Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Without seeing the trust documents there is no way to say for sure exactly where you stand, but most likely the trust owns the house and will receive the proceeds of the sale. Therefore an abstract of a judgment you have against the beneficiary will not reach it. What you will most likely need to do is obtain a writ of execution and levy on any trust distribution to the judgment debtor, and serve that on the trustee. This is a pretty tricky area of the law and depending on the amount of your judgment it is probably worth consulting with an attorney on this in person.

You should record the abstract of judgment immediately. It will automatically attach as a lien whenever the judgment debtor acquires interest in real property in the county where the abstract is recorded.

You need to consult with counsel. There are too many variables here. It will not hurt to record the abstract, but it might not help (for example, the trustee sells the property, the proceeds go into the trust, and then are distributed. In this case, your lien is not paid from the proceeds of the sale). Without more information it is not possible to advise you, and no competent counsel is going to provide advice on a specific problem in a public forum (for attorney-client privilege reasons).

If you have an enforceable judgment against someone, you can record it with any County Recorder in the state, and it operates as a lien against any property on which your defendant debtor is listed on title. It does not affect anyone else's property, including trusts that may own and hold property in which that person may have a beneficial interest.

If properly created and administered, you and other creditors of his will likely never see any of that trust money. That is one of the many benefits of a trust. The trust could buy and provide for his use things like houses, cars, airplanes, pay his credit card debts for his personal expenses. He could 'own' nothing and still live the high life.