Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Finding A Living Trust

If you are a beneficiary, you are entitled to receive a copy of the page that mentions the gift to you. Usually the entire trust is not circulated. Contact her trustee to make that determination.

Re: Finding A Living Trust

I fully agree with Mr. Cohen. If, however, you don't know who the trustee is, or perhaps aren't even 100% certain she had a living trust, there are several steps you might take to locate the trustee.

First, if she also had a will, and that will needed to be probated, the probate division of the county court would have records of a probate proceeding which would probably indetify the trustee, if there is a trust as well as a will.

Second, ask the close relatives whom she might have trusted sufficiently to name them as successor trustee. Or, if you know who her lawyer was, ask the lawyer.

Finally, sooner or later, a successor trustee on a living trust will, sooner or later, start making deals that will require identifying himself or herself in that capacity - closing bank accounts, filing tax returns, selling assets, paying off debts, etc. Some of these activities will be sufficiently public so that you, or your investigator, can determine the trustee's identity.

By the way, I believe there is a provision of the probate code that requires successor trustees to notify beneficiaries of the change of trustee following the death of the trustor-trustee.

The most visible evidence of the existence of a trust is property records at the county recorder's office showing the initial transfer of real property from her individual ownership into trust ownership (as a part of the process known as "funding the trust").