California Probate Rules

CALFORNIA Probate Rules

Probate hearings in California are held in the Probate Department of the Superior Court in the county where the decedent lived at the time of their death. The petition should be filed at the Superior Court office located in the county in which the decedent resided. This can be found on the county of record’s website. Every county provides the blank fillable forms needed. This is not a simple process, and the forms need to be correct, or the judge will delay your process. The forms may be hand written if legible- print very carefully. All documentation submitted by pdf must be clear and readable.

The Probate Department handles decedents' estates, trusts, and conservatorships. It also hears petitions to establish fact of birth, death, and marriage as well as elder abuse petitions. 

 

·        Probate time limits:

In California, executors or administrators of estates have one year to complete probate. However, extensions can be requested when delays occur. The probate process generally takes 12 to 18 months.

·        Probate not necessary if under this dollar amount total:

Probate is not necessary if the total value of the assets at the time of death does not exceed $166,250. This figure does not include vehicles and certain other assets. Since real estate property in California is high cost, many families/heirs find they will need to go through probate. You will need a copy of any mortgage payment on the real estate and HOA bills.

·        Hearing dates:

The court could set a hearing date 15 days after the petition is filed. However, most probate courts set hearings between 30 and 45 days from filing. Some courts still allow virtual hearings, see your county website.

·        Notice requirements

Notice must be given by first class mail or by personally delivering a copy to each person or entity at least 15 days prior to the hearing. Each person should receive a copy of the "Notice of Petition to Administer Estate" showing the hearing date information.

·        Factors for attorney's fee

Rule 7.955(b) of California Rules of Court contains a list of factors courts may consider in determining a reasonable attorney's fee. These factors include the experience, reputation, and ability of the attorney performing the legal services, and the time and labor required.

Initial filing fee for a probate case in California is $435. 

Additional fees 

• Petitions: For the appointment of a personal representative, objections to petitions, or other court filings
• Copies: To certify copies of court documents
• Notice: To publicize probate notice

Fee waivers If you can demonstrate in writing financial hardship, you can apply to the court for a fee waiver. 

Attorney fees California is one of a handful of states that allows attorneys to bill according to a percentage of the total value of the estate. For example, lawyers can collect 2.5 percent in fees. The executor of the estate can claim the same fee. 

 

Sub-to Get Rich Candy Cigarettes

You are thinking of investing in real estate. It seems impossible to get in while rates are so high. These gurus keep advertising they have the secrets to success and your American Dream. Come smoke the candy cigarettes.

OKAY I'm going to list things to make this easy:

Why a Realtor needs to be cautious.

Why a seller needs to ask deep questions.

Almost 99% of Assumable loans have conditions to be met to allow the assumption.

Assuming a loan can take 60-90 days and the buyer is on their own without any help.

In a normal loan process there is a loan officer who vets the paperwork and assists with letter writing.

Servicers are not making money. Many have been taken over and merged due to market troubles.

For a lender to generate a new loan it costs $10000-$12000 in vendor and employee processing.

Servicers are not allowed to charge any processing, underwriting or all the vendor fees unless there

is a fee noted in the original promissory note.

Servicers work for trustees who own the note, the trustees can tell servicers to slowly turn down assumptions due to cost. Sometimes there are several trustees to get the nod from.

Generally the person doing subject to has low income/self employed showing no income and thinks this is the golden goose to buy real estate.

Pace Morby and Grant Cardone display themselves as driving Lamborghinis when they don't own one.

Pace's class costs $5000 initial for nothing, then another $5000 for the real candy cigarettes. There are his minions in the class who  cheerleader to "help" lay people become "rich quick investors."

There is no such thing as due on sale insurance, do not be bamboozled.

Managing real estate is HARD. I've built and operated 91 properties, it takes skill to find the LOCATION, the cash flow, the tenant who doesn't die, get divorced, or flake... construction costs keep rising and though I was licensed contractor and built houses for Lennar nothing is easy. There is great financial risk, blisters on your hands, and worry.

Gurus say that after the half way point in an amortization schedule more is paid to principle and this is the secret sauce. Well sure it's nice but you still need to be able to make the principle interest taxes insurance and HOA monthly costs. None of these buyers understand the concept, it just sounds sweet. The buyer will not know anything about the actual promissory note or amort schedule until they close and some never get the note. Sellers rarely have a copy in a box. They need to order all the riders and note from the servicer.

Assuming a VA loan causes a hardship for the seller. Seller loses a percentage of his eligibility to purchase.

Agents are responsible to disclose this to seller and there are forms to sign. Rarely does the agents even get the seller to sign the forms because they don't know.

With a VA loan if the sub to goes bad the agents are liable.

