The 6-Stage Probate Process, with R. Sam Price

0:02 Welcome to Probate Weekly and I probably say this regularly, but really one of my favorite attorneys to talk to and listen to and learn from is Sam Price out of Redlands, California. I learned a lot from [unclear]. I think we're working on a case from a couple weeks ago, but one of the leading probate attorneys, one of the leaders on the San Bernardino Bar Association, author, thought leader, and more importantly, great teacher on probate. Sam, thanks for coming back to Probate Weekly.

0:29 Well, it's a pleasure to be here. You know, since the last time you and I had the did the podcast, after that we went to dinner. We had a great dinner together. It's really good to see you in person and to get to know you and your business and your family. Thank you for having me on again.

0:42 My pleasure. I don't see that many people in real life on business. [laughter] I'll be honest with you. I you're one of a handful. So, don't give that one out. When people ask me, I tell them I don't go out to dinner. I don't go for lunches for business.

0:51 [laughter] Well, you know, I mean, like I started out the year wanting to lose 10 lb and after great dinners like that, I've only got 15 lb to go. [laughter] So I appreciate you, though.

1:00 Yeah, we're going the we're going the wrong way. Okay, well, let's not do that anymore. So, let's talk about probate cuz obviously, you're a thought leader and expert on the topic. I know I met you because I saw you speaking online at an event and I think that's always to me a sign of somebody who's a giver as well as has something to say when you're able to, I think, educate your colleagues. In this case, it was it was at the Bar Association, but really what I want to talk about your ebook title is the six-stage probate process. And again, this is fundamentals, but what I tell agents who call me all the time, they say, "I want to build a business in probate like you built. What do I do?" I always say, "Start with fundamentals. Learn the basics so that you can be of service to your customers and to the vendors you work with and the customers that come your way." So, let's talk about the six-stage probate process. I know that this is something that's fundamental in your business, your office, the way you run things. Let's walk through from the top. What's the first stage of the six-stage process?

1:53 Of course. So, this is the fundamentals of doing probate and there's nothing that I you're never going to find this in the probate code, but this is my own proprietary method of how I get through a probate case. And I developed it, Bill, because number one, I would my staff would be like, "Hey, Sam, what is What's next?" I'm like, "Oh my gosh, we got to figure this out." And my clients would say, "Well, what more needs to be done? What's the next step?" And so, I developed the six-stage probate process, and each stage has multiple steps inside of it, but it's kind of guides you through the entire probate process for a formal probate. Stage one is just getting organized. it is gathering up information and documents from the client. I am gathering a questionnaire, a death certificate. If there's a will, I'm gathering up the will. if there's some other documents that might help us, I'm I'm gathering up those things like a codicil or what have you, a deed to the property that the decedent had. So, I'm gathering information and documents to get an idea of where I'm going to go with this probate case. So, generally we're going to do a formal probate with this.

2:56 So, when we talk about this first stage, I think this is number one, you know, again, going back to fundamentals, if you start off on the right track, things seem to go a lot smoother. If you start off and cut some corners, those cut corners can rear their ugly head later on. What are some of the common areas people kind of want to rush In my experience, want to rush this, get started, but I don't have everything. I didn't really go through the house, you know, in detail. I'm missing a few things I think are out there. What are some of the things that happen if you don't start right and get everything that can later come back and cause a problem for you?

3:27 So, I'm finding things like I'm not getting enough addresses. So, my clients might have family members that they don't quite have the address for, and I say, "It's cool if you don't have the address, we got to go get it." And if you can't get it, you have to tell the court what you did to try to find that person. And so, I'll give them some tools to try to find some folks, and sometimes literally just a quickie internet search will find somebody. Sometimes you have to go a little dig a little deeper into internet

3:58 [laughter] yellow pages or white pages or I forget what they were called. I think they were called yellow pages. there's different directories. There's we could do a skip trace. there's different ways we could try to find folks. That's one issue that I find. Another issue is I want the deed. There's so many times when I have filed a probate matter in which the house wasn't in the decedent's name.

4:21 Right. It was either in a trust or they had transferred the property and the heirs didn't know. Well, let's let's set and break those down cuz I think those are two good areas to review. Getting addresses, so often times people say, "Well, you know, I have five siblings. I found three of them." The potential problem obviously is if you don't get that fourth and fifth and notice them properly, at some point they can raise a flag and say, "Hey, I didn't agree to this. I never got noticed. And you didn't have my address and the court might say, 'Well, hold on for a second. We're going to stop the train here and either start over again or their objection's going to have more weight because you didn't take the time to do the job properly up front.' Is that kind of a quick synopsis as to why we want to get everything we can up front?

