourtConnect, in person at Stanley Mosk Department 18, or in person at Antelope Valley Department A22, which is broadcast into Department 18 |
This is the change most guidance has not caught up with. Effective 2 February 2026, the Antelope Valley Courthouse ceased hearing probate matters in person. Department A14 no longer hears probate. All Antelope Valley probate matters are now assigned to a new Department AVPR, which accepts the filings, and those cases are physically heard by Department 18 at Stanley Mosk on Thursdays and Fridays, excluding court holidays, before Judge Charles Q. Clay III. Department 18 continues to hear its own probate calendar Monday to Wednesday.
The practical effect for research is that the filing location and the hearing location are now different buildings for North District estates. A Lancaster or Palmdale case can be filed in Lancaster and calendared downtown, so a hearing date you read on a register of actions is a Stanley Mosk date.
Testate, meaning the decedent left a will, produces a petition to probate the will, a named executor and Letters Testamentary. Direction is usually settled from the first filing, and the will often says whether the property is to be sold.
Intestate, meaning no valid will, produces a petition for Letters of Administration and a court-appointed administrator. These are frequently the more productive filings, because several heirs who never planned for the situation now jointly own a house none of them lives in, and the administrator is more often granted limited rather than full authority.
Through LA Superior Court's own systems. There is no county-run probate database outside the court, and no free name search.
Start with the case number if you have one. Probate Case Access returns the case summary, the parties, the filing date, hearing dates and the register of actions at no charge. It is the fastest route and the only free online route.
If you do not have a case number, the court's Search for Case Number by Name is the paid service that finds it. It covers Probate from 1983 to the present alongside Civil, Family Law and Small Claims, and it charges per search regardless of whether anything comes back. Guidance saying you cannot search LA probate by decedent name is wrong: you can, and the court prices it on its own fee information page.
Document images are a third and separate paid system again. Finding a case does not get you the petition, the Letters or the Inventory and Appraisal; those are priced per page, per document.
The free alternative to all of it is the courthouse. Case searches on the public access computers inside the courthouse are free, which makes a single Stanley Mosk trip a reasonable substitute for a batch of paid name searches when you are working a cohort rather than one name.
| Route | What it returns | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Probate Case Access, by case number | Case summary, parties, filing date, hearings, register of actions | Free |
| Search for Case Number by Name, online | The case number for a decedent name, Probate 1983 to present | $4.75 per search as a guest |
| Case Document Images, online | The filed document itself, page by page | $1.00 per page for pages 1 to 5, $0.40 thereafter, $40.00 cap per document |
| Public access computers at the courthouse | Case searches | Free |
| Clerk record search at the counter | A search of records or files taking more than 10 minutes | $15.00 |
For most agents the working combination is the courthouse terminal or a paid name search to get the case number, then free case access to read the register, then paid images only on the cases that have cleared your filter.
Online search fees are set by the court's Public Access Online Services and depend on whether you have an account:
The registered-user tier is the detail worth acting on. Ten searches a month at $1.00 covers most agents working a single submarket, and the price only steps up to guest rates after that.
Counter and clerk fees are set by the Government Code and published in the court's civil fee schedule:
| Service | Fee | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Plain copy of a filed record, per page | $0.50 | Gov. Code § 70627(a) |
| Comparison of a copy with the original, per page | $1.00 | Gov. Code § 70627(b) |
| Records search longer than 10 minutes | $15.00 | Gov. Code § 70627(c) |
| Certificate where no fee is otherwise fixed | $40.00 | Gov. Code § 70626(a)(8) |
| Exemplification of a record | $50.00 | Gov. Code § 70628 |
Filing fees sit on the other side of the counter but they tell you something about a case. A Petition for Probate of a Will, a Petition for Letters of Administration and a Petition for Special Letters with general powers each cost $435 in LA County, per the court's probate e-filing fee list. Special Letters without general powers cost $200.
The number that matters most in a conversation with an executor is not the filing fee. Statutory compensation under Probate Code § 10810 runs at 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000 and 1% of the next $9,000,000. On a $1.5 million LA estate that is $28,000 for the attorney and the same again for the personal representative if they take their fee, so roughly $56,000 in statutory compensation before costs. Executors who understand that figure are noticeably more interested in a clean, fast sale.
