There is a specific tool for this, and it is faster and cheaper than a civil lawsuit. A petition under Probate Code section 850 asks the probate court to decide who owns a particular piece of property and to order it back where it belongs.
It covers two very different situations: someone took something, or nobody took anything and the paperwork was simply never finished.
Situation one: the house that never made it into the trust
This is the most common 850 petition I file, and it involves no wrongdoing at all. Your parents signed a trust in 2009. The attorney prepared a deed. The deed was never recorded, or it was recorded and then refinanced back out of the trust and never put back. Your parent dies and the house is sitting in their individual name, which normally means a full probate.
If the evidence shows the settlor intended that property to be trust property, the court can confirm it as trust property without a probate. The evidence is usually the trust's own schedule of assets, the unrecorded deed, the attorney's file, and estate planning correspondence. It is a petition, a hearing, and if nobody objects it is relatively quick. Compared to a statutory-fee probate on a Los Angeles house, the savings are not small.
Situation two: someone took it
- A joint account created shortly before death that drained the estate to one child
- A car, jewelry, or cash removed from the house in the days after the funeral
- A deed signed during a final illness transferring the home to a caregiver
- A beneficiary designation changed by someone holding a power of attorney
- Trust property that a former trustee moved into their own name
The petition asks the court to determine title and order the property conveyed back. Where the taking was in bad faith, a companion provision allows the court to award twice the value of what was taken, along with attorney's fees. That is one of the few places in this area of law where the fee exposure runs meaningfully against the wrongdoer, and it changes settlement dynamics.
Why probate court instead of civil court
Probate judges handle these constantly, the schedule is usually faster than an unlimited civil case in Los Angeles, and the remedies are built for exactly this problem. A 850 petition also lets the court sort out the trust administration in the same proceeding rather than running two cases in two courthouses.
What we need to see
- The trust and every amendment, plus any schedule of trust assets
- The chain of title on any real property, which we pull from the county recorder
- The deed or account document that created the problem, and its date
- The estate planning attorney's file, especially any prepared but unrecorded deeds
- Bank records showing when a joint owner was added and by whom
“The unfunded trust petition is the closest thing to a happy ending in my dispute practice. Nobody is fighting. Everyone wants the same result. We are just cleaning up a deed that should have been recorded fifteen years ago, and the family gets to skip probate. I wish more of my litigation looked like that.”
Delia Vasquez-HartCost, honestly
Uncontested funding petitions are relatively contained work and we can often give you a realistic range at the outset. Contested recovery cases are hourly with a retainer, and they behave like any other litigation once someone files an objection: discovery, depositions, mediation, a year or more.
The math is worth doing before you file. Recovering a $40,000 account from a sibling who will fight to the end is frequently a losing trade even when you are entirely in the right. Recovering a house in Mar Vista almost never is.
Questions we get asked
My mother's trust says the house is trust property but the deed is in her name. Which controls?
The deed controls title, which is the problem. The trust language plus other evidence of intent is what supports a petition to fix it.
Can this be used for a bank account?
Yes. It is not limited to real property, though real property is the most common subject.
What if the person who took the property already sold it?
The court can reach the proceeds and can impose a constructive trust. Whether you actually collect depends on what that person still has.
Is there a deadline?
Different limitation periods can apply depending on the theory, and delay also damages the evidence. Treat it as urgent.
Next step
Order a property profile or grant deed history from the county recorder for the address in question, which costs very little and answers half the question immediately. Bring it and the trust to a free 45-minute consultation. Call (310) 555-0219.