Recovering Property from a California Estate or Trust
When a house, account, or other asset has left an estate or trust, a California court can order it back. A petition under Probate Code section 850 asks the court to determine who actually owns property that one person holds and another claims, and to order it conveyed.
The petition that moves property back
Probate Code section 850 is the mechanism California uses to decide who owns disputed property and to move it. A guardian or conservator, a personal representative or interested person in a decedent’s estate, or a trustee or interested person as to trust property may petition where property is held by one party but claimed to belong to another, where a party has a claim to property held by someone else, where a written contract to convey real property or transfer personal property could be specifically enforced, or where trust property is claimed to be subject to a creditor of the settlor. The petition must set forth the facts on which the claim is based, and the court may order conveyance or transfer. Where the property left an elder’s hands, the same facts frequently support a financial abuse claim, since depriving a person of a property right includes doing so by agreement or donative transfer.
Sources: Probate Code s.850 - Petition to determine title and order conveyance · Welfare and Institutions Code s.15610.30 - Financial abuse of an elder or dependent adult · Verified 2026-08-04.
The mistake that costs people the asset
People often assume that winning a trust contest returns everything. It does not. A contest decides whether a document is valid. If the house was deeded away, or the account retitled, while the person was still alive, that asset was gone before the trust ever operated on it. Invalidating the trust wins the document and leaves the property where it sits.
Recovering it takes a property claim — usually an 850 petition, often paired with financial elder abuse, which reaches lifetime transfers that a contest cannot.
Common patterns
| What happened | Why it is recoverable |
|---|---|
| A deed signed months before death, transferring the home to one child | Title is held by one party, claimed by the estate; capacity and undue influence are live |
| An account retitled to joint ownership with a caregiver | Survivorship may be defeated where the change was procured wrongfully |
| Assets never actually transferred into the trust | Property claimed to belong to the trust though held outside it |
| Trust property sold to an insider below value | Breach of loyalty; see trustee removal and surcharge |
Act before the trail cools
Property claims live or die on records: the deed and its notary, the bank’s signature card, the escrow file, the medical notes around the signing date. Those are obtainable, but institutions purge on retention schedules and a sold property can pass to a buyer with no notice of the dispute. Check your contest deadline as well — the two clocks are different, and the shorter one usually governs what you do first.
Need help with legal fees?
We litigate select cases on contingency, with no upfront fees.
Costs are separate from the fee, and whether you are responsible for them is set out in the written agreement before you sign anything.
How contingency fees work in California
A contingency fee means the attorney is paid from what is recovered rather than by the hour, so a beneficiary who cannot fund litigation out of pocket can still bring a claim. California regulates these agreements closely. Under Business and Professions Code section 6147, the agreement must be in writing and the attorney must give the client a duplicate copy, signed by both, when the contract is made. It must state the agreed contingency rate; how disbursements and costs incurred in prosecuting or settling the claim will affect that fee; and to what extent the client could be required to pay for related matters. Unless the matter falls under section 6146, the agreement must also state that the fee is not set by law and is negotiable. These are not formalities: failure to comply with any provision of section 6147 makes the agreement voidable at the client’s option, leaving the attorney entitled only to a reasonable fee.
Sources: Business and Professions Code s.6147 - Contingency fee contracts · Verified 2026-08-03.
Not every matter suits a contingency arrangement, and the firm does not take every case on one. Whether yours qualifies depends on the facts, the likely recovery, and the assets actually available to satisfy a judgment. Ask when you call.
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