California has no statewide probate database. Each of its 58 counties runs its own Superior Court, and an estate is filed in the county where the decedent was domiciled at death, not where they died or where the property sits.
Jonathan Khorsandi on May 18, 2026
California has 58 counties and a Superior Court in every one of them. There is no statewide probate database, no shared index, and no single search box. An estate is filed in the county where the decedent was domiciled at death, and that county's Superior Court is the only office that holds the file.
Two things about that structure matter more than the county count. The first is that a large share of California estate transfers never reach a court at all, because the state's default estate planning tool is the revocable living trust and its small-estate procedures are unusually generous. The second is that "public" and "free" are not the same word. Los Angeles, the largest probate market in the country, charges $4.75 for a name search whether or not it returns anything.
This guide covers where the records sit, what each of the covered counties actually exposes online, what the search costs, and what a filing does and does not tell you about the property.
Yes. Under California Rule of Court 2.550(c), court records are presumed open unless confidentiality is required by law. Probate filings are civil court records and carry that presumption. You do not need to be an heir, a creditor or an attorney to read one.
What is public includes the petition for probate, the decedent's name and date of death, the order appointing the personal representative, the letters testamentary or letters of administration, the inventory and appraisal prepared by the probate referee, creditor claims, hearing dates, and the full register of actions. Some filings are sealed or redacted by court order, and confidential supplements exist in conservatorship and guardianship matters, but a standard decedent's estate is open.
Two limits are worth planning around. Public does not mean digitised: most county portals index cases from the 1990s forward, and older estates are microfilm or a courthouse request. Public does not mean free: California courts charge statutory fees for searches and copies, and the largest county charges for the search itself.
In the county where the decedent was domiciled at death, not where they died and not where the property sits. Probate Code § 7051 says exactly that: the proper county is the county of domicile "regardless of where the decedent died." Someone who lived in Riverside County and died in a Los Angeles hospital has their estate filed in Riverside.
The exception is the non-resident owner. Under § 7052, where the decedent was not domiciled in California, venue lies in a county where property of the decedent was located at death. An out-of-state owner with a Palm Springs rental is administered where the rental is, through an ancillary proceeding.
Testate, meaning there is a will, produces a petition to probate the will, a named executor and letters testamentary. Direction is usually settled from the start.
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.
This is the part of the California market that most guides skip, and it changes how you size the opportunity.
Statutory compensation makes formal probate expensive here. § 10800 sets the personal representative's compensation on a sliding scale of the estate's gross value, and § 10810 sets the attorney's fee on the same scale. On a $1,500,000 estate that is about $28,000 per side, so roughly $56,000 for attorney and executor combined, before any extraordinary compensation. On a state median house price, that is a strong reason to plan around probate entirely, and Californians do, mostly through revocable living trusts. A trust transfer generates a deed at the county recorder and no court file at all.
The small-estate procedures also lift more property out of court than people assume, and the thresholds differ by property type. The widely quoted $208,850 figure is the personal property limit under § 13100, for deaths on or after 1 April 2025. It does not govern real property. The two limits that matter to anyone working residential estates are these:
| Procedure | Limit | Property covered |
|---|---|---|
| Affidavit for collection of personal property, § 13100 | $208,850 | Personal property only |
| Affidavit re real property of small value, § 13200 | $69,625 | Real property |
| Petition to determine succession to the decedent's primary residence, §§ 13151 to 13154 | $750,000 | The decedent's primary residence |
The $750,000 primary-residence petition is the one to know. It clears title to a house without letters of administration, which means a substantial band of California homes now transfers on a short petition rather than a full administration. Those cases generate a court file, but a thin one.
All three figures adjust periodically. § 890 is the adjustment mechanism, not the section that contains the number, and the thresholds key off the date of death, not the date you are searching. For deaths between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2025 the § 13100 limit was $184,500.
| Transfer type | Generates a probate file | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| Full administration | Yes | County Superior Court |
| § 13151 primary-residence petition | Yes, a short one | County Superior Court |
| § 13100 or § 13200 affidavit | Usually not | County recorder, on the deed |
| Living trust transfer | No | County recorder, on the deed |
| Joint tenancy or TOD deed | No | County recorder, on the deed |
County by county, using whichever system that Superior Court runs. There is no unified portal.