There is no statutory deadline for closing an administration, and LASC publishes no county-level time-to-disposition figure for probate. Practitioner estimates put an LA estate holding real property at 9 to 18 months from petition to final distribution, and that is an estimate rather than a court statistic. Treat it as a planning assumption, not a number to quote.
What is fixed is the interim schedule, and those deadlines are what keep generating public filings on estates that otherwise stall.
| Stage | Statutory position |
|---|---|
| Publish notice of petition to administer | Three publications, first at least 15 days before the hearing, § 8121 |
| Creditor claim window closes | The later of four months after letters are first issued to a general personal representative, or 60 days after notice of administration is given to that creditor, § 9100 |
| File Inventory and Appraisal | Within four months after letters are first issued, § 8800(b) |
| Notice of proposed action, full authority sale | At least 15 days before the action is taken, § 10586 |
Two points about the creditor window are commonly stated wrong. It is not a flat four months from letters: § 9100 gives a creditor the later of the two periods, so a creditor noticed late gets 60 days from that notice even if the four months has already run. And it is not a hard bar on selling. It constrains distribution and payment, not the mechanics of listing a property.
The four-month Inventory and Appraisal deadline is the one to diarise. Until it is filed, the file often does not confirm that real property exists at all.
The case number tells you an estate is open. Six steps tell you whether it is worth the postage.
1. Confirm it is a decedent's estate. The Probate Division's 18,304 filings include conservatorship and guardianship matters, which involve a living protected person and no estate property to sell. The 12,051 estate and trust figure is the one that matters, so roughly a third of the division's caseload is noise for this purpose. Filter before you do anything else.
2. Check whether the estate needs full probate at all. Three simplified procedures take property out of the pipeline, and all three key off the date of death, not today's date. For deaths on or after 1 April 2025, Probate Code § 13100 allows an affidavit transfer where the gross value of the decedent's real and personal property in California does not exceed $208,850. For deaths between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2025 the figure is $184,500. Section 13200 covers a real property affidavit up to $69,625.
The one that changes the answer most often is § 13151. For deaths on or after 1 April 2025, a decedent's California primary residence with a gross value up to $750,000 can pass on a petition to determine succession, without a full administration. All four figures are published on Judicial Council form DE-300. In large parts of LA County a modest house clears $750,000, but in the Antelope Valley and the south-east county plenty of them do not, which means a real estate transfer with no full probate file behind it.
3. Read the Letters for the authority type. Under full authority, the personal representative can sell without a confirmation hearing, on 15 days' written notice of proposed action under § 10586. Under limited authority, § 10501(b) requires court supervision for a sale of real property, an exchange of real property, an option to purchase real property, and borrowing secured against it. That single line in the Letters decides whether you are dealing with a private negotiation or a public hearing.
4. Learn the overbid maths before you attend a confirmation hearing. Probate Code § 10311(a)(1) sets the minimum overbid at 10% more on the first $10,000 of the original bid and 5% more on the balance. There is no flat add-on. Guidance that appends "plus $500" is describing something that appears neither in the statute nor in LASC local rules. On an accepted offer of $700,000 the minimum overbid is $735,500, being $1,000 on the first $10,000 and $34,500 on the remaining $690,000.
Separately, § 10309(a) requires that the confirmed price be at least 90% of the appraised value, using an appraisal dated within one year before the confirmation hearing. Those are two different rules, and conflating them is the most common error in probate-sale explainers.
5. Find the property. The petition does not always itemise real estate. The Inventory and Appraisal is the document that confirms it, and it can be four months behind the filing. In the meantime, run the decedent's name and last known address against the LA County Assessor portal for the parcel and the most recent owner of record, and against the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk for recorded deeds. A personal representative's deed already on record means the property has moved and the lead has gone.
6. Identify who can actually sign, then follow up. Only the appointed personal representative can sign a purchase agreement for the estate. Heirs cannot, and neither can a surviving spouse who was never appointed. On larger LA estates there is almost always an attorney of record named in the petition, and on those the attorney is usually the better first contact, because probate attorneys carry several clients who need to sell.