5:03 That's right because if we don't have a person's address, we can't mail them a notification that we're opening up a petition for probate. And what we want to do is get make sure that everyone who has is entitled to be noticed on this gets noticed. It's the basics of due process under the Constitution that allows for parties that are affected to receive notice and an opportunity to be heard. Notice is what we mail them out. Opportunity to be heard is the court hearing.

5:28 And so what I've personal experiences are people who never got noticed. And for whatever reason, and it's not that the that the party who filed the probate avoided noticing them. They just didn't dig deep enough. And that adds to the resentment. And so what might have been a easily approved probate with full authority can end up being an objector. They have to hire an attorney. Everything goes under microscope. Everything slows down. And so, the advantage of getting that up front is avoiding that possibility or at least trying to limit that possibility down the road.

6:02 That's true. And so, if I could get a little bit more nuanced as well because we're talking about someone who's entitled to notice, but we don't know how their address. Sometimes my clients don't know all the parties in their family.

6:13 Mhm. This especially happens if it's a distant relative like it's a cousin or something. Now, I got to say I got so many cousins, Bill, I probably would have a I would have to really sit down and think about all my cousins and think of I certainly don't have all their addresses. So, it's not it's understandable that some people wouldn't have everyone's name or everyone's address, but knowing someone's name and not having their address is a different problem from not knowing their name or who what people exist. So, if we have the name but not the address, we go find the address. And we if we can't find the address, then we tell the court what we did to try to find that person. We might file some type of declaration of due diligence. The second issue is I don't know who all the people are. So, that at that point, then we have to get an heir finding company involved. And so, an heir finding And of course, we can search the databases, Facebook, 23andMe, whatever what these different places that we might try to find relatives of someone. But if we ultimately can't do that, we go to an heir finding company, which I've seen them cost, especially if there are heirs in other countries, thousands of dollars to do an heir finding search.

7:26 Yeah, I work with some that charge you me 15, 20% of the money they find, and it doesn't sound bad, you know, one hand. If someone calls you and has $100,000, you'd be glad maybe to pay them 20,000. Other hand, 20,000 is a lot of money to give up because you can't find an address. So, depends on where you are. The other one you mentioned that is very applicable to me and other real estate agents is the deed, checking it up front. And so I, you know, as a realtor, of course you have access to public records. We should be the ones giving the prospective customer the deed to say, "Hey, take this to your attorney. Here's what we found." Or order preliminary title report where we get go a step further and research that. So, as you mentioned, there are cases where people file a probate to discover the property was deeded in a trust, i.e., the whole probate thing is kind of a waste of time and money, correct? Or can it?

8:12 Yeah, because that's right. And I always talk to clients that there are three types of property that everyone has when they pass away. There is trust property, it's held in a trust and we have a copy of the trust and the trust controls it. Number two, there's probate property, something that must go through some type of probate process. And three, there is non-probate property. And non-probate property, for an example, might be real property, real estate, where there is a joint tenancy and there's a surviving joint tenant. That doesn't need a probate process. So, that's non-probate property. Now, if I have a house that my client comes to me and says, "Oh, my mom was the only owner of the property and she owned this house." I'm I think that that's probate property unless I see the deed and the deed I might say, "Oh, wait a minute. Your mom added your sister as a joint tenant and now she's surviving the sister's surviving, so now the property goes to your sister. It's non-probate property." Or if that property is held by the trustee of a trust, the mother held that property as a in a trust that she that was her trust, now that's trust property, so it's not a probate property. So, I'm looking to make sure that the house is probate property.

9:22 And there's another case I've seen where, you know, again, I'm the realtor, so they bring me they don't want the legal advice, they want it for free. I can't give them legal advice, but I can read a deed, and if it's a tenant common, oh, it don't worry, my mom and dad are hold the property. Right here it says mom and dad tenants in common like well actually it doesn't work that's [laughter] that's a whole another separate issue of you know whether it works and whether they're divorced or they're married or more importantly if they you know who died before who all those become different issues who had kids who had kids from a prior marriage who had kids together all this start to factor in and so that's just a lot of way of saying that getting the information up front early getting it to attorney when you file I think up front to get the right strategy in place you know sometimes it's not appropriate but it's a petition to determine who owns the property or it is a trust but there's a battle so there's a motion that would be appropriate for trust but getting the information up front as much as we can to the attorney is so critical okay so stage one's a lot I'm sorry go ahead

10:23 I'll tell you one other thing I've had happen Bill is I've had a prop property where it was held in the name of the decedent as trustee of her trust but we don't have a copy of the trust