Start with courts.ca.gov/find-your-court, which is the Judicial Council's directory of the 58 Superior Courts. The Self-Help Center's probate pages explain the process, but they are not a court directory, and using them as one is how people end up on the wrong site.
One vendor claim is worth retiring. The line that "more than 28 California counties use Tyler Odyssey" traces to a 2019 Tyler press release, and it does not answer the question you are actually asking. Selecting a case management platform says nothing about whether that court exposes probate to public search, at what depth, or for which years. Check the court's own case access page every time.
The counties below are ProbateData's California coverage. Four are set out in detail because they are the highest-volume markets and their access rules differ sharply from each other.
The largest probate market in the country, and the one most often described incorrectly.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | Los Angeles Superior Court, Probate Division |
| Contact | Via the court's contacts and locations page. Probate is heard at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in the Central District |
| Online case search | Yes, and it accepts a name search. A case number is not required |
| Index coverage | Probate index 1983 to present |
| Document images | From 1 January 2001 |
| Fees | $4.75 per name search, charged whether or not it returns a result. Document images $1.00 per page for pages 1 to 5, $0.40 per page thereafter, capped at $40.00 per document |
Two corrections to the usual advice. Los Angeles does offer probate name search, so you do not need a case number to start. And Los Angeles is not free: the $4.75 is charged per search attempt, not per hit, which makes speculative name-guessing expensive at volume.
Venue inside the county changed recently. The Antelope Valley Courthouse stopped hearing probate in person on 2 February 2026, and those matters are now heard at Stanley Mosk. If you work the north county, the file is downtown.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | Orange County Superior Court, Probate Division |
| Location | Costa Mesa Justice Complex, 3390 Harbor Blvd, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 |
| Phone | (657) 622-8452 |
| Online case search | Probate Case Access, by case number or party name |
| Records requests | The court publishes its own records request route and form; check the probate record requests page before sending a letter |
Orange County is also the source of the mail-request instructions that circulate as though they were statewide rules. The "not to exceed $25.00" and "not to exceed $60.00" check convention, the 9 by 12 envelope, and the numbered records request form are Orange County's own local practice. They are not California rules. Every other county sets its own procedure, and sending an Orange County letter to Fresno will get it returned.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | San Diego Superior Court, Probate |
| Contact | Probate Business Office, Central Courthouse. Details on the court's contact page |
| Online case search | Online Case Search, by name, case number or filing date |
| Index coverage | 1974 to present. The court's index expressly excludes cases before 1974 |
The claim that San Diego's records are searchable online from 1880 is wrong. Nineteenth-century probate indexes for the Central Division do exist, but they are offline. What you can search from a desk starts in 1974.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | Santa Clara Superior Court, Probate Division |
| Location | Downtown Superior Court, San Jose |
| Contact | [email protected], and the court's telephone directory |
| Online case search | Case information online through the court's public portal |
| County | Metro | Probate search confirmed |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | Los Angeles | Yes, name search, index 1983 to present, $4.75 per search |
| Orange | Los Angeles | Yes, Probate Case Access |
| San Diego | San Diego | Yes, index 1974 to present |
| Santa Clara | Bay Area | Yes, court public portal |
| Alameda | Bay Area | Yes, eCourt public portal includes probate |
| Riverside | Inland Empire | Check the court's case access page |
| San Bernardino | Inland Empire | Check the court's case access page |
| Sacramento | Sacramento | Check the court's case access page |
| Contra Costa | Bay Area | Check the court's case access page |
| San Francisco | Bay Area | Check the court's case access page |
| San Mateo | Bay Area | Check the court's case access page |
| Ventura | Los Angeles | Check the court's case access page |
| Fresno | Central Valley | Check the court's case access page |
| Kern | Central Valley | Check the court's case access page |
| San Joaquin | Central Valley | Check the court's case access page |
| Placer | Sacramento | Check the court's case access page |
| Solano | Bay Area | Check the court's case access page |
| Sonoma | North Bay | Check the court's case access page |
| Marin | North Bay | Check the court's case access page |
| Santa Barbara | Central Coast | Check the court's case access page |
| San Luis Obispo | Central Coast | Check the court's case access page |
| Madera | Central Valley | Check the court's case access page |
The seventeen counties marked "check" have not been individually verified here, and telling you otherwise would be guessing on your behalf. California portal depth varies more than in most states: some courts publish a register of actions with no images, some sell images through a separate paid system, and several smaller counties still require a phone call to the clerk's probate division. Merced County, outside this coverage list, states plainly that probate case information is not available online at all, which is a fair picture of the tail.