Never ever do a sub to with a protected class. If seller is elderly which is often the case the heirs or the seller can come back and sue the agents and buyer for causing harm. 

Trustee or servicing attorney is going to come after you with: 

Accusations of Forgery, Bank Fraud, Wire Fraud, 

Financial Schemes, Identity Theft, Concealment, 

Mail Fraud, RICO Act, Equity Skimming, 

violation of the Consumer Protection Act, and Money Laundering. Buyer needs a nice $40000 checking account to front the attorney fees at $400 an hour. Each court appearance will cost $9000.

Heirs will claim you defrauded the 'old guy.

Veteran is eligible for free legal aid.

Seller sells for higher price and agents win larger commission, all sounds great BUT when the buyer fails to pay they cannot sell as the value is not there.

Cost to foreclose is minimum of $100000. if buyer doesn't fight it. During that time period of a year or three no payments are made and the lender jumps in and forecloses, seller loses everything.

Lender foreclosing on seller's credit harms them for seven years. It shows long after the loss.

Insurance is very dangerous. Adding "buyer" to policy State Farm, Farmers, Allstate, Mercury and Chubb all deny these claims. The real estate is not covered at all. Roof damage, it's on you and tenant won't pay for uninhabitable home.

Changing insurance to buyer name alerts the servicer/lender in days. The loss payee notice to servicer/lender sends the file to a different division to be tracked. Often they put forced place insurance at four times the cost in the seller's name to cover the lender. Therefore buyer will pay for two policies at exorbitant cost.

Insurance right now is a nightmare. Any state that had disasters the underwriters are or already have put moratoriums on writing new policies. It's 98% likely buyer is going to need new insurance. The insurance agents do not want to write policies where the title is funky and there is a sub to because it entangles them in lawsuits.

Changing title in any way is a sale, excepting a FAMILY TRANSFER DEED. It is fraud to lie on the transfer deed. It's a transfer deed and servicer/lender gets a copy thus notifying or triggering. Transfer deed makes the property taxes increase in the months ahead. Buyer might not be able to afford the jump.

The gurus claim that buyers don't need title insurance. They joke about condoms, yes really in the seminars. However when it comes time to sell or the are forced to refinance because servicer called the note the title is a nightmare mess. If the seller is still alive and willing to play ball maybe they can get a notary to the seller to fix the transfers. Often the buyer puts the title in a LLC which they never keep current with the Secretary of State in the state where they registered. The buyer who doesn't have good credit to qualify for a loan isn't always the best with paperwork.

These guru classes cost $5000 -$10000 which would be better spent on down payment and trips to the library where the same information is available for free.

IF things go bad the seller cannot get a modification or forbearance which were offered in 2021.

When the servicer finds out they often dump the loan off in groups to the real nasty servicers like SPS.

Seller bankruptcy notice 99% goes to servicer. The bankruptcy court requires seller to disclose every loan on their credit report. If seller lies to the court they can be thrown out. Bankruptcy notice halts receiving payments and accelerates many extra costs. Buyer can get stuck with an additional $20000- $50000 in legal fees that the servicer imposes.

When seller dies and heirs go to probate, the probate court also notices the servicer. Payments are halted, fees incur.

The 1098 interest form goes to seller. Seller cannot re-assign the 1098. Buyer can't legally claim the interest unless the seller contracts with a collection servicer for a fee of 15% who acts as intermediary. These middle men are not that timely in handing over monthly payments and late fees incur and show on seller's name. Buyer cannot prove he made timely payments if they ever go to get a loan.

Most Realtors involved in these do not know RESPA laws and find themselves advising without a NMLS license. There are fines and jail time. Do not ever talk about rate, terms, payments...

Most licensed loan officers don't want to risk getting in the middle of this and the company they work under forbids it.

Sure it sounds honky dory to get a 2.75% mortgage and seller carries 100% but the property will never cash flow in California or any high cost state.

Why would servicers want to subsidize investors to do sub-to? They do not. They would rather see a new loan in the portfolio fully qualified at 7.5% where the machines make money. 

Now coming out of the 2008 shadows are the apps that advertise listings claiming the interest rates are two percent without an APR or any truthful details. You've seen them... With Roam is one that got Venture seed funding of a million five. This app searches recordings and assumes the rate on FHA and VA loans without really knowing any of the terms. They charge $5500 nonrefundable to help a buyer find these deals. The broker Steve Bintz is licensed in thirty states so he uses his license to advertise listings claiming to have the secret sauce to get buyers in. The app then charges a one percent finders fee/ brokerage fee for leading buyers to holy water. The app has no particular connection with the Servicer or Trustee, they don't know what paperwork is required, they don't actually process anything. However they do charge the money. On their website they display rates:

They are not licensed to advertise interest rates for residential mortgages, but they do. Reminds me of all the modification shops that cropped up out of the cracks of 2008- those guys got fined and went to jail. 