10:34 Well that's a common one so what happens there yeah so we have to file a petition to remove that property from the trust because it doesn't exist so how can you say who the beneficiaries of the trust are who can you how can you say who is the trustee of the trust if you don't have a copy of the trust so that's been a problem and the court makes us look to see go chase down the notary the notary public that notarized it to see if that that person worked at a law firm and we might be able to find the attorney and then we might be able to find a copy of the trust I've really had to do a lot of due diligence when there's a situation where there's a house in a trust but we don't have a copy of the trust

11:09 And if it turns out there's in a now a copy that's not executed that becomes a legal contention will the judge accept that will he not accept that that's a whole court process to determine that it's not automatic oh wait I found a copy here but it's not signed right cuz maybe that's a prior version they didn't want to sign that on purpose that's why it's not signed or could be the right one but you don't have a signed copy so generally speaking though if you don't have a copy of the trust, is that the motion then is to take it out of the trust? I guess that's an 850 petition of some sort. But, that's going to be like a 6-month process, isn't it, at least? Everything

11:41 Yeah, so you've got to file a petition, get a court hearing. If your paperwork's right and timely, it'll get approved, but your hearing is, like you said, probably 3 to 6 months out from the time you file it, depending on the county and how backed up the court is, but that that process would allow that property to come back into the probate estate, so instead of being trust property, it's probate property. So, there's there's a couple of petitions there. One to get the property out of the trust, and then another petition get appointed as the personal representative to be able to accept that property into the probate estate.

12:10 So, assuming somebody now has done a good job and they've done everything possible, they got all the paperwork together. I'm sure you have some sort of checklist or instruction of what they're supposed to get. They come to you, they have everything there. What's the second step of the six-step process?

12:23 So, the six the first step ends after we have drafted and filed our client signs that petition, and we file the petition with the court. Cuz when we file the petition with the court, it's a point in time when we file that petition, and now the court has given us a court hearing date. That moves us into stage two. So, stage two is we have to publish in the newspaper, we have to mail out notification that we are filing a petition to administer the estate. we've got to check on our probate notes because the court could have some questions about some of the things we filed, or we might have filed something incorrectly, accidentally. that happens all the time. And so, we might have to correct some things by filing some paperwork with the court. then, we attend the court hearing. We might have to get a bond, a probate bond. And once we get letters, that puts us into stage three.

13:15 So, let's talk about stage two. Cuz there's all kinds of mines and that minefield I see along the way. Let me put ask about a couple that I've seen. Of course. So, you say, for example, publish in a newspaper. Now, it's It's I love newspapers. My father used to subscribe to three or four a day. I grew up in a newspaper household. I haven't touched a newspaper in a couple of years and I was a holdout with Wall Street Journal until recently. But a mistake I see people make when they do it themselves is they will I live in Redlands or I live in San Bernardino. I'll just publish it in that newspaper. It's not that simple though, is it? Depending on where the decedent lived, where they passed, there's some rules some very specific rules on how the publication has to be handled.

13:54 True and so the publication is supposed to come out in the city where the decedent lived. And so if there's no newspaper there, then it could be a paper newspaper of general circulation in the county. But it's supposed to be where the decedent lived. If the decedent lived in another state, let's say they lived outside of California, but they left real property in California. Well, the newspaper is supposed to come out in the city where the real property is located.

14:20 I've seen cases where people, you know, lived in Redondo Beach and they advertised in the Daily Breeze and the court said that's not the primary paper for Redondo Beach. And so it you know, just because you live there and you kind of know what paper people read, the court has some very specific rules on how this is done and I've seen this delay, you know, hearings and get rescheduled probably more in LA County I guess in San Bernardino because they're very particular I think in general LA. So you mentioned that. You also mentioned mailing out notices. So again, it's 2026. Are we really mailing out notices to members of the appropriate filing?

14:55 We are. mailing is probably the default, but there's some hacks for mailing notice. anyone who consents to electronic service can be served by email. And so we could email it to them. but there's a little form they have to sign in order to be emailed notices. You know, I want to go back. Let me tell you one more thing about newspaper publications and this is an important one. Newspapers in general either publish daily or weekly. There's not too much between. And so if your newspaper comes out on let's say Thursday, you have to publish the first publication at least 15 days before the court hearing date. Now, if you go to a weekly newspaper, it's going to take 3 weeks for you to be able to publish. So you're going to have to put out and in truth the weekly newspapers, they charge less. The dailies usually charge more. And because it just costs more to have that newspaper if it's daily. So, a lot of times you have to kind of determine all right, it's Wednesday. I missed the cutoff time to publish on a Thursday newspaper. Now I can't publish till the next Thursday, but if I do that, now my third publication date is past my hearing date and I won't have a proof of publication by the court hearing date.

