Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

It depends on what you are doing. A deed is simple to prepare. As is often the case, the devil is in the details. You need the prior deeds and perhaps a title review to assure the starting point. If you have a prior title policy, that is most helpful. There are recording fees depending on the county. There may be documentary transfer tax fees unless you have an exemption. These fees are based on the sales price or value of the property. Your deed may also violate a "due on sale or transfer clause" in the mortgage. Having the loan called would be an unplesant surprise. You may want or need a title policy to assure the recipient has clear title to the property. You need to assure these are no hidden issues (like a community interest in property titled in only one spouses name). Note that if you are transferring title fromn a deceased person, you may need a probate court order to transfer title.

Thsi is only a sampling of the issues. There are many more. While your question is simple, getting this done right is not. Screwing up title can be extremely expensive to fix,and may require a quiet title action. Talk wit counsel or a title officer to be sure you get this right.

If you proceed on you own, keep my contact information. We are happy to charge you legal fees to fix the problems after the fact.

Mr. Christian gives a good answer. Just to correct your understanding of how title terminology and procedures work, though, you should be aware that asking to "change a deed" is an extremely expensive proposition. Deeds are not usually changed and they require a court order after a trial to "reform" the deed. A deed is a record of a transaction transferring ownership of real property. You don't usually go back and change it after the fact, especially if there have been any loans or other transactions recorded after it, because that would create a huge mess.

What you most likely really are asking about is changing record ownership, known as "title" for short, not an old deed. Doing that is very simple. You just record a new deed transferring title from whomever holds title now to whomever they want to transfer title to.

As simple as that sounds, however, Mr. Christian is correct that screwing up the wording of the transfer, or making a transfer that affects existing loans or that has serious tax consequences (which pretty much ALL transfers of real property do) can be a VERY expensive event. So unless you are doing a simple standard purchase/sale of the property with knowledgeable real estate agents and title officers involved, you need to consult with a lawyer before you do any kind of title change.

If you are trying to deed property to someone else, it is very simple and rather inexpensive. If you are trying to correct title and someone else is involved that is adverse to you, it may require a lawsuit and a substantial more amount of money. So that is going to depend on what it is that is wrong with the deed.