Not finding a case online does not mean no case exists. It may be in a different county, it may predate the index, or the estate may have gone through a small-estate procedure or a trust and never reached a docket.
Two statutes set the baseline, and counties add local charges on top.
Online access is not uniformly free, and the statement that California probate searches are free online is wrong in the state's largest market. Los Angeles charges $4.75 per name search regardless of result, then $1.00 per page for the first five pages of a document and $0.40 thereafter, capped at $40.00. Public terminals inside courthouses are generally free to search, and the per-page fee attaches when you ask for copies.
The practical implication is the same one that applies in every fee-per-search state. Identify the estate through a free county index or a recorder cross-reference first, then spend money on documents only for the cases you have already qualified.
California sets no outer deadline for completing an administration, but it sets fixed interim deadlines, and those are what keep a stalled estate generating public filings.
| Stage | Statutory position |
|---|---|
| Named executor petitions for probate | Within 30 days of learning of the death and of their nomination, or the right is deemed waived, § 8001 |
| Inventory and appraisal filed | Within 4 months after letters are first issued, § 8800 |
| Creditor claim window | The later of 4 months after letters, or 60 days after notice is given to that particular creditor, § 9100 |
| Petition for final distribution, or a status report | Within 1 year of letters, or 18 months where a federal estate tax return is required, § 12200 |
The § 9100 window is often described as a flat four months that cannot be shortened. It is a two-part test, and for a creditor who is given notice late, the 60-day leg can extend past the four-month mark.
The § 8800 inventory and appraisal is the document that matters most to you. Unlike several states, California requires it, a probate referee values the real property, and it is filed in the public case file. That is a genuine structural advantage for research here.
ProbateData's own guidance rather than any statutory rule: most estates that end in a sale run 9 to 18 months from filing, contested ones run longer, and the productive contact window opens once letters have issued and the inventory is underway.
Two rules decide whether the personal representative can transact on their own.
Under the Independent Administration of Estates Act, a representative with full authority can sell real property without prior court confirmation, subject to notice. A representative with limited authority cannot: § 10501(b) keeps real property sales under court supervision. The grant of authority appears in the order and in the letters, and reading it tells you whose timeline you are on.
Where a sale does go to confirmation, § 10309 requires the price to be at least 90% of the appraised value, on an appraisal made within a year of the sale. § 10311(a)(1) sets the first overbid at the accepted price plus 10% of the first $10,000 plus 5% of the excess. There is no flat administrative surcharge added to that formula, whatever the overbid calculators say.
The filing tells you an estate is open. Four more steps tell you whether it is worth your time.
1. Read the letters for the authority granted. Full IAEA authority means the personal representative can list and sell. Limited authority under § 10501(b) means every real property sale goes through the court, on the court's calendar. Same estate, completely different conversation.
2. Get the inventory and appraisal. California files it, the probate referee values it, and it names the real property in the estate with a court-referenced value. This is the single most useful document in a California probate file and it is the reason this state rewards document-level research rather than docket skimming.
3. Cross-reference the county recorder as well as the court. Because trusts, § 13100 and § 13200 affidavits and § 13151 primary-residence petitions move property with little or no court file, the recorder is where a meaningful share of estate transfers actually appear. A court-only search sees part of the market.
4. Check the Proposition 19 position before you assume a sale. Proposition 19 narrowed the parent-child reassessment exclusion from February 2021. An heir who does not move into the inherited property as their principal residence loses the exclusion entirely and the property is reassessed to current market value. An heir who does move in is excluded only up to the property's existing taxable value plus about $1,000,000, a figure adjusted every two years and set at $1,044,586 through 15 February 2027. Value above that line is added back. Occupancy must also be continuous, not a one-year stay. In a high-value county the reassessment on a long-held house can run into tens of thousands of dollars a year, which is a real motivation to sell, but it is not automatic and it is not universal. Treat it as a question to ask, not a fact to assert in a letter.