I know of eleven current cases in California and Arizona where servicer called the sub to note in September 2023 so servicers and trustees are finding recourse. Several of these buyers never could qualify and there is not enough equity to sell. Servicer refuses to short sale and puts up fraud accusations. This trend is a moving target. We will see how it unfolds. 

Caroline Gerardo, 

NMLS# 324982

 

(949) 784-9699

apply here:

https://my.quickmortgage.app/homehub/signup/cbarbeau@masonmac.com?from_mobile_share=true

https://cgbarbeau.blogspot.com/

 

 

hometown heros

Hometown Heros is a second that is due when you sell.

It's a mortgage loan program that might help keep your

low interest rate first while accessing equity to purchase

another property or add additional housing space.

Problem is you cannot refinance when or if rates go down as you

owe 101% of the value. Values are not rising.

If you found a single family or duplex and added a ADU

you need cash to pay for the ADU and installation.

3-4 units you need a much larger down payment and does not work.

If you could find a single family with existing ADU that works with your plan.

Live in the ADU and find a tenant for the house.

Short term rental is more difficult as FHA or conventional lender appraisal

does not give you value for the furniture or not real estate assets

that a STR for sale has as part of the price.

STR can get banned in a city in the future.

FHA uses the value of long term rental income knowing

that you may be forced to that as the only choice.

We cannot know what the future brings. If your business

model is to invest in AirBnB or STR style management

you must closely monitor the tenants you rent to.

Being the neighborhood frat party house or Rave house

is going to get your neighbors up in arms and limit the future.

Clean up your trash, manage professionally, vet your tenants.

The above Case Shiller housing price index does not show

huge appreciation in residential real estate since the last crash

in 2008. Do not rely upon valuation increasing to carry you.

AI Property Managment

 

List 

AI Property Management Platforms 
 Zuma, 
Elise AI, 
Perq, and 
LeaseHawk.
Hyro, 
RentGPT, 
ACE, 
Digital Human, 
DootLoop
Buildium property management and rent collection
Innago
Trudi
TRIGIGA, 
GeoPhy, 
Enodo, 
Autohost, 
Propic. 
River for showings
Resident Spark - leads
Certn- screening
Doorloop
Livly
Vacasa
Yardi
cozy.co free
Trello work flow and day to day operations
QuickBooks

CRM Sales Tools For Real Estate

Customer Relationship Management Apps and Tools Reviews

Software that magically brings in closed sales?

Gets rid of Google Documents or Excel Spreadsheets?

Makes clients always love you and call when they are ready?

'kinda 'maybe not so fast in today's world where you receive 300 emails a day

So what resource works and what is the most efficient and least cost?

Most of them use the following pieces or tools to analyze how hot or cold

your "lead" is, how often they open your emails, HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content ; JQuery or Java Script library, Google Analytics graphs, Alpine SG's Sendible to manage social media;  

IDX plug in Multiple listing Service property search search capabilities.

The tool must prioritize contacts, be video and mobile, link to social media posting on a schedule, organize and produce ads, analyze results, authenticate email and phone number, have unique content for a city market or allow customization.

I'm a hater of chat bots, they slow the process. Should work with Zillow if agent is paying for Premier  or Realtor.com or Redfin. Guides, neighborhood data, census track information, crimes reports, school ratings.

Make the search appear unique, deep, special, and fine tuned to  your customer profile needs.

Don't know who your customer is? This is another topic to ponder and develop.

Advanced search to property type, size, price, location, amenities, map search,  zoom in and out,  User experience to return to the topics. EO for your results landing pages with Custom Links and Property Type Labels. Use recognizable, highly indexable names such as "

Matterport

 line camera with which to create 2D and 3D images, videos, floor plans, and even virtual reality. Matterport gives you a virtual option to conduct home views and tours

Shortstack

 line camera with which to create 2D and 3D images, videos, floor plans, and even virtual reality. Matterport gives you a virtual option to conduct home views and tours

 Streaming via Facebook i

Zoom

Docusign

Dubb or Jungo

Vanity domain and company website

How many contacts/ how much memory space

Can you take the data with you and block when you leave

Excel upload

So here I have ranked CRM services for Real Estate. All show the price for one user (some don't have single user). Cost being important as they all have the same software. Some add an extra IDX website but as soon as you cancel all that SEO work goes down.

Goldmine

Mine is now free and I own all the data, not shared with a brand which is my preferred way to market. I create all my own content and rarely or never use our marketing department flyers unless is for a complex product which the legalese is important for mortgage for real estate.

My reviews below are mostly focused on CRM for Realtors .

I bought Goldmine when they first came out with the software. Always been happy I owned my data and didn't share it with companies I worked for.