Follow-up is where most of this falls apart. An estate that has just been opened is a different conversation seven months later, when the Inventory has been filed and the creditor window has closed. A 90-day cadence across a defined LA submarket is the difference between working probate and collecting case numbers.
Twenty-two, including Los Angeles: Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Madera, Marin, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and Ventura.
Every lead is a verified court filing with a case number, not a death record or a pre-probate prediction. Each one carries the property records matched to the estate, the personal representative skip traced with mailing address, phone and email where available, the attorney of record where one is named, and MLS tracking so you can see whether the property has already listed.
Done manually in Los Angeles County alone, that is a paid name search or a courthouse terminal session to get case numbers, a filter to strip out conservatorship and guardianship matters, a read of the Letters for the authority type, an assessor and recorder cross-reference to find the parcel, paid document images where the register is thin, and skip tracing after that, across roughly 1,000 estate and trust filings a month. The research is legitimate and it works. It is also most of a working week each month before a single call is made.
You can see the full coverage list at probatedata.com/counties, or start a 7-day trial for $1 and search Los Angeles County directly.
For California's statewide rules, see the California probate records guide. For the wider method across every state, see the national guide to finding probate records by county.
Yes. A probate case file is a public record held by the Superior Court clerk, and you do not need to be an heir, a beneficiary or an attorney to read one. Public does not mean free online, though. LA Superior Court charges $4.75 for an online name search whether or not it returns a result, and $1.00 per page for document images. Case searches on the public access computers inside the courthouse are free.
If you have the case number, use LA Superior Court's Probate Case Access, which is free and returns the case summary, parties, filing date, hearings and register of actions. If you do not have a case number, the court's Search for Case Number by Name is a paid service at $4.75 per search covering probate from 1983 to the present. Document images are a separate paid system again, so finding a case does not get you the petition or the Letters.
Yes, but not for free. Guidance saying LA probate cannot be searched by name is wrong: the court prices a probate name search on its own fee page at $4.75 as a guest, with a sliding scale for registered users starting at $1.00 for the first ten searches in a month. The free online lookup is case-number-driven, which is what causes the confusion.
Probate Code 7051 puts venue in the county where the decedent was domiciled, regardless of where they died. Within the county, Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) requires conservatorship, guardianship, probate and trust proceedings to be filed in the Central District at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles. The exception is the North District, where Antelope Valley residents and petitioners file at the Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse, 42011 4th Street West, Lancaster.
Yes. Effective 2 February 2026 the Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse ceased hearing probate matters in person, and Department A14 no longer hears probate. All Antelope Valley probate matters are assigned to a new Department AVPR, which still accepts in-person and electronic filings, and those cases are heard by Department 18 at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on Thursdays and Fridays. Parties can appear remotely through LACourtConnect, in person at Stanley Mosk, or in person at Antelope Valley Department A22, which is broadcast into Department 18.
Probate Code 10311(a)(1) sets it at 10 percent more on the first $10,000 of the original bid and 5 percent more on the balance. There is no flat add-on: guidance that appends $500 is describing something that appears neither in the statute nor in LA Superior Court's local rules. On an accepted offer of $700,000 the minimum overbid is $735,500. Section 10309(a) is a separate rule requiring the confirmed price to be at least 90 percent of the appraised value, using an appraisal dated within one year before the hearing.
It depends on the date of death, not on today's date. For deaths on or after 1 April 2025, Probate Code 13100 allows an affidavit transfer where the gross value of the decedent's real and personal property in California does not exceed $208,850, and 13200 covers a real property affidavit up to $69,625. Separately, section 13151 lets a California primary residence worth up to $750,000 pass on a petition to determine succession. For deaths between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2025 the 13100 figure was $184,500.
There is no statutory deadline for closing an administration, and LA Superior Court publishes no county-level time-to-disposition figure for probate, so any specific month count is an estimate rather than a court statistic. The fixed points are statutory: notice of the petition is published three times with the first at least 15 days before the hearing under Probate Code 8121, the Inventory and Appraisal is due within four months after letters are first issued under 8800(b), and the creditor claim window closes on the later of four months after letters or 60 days after notice of administration is given to that creditor under 9100.