On outreach, the personal representative named in the letters is the only person with authority to sign, and on larger estates the attorney of record is usually the better first contact. Executors are fiduciaries working through a legal process, not distressed sellers. An approach that acknowledges the timeline and the obligation to the heirs performs better than an investor pitch, and follow-up across the administration matters more than the first letter, because a representative who cannot act in month two often can in month eight.
Twenty-two: 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. That is Southern California, the Bay Area, the Sacramento region and the Central Valley corridor.
Every lead is a verified court filing with a case number, not a death record or a pre-probate prediction. Each 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. On ownership, that is the most recent owner of record, which in an estate context is the fact you need.
Run manually across twenty-two counties, this is twenty-two separate court systems with no shared index, a paid name search in the largest of them, an inventory and appraisal to pull on each qualified case, a recorder cross-reference for the trust and small-estate transfers that never reach a docket, and skip tracing after that. The research is legitimate and it works. It is also most of a working week each month.
You can see the full coverage list at probatedata.com/counties, or start a 7-day trial for $1, which converts to Deliver at $147 a month, and search the California counties directly.
For the wider method across every state, see the national guide to finding probate records by county.
Yes. California Rule of Court 2.550(c) presumes court records are open unless confidentiality is required by law, and probate filings carry that presumption. Anyone can read a decedent's estate file without being an heir, a creditor or an attorney. Individual documents can be sealed or redacted by court order, and public does not mean digitised: most county portals index only from the 1990s forward.
County by county. California has no statewide probate index, so identify the county where the decedent was domiciled at death and use that Superior Court's own case access page, reached through the Judicial Council directory at courts.ca.gov/find-your-court. Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Clara and Alameda all have confirmed public probate searches. Depth varies elsewhere, and some California courts still require a phone call to the clerk's probate division.
No. Each of the 58 counties runs its own Superior Court records system and there is no shared index. The claim that more than 28 California counties use one case management platform traces to a 2019 vendor press release, and in any case a court's choice of platform says nothing about whether it exposes probate to public search, for which years, or at what depth.
Not in the largest market. Los Angeles Superior Court charges $4.75 for each probate name search whether or not it returns a result, then $1.00 per page for the first five pages of a document, $0.40 per page after that, capped at $40.00 per document. Many other county indexes are free to search, and courthouse public terminals generally are, but the per-page copy fee attaches as soon as you ask for documents.
Government Code section 70627 sets plain copies at $0.50 per page, comparing and conforming a copy with the original at $1.00 per page on top of the certificate fee, and a clerk record search that exceeds 10 minutes at $15.00. Government Code section 70626 sets certification of a copy at $40.00 and lodging a will with the clerk at $50.00. Counties add local charges, so check the court's published schedule before ordering a batch.
They differ by property type, and the widely quoted figure covers only one of them. The $208,850 limit under Probate Code section 13100 applies to personal property for deaths on or after 1 April 2025. For real property the affidavit limit under section 13200 is $69,625, and a petition to determine succession to the decedent's primary residence under sections 13151 to 13154 reaches up to $750,000. Section 890 is the mechanism that adjusts these figures, and they key off the date of death.
California sets no outer deadline for completing an administration but does set interim ones. An inventory and appraisal is due within four months of letters under Probate Code section 8800, the creditor claim window runs to the later of four months after letters or 60 days after notice to that creditor under section 9100, and a petition for final distribution or a status report is due within one year of letters, or 18 months where a federal estate tax return is required, under section 12200.
Proposition 19 narrowed the parent-child reassessment exclusion from February 2021. An heir who does not occupy the inherited property as their principal residence loses the exclusion and the property is reassessed to current market value. An heir who does move in is excluded only up to the existing taxable value plus roughly $1,000,000, set at $1,044,586 through 15 February 2027, with value above that added back, and the occupancy must be continuous rather than a single year.