Pipedrive

https://pipedrive.com/

$15 month Low Cost

track leads, spot opportunities, measure key activities, streamline sales workflows and focus on sales 

24/7 support

• Two-way email sync
• Customizable email templates
• Email open and click tracking
• Automation workflows

Monday Sales

https://monday.com/

$10 to $24 per monthly depends on plan

• Two-way email syncing with Gmail and Outlook
• Quotes and invoices
• Gantt, timeline, and calendar data views
• Guest access
• Up to 250 automations and 250 integrations per month
• B2B

Salesforce

https://salesforce.com

$25 month Low Cost

Datasheet/AI/easy to employ

Hubspot

https://hubspot.com

$50-$1750 month with 12 month contract Expensive

Some free tools.

manage contacts, sales, pipeline, digital marketing, and lead nurture. It has six different programs. Many ways to analyze progress. Tech stack for everything. Try the free sample and play with it 

Boomtown

https://boomtown.com

$1000 monthly for 3 users no single user Expensive

Website support, Coaching, Lead generation. 

IDX website, CRM, drip mail, mobile

I find Realtors are intimidated by the hours of working this type of marketing as you want to be live talking to leads, this takes labor of love. I ranked them high because visually it's easy and they provide support which many do not help you when you see the spinning loop or "rotating cursor". This problem dates from early versions of the UNIX operating system and DR-DOS utilities in the 1980s. I helped develop a DOS system in 1988 for WAMU, the ancient days of the internet.

Nice drip mail that is easy to set or change. Coaching !! And Ustudio video.

KVCore

https://kvcore.com

$749 monthly Expensive and stuck with a year contract.

IDX website, lead capture, CRM, drip mail, mobile

video and voice text by Bomb-bomb plugin this is an excellent tool to use

Video is vital to market growth. KV core has great tutorials.

Can add in lender rates. Unique looking websites is a plus. Listing tools that the others do not have. Open house apps and flyers

FollowUpBoss

https://followupboss.com

$69 lower cost

IDX website, lead capture, CRM, drip mail, mobile, multi websites

no contract

24/7 help

I ranked lower as the dashboard is not clean and original, content stale. However I like that it can record calls for training. They do not provide content or templates.

Sierra Interactive acquired by ASG 2022

https://sierrainteractive.com

$399 middle range cost

IDX website, lead capture, CRM, drip mail, mobile

Newer player in the market with little to no support to get you started

CINC

https://cinc.com

$600 month expensive

 Automated campaigns, Lead generation, Marketing campaign management, Website creation, Banking integration.  Organizes buyer and seller leads from generation to close. Advertising to collect warm leads. 

Email templates don't work. No ability to make your own ads. Has an auto dialer. Alex A1 bot is annoying. Old data bad leads. No map filter.

Text customer in the app.

Capsule

https://capsule.com

$18 month for 30000 contacts Low cost

Cloud-based platform that's competitively priced. It's easy to use and integrates well with Google Workspace / G Suite, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp, and Xero. 

Not much back end help or how-to videos

Real Geeks

$299 Middle range cost

IDX website, lead capture, CRM, drip mail, mobile

Lion Desk

$39 month Low Cost premier $139

IDX website, lead capture, CRM, drip mail, mobile

• Cold-calling power dialers
• A digital ad portal
• Custom landing pages
• A click-to-call power dialer for an additional $49 per month

Others I've tested but don't have an opinion or think they rank too low to add the details. There are thousands of CRM software apps. Ask for, no demand a free trial and no contracts.

ACT!

Brivity

Chime

Chum Zero

Click up

Close

Contactually

Creatio

Engage Bay

Freedom

Fresh Sales

Highrise

IXACT

Lean Data

Less Annoying CRM

Market Leader

Odoo

Optify

Oracle Net Suite

Outreach

Placesetter

Podio Citrix

Real Gear

Realty Juggler

REI pro

Rethink CRM

Sales Aloft

Shout Boss

Spiff

Sugar

Thryv

Toronto company - contact businesses 

Vulcan 7

Wise agent

Wise agent

Zen desk

Zoho

Other tools you will want the CRM to do for you or automate:

SISU for tracking/goals/campaigns/commission/transaction management

Bombbomb video by email plug in

MailChimp

Slack

WIX

Hootsuite for social media $99 a month

expensive for teams

Problem with any canned social media platform is the content is boring

User needs to create unique posts.

• Twitter
• Facebook groups
• Facebook pages
• LinkedIn profiles
• LinkedIn pages
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Pinterest (publishing only)

Loomly for social media $26 month

all those plus TIK Tok

Agorapulse

Sprout Social

SEMRush

Talkwalker

Brandwatch

Comment, chat box