Probate and Trust Real Estate Agent in Los Angeles County

If you are the executor, administrator or successor trustee for a property in Los Angeles County, you may not live anywhere near it. Often the home belonged to a parent, and the person handling the sale is a son or daughter in another part of the county, another state, or another country. We are a two-person team based in Manhattan Beach, and estate and trust sales are a growing part of our practice. They come up in all kinds of places, including a long way from the beach cities.

Why the county matters

In a probate, the case is generally filed with the superior court in the county where the person lived at death. For a Los Angeles County resident that means the Los Angeles court, and the hearings are held downtown at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, which is a trip and a wait for anyone not nearby. If the person lived in another county or another state, where the case is filed depends on where they lived and where the property sits. That is a question for your attorney before it is a question for us.

Whether you hold Full Authority or Limited Authority decides whether the sale needs a confirmation hearing and can be overbid in the courtroom. Under Limited Authority a confirmed sale generally has to reach at least ninety percent of the probate referee's appraised value. Our probate FAQs explain the difference, and the timeline shows where the sale fits.

A trust sale is a different path

If the home sits in a living trust that was properly funded, there may be no probate at all. A successor trustee can generally sell without a confirmation hearing and without the referee's appraisal. That removes much of the court timing, but you still owe the beneficiaries a defensible process. In practice that means documenting how the property was priced, how it was marketed, and why you accepted the offer you did.

Some estates are a mix: a trust holds part of the property and probate handles the rest, or a house was never retitled into the trust. Sorting out which route you are on is the first job, and it belongs with your attorney.

Selling from a distance

Once you are appointed, the house is your responsibility, including keeping it secured and maintained. That is hard to do from another state. We coordinate the clean-out crews, estate sale companies, storage, movers and repairs, and we keep you informed so you do not have to be there for each step. Trevor Plunkett spent two decades in construction, which helps in judging which repairs are worth the estate's money and which are not.

One county, many markets

Los Angeles County runs from the beach to the desert edge, and its prices and buyers vary far more than a countywide average suggests. A house in Lakewood and a house in Palos Verdes Estates have little in common as sales. We price against what has actually closed near your property and tell you plainly where that sits against a referee's appraisal.

What to have ready when you call

You do not need everything in order, but a few things shorten the first conversation. Know whether a probate case has been filed and whether you have been appointed yet, or whether there is a trust and who the successor trustee is. Have the address, and any recent property tax bill or insurance policy for the house. Know who has keys and whether anyone is living there, including tenants. If heirs disagree about selling, say so early. A sale goes more smoothly when the people who must agree have agreed before the house is listed, and we would rather hear that now than in the middle of escrow.

Sales we have closed

Probate and trust sales we have closed in Los Angeles County include:

• 6635 Bigelow Street, Lakewood, closed in 2025
• 17419 Falda Avenue, Torrance, closed in 2021
• 15607 Faysmith Avenue, Gardena, closed in 2017

We have also closed one in Orange County, at 684 Seaview Street in Laguna Beach, in 2024.

Who you would be working with

Michelle Plunkett is a licensed California real estate broker, a CPA, and a licensed attorney, and holds the Certified Probate Specialist designation. Those are the three disciplines an estate sale touches at once. We are two people, so you deal with us directly.

If the property is in the South Bay, we have written up each market separately: Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Where to start

Send us the address and tell us where the case stands. We will tell you what the property is worth as it sits and what the sale involves from where you are. If you are still working out what the role requires, read the duties of a personal representative and the mistakes we see most often.