Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

The homestead exemption in California is automatic. It does not protect your property from creditors enforcing involuntary liens, but merely provides an exemption. Putting the property in trust does not affect the homestead exemption, nor does putting it in trust also provide any othe form of protection from creditors.

There are two partially-overlapping exemptions, one automatic, one requiring filing a declaration. Placing your property in a revocable trust, of which you are the trustee while you are alive, does not disqualify you from filing a declaration of homestead.