16:14 So sometimes you have to move to a daily newspaper, which is a little more expensive, just to be able to make your cutoff time in order to get your newspaper proof of publication to the court in time for your hearing.

16:27 And we're getting some pretty fine points here, but that's the part that I enjoy, which is people say, "Well, does it make that big a difference? 2 days, you know, I got the thing 2 days late. Won't the judge accept it?" And the answer is

16:38 Yeah, that's a problem. [laughter] It's a problem, right? You They you know, the judge can I used to tell people I'm not an attorney. I can't give legal advice, but I can say I can say with confidence the judge can do just about anything they want, it seems like. Now, they may not do it, but they can and in LA, they probably aren't going to just kind of the way things work in LA County. Things are a little bit different.

16:58 Well, you know, I would say that when it comes to probate court, it's all about the paperwork. If your paperwork is right and tight, you're going to be good. And if it's not right and tight, a lot of talking is not going to get you out of what your responsibilities. I think other areas of law, there's less paperwork and more talking, but in probate it's more paperwork and less talk.

17:20 I used to go to court everyday in LA County and I would see, you know, very good attorneys who are very learned in other fields come into the probate court and try to talk to the judge into something and the judges they just want to move these cases along. And I'm watching this thing and the more you talk to the worse it's getting. Like just give it up. You're not the judge is not going to give it up just because you're you're learned. It depends I guess if you're if he knows you they'll they'll cut some slack for you in general. One of the things that that people also it's amazing how many attorneys don't really pay attention to. You mentioned the probate notes because to me it's kind of like turning in your final exam and getting a pre check before you can change the answers before the final or the hearing date that you submit your paperwork and then a representative of the court looks at it and points out deficiencies recommending the judge what to do and you have a chance to fix it. How important is that that you review those notes and then get a chance to at least address those deficiencies at the hearing or maybe even fix them before the hearing. How important is that in your process?

18:21 Well, probate notes are probably the most under rated thing about probate because if you're in civil court and you messed up your filing, that's just malpractice or you just blew your statute of limitations or what have you. In probate the court says, "Oh, by the way, you forgot something. You checked the wrong box. Could you please correct this?" And I'm saying it in a nice way but in the notes they say something different than that. But literally it is that great. It is you could, you know, be human and make some errors and the probate court has a lot of grace with you and they all you have to do is file some paperwork with the court. I usually file a supplement. A supplement usually clears probate notes and I explain what the probate note is and I have a response to that note being able to clear that deficiency. So, the it's huge to be able to look at probate notes and there's no such thing as far as I know in any other area of the law that like a probate note.

19:14 It varies by county, varies by state. In LA County in particular, we have a great system of probate notes. I know in San Bernardino as well, very good. Orange County as well, very good. So, definitely worth looking into. You mentioned another part that I find trip people up. And again, I used to crack up and I'd be in court when the judge would say, "Okay, well, we're going to approve this. We can either Now comes time for the bond. I can give you limited authority for only $20,000 bond or full authority for an $800,000 bond. Which do you want to go?" And the customer the client will always turn to the attorney and say, "Go the cheaper one cuz it sounds like they're going to save money." Why is perhaps a $20,000 bond way more expensive than a bond up to $800,000?

19:51 Well, here's the deal about bond. The probate bond has an annual premium. That's another one. Yeah, so each year you're paying a cost to have that bond in place. Now, the issue is that if the bond is high, sometimes the clients won't qualify for it. I've had clients not qualify for bond. I have a client right now. she had a recent bankruptcy. So, she's you know, she's not showing too good that she's too frugal with her money. But, at the same time, she's only one stepping up to take care of this estate. Now, she the probate my probate bond agent told me I can get her qualified for up to $35,000 bond. And a $35,000 bond might cost just over 300 bucks a year. luckily, the court appointed her with a $10,000 bond and gave her full authority. So, that that we lucked out on.

20:46 Well. we had bond waivers filed with the court, so that that that went through just fine. So, one issue could be that whether or not someone qualifies for bond. Because if the court orders that my client file with bond serve with bond that and they can't qualify for it, then the issue is they won't be able to get appointed.

21:04 Right. The second issue with bond is besides not qualifying for the bond is the cost of the bond. You know, imagine my client just lost a loved one, probably had to pay for an expensive funeral or burial. they didn't expect this expense and now they have to keep up the cost of the mom's house and now you stick them with the I've seen a $6,000 a year probate bond premium.

21:32 And so you start adding up the cost and they're like, "Gosh, I mean if it was just one of these things I probably could afford it, but if you hit me with all these different things all at once, I can't afford this right now." So maybe they can qualify for bond, but it's so expensive that they can't afford it. That's the other problem with the bond is affordability and qualification of bond.

21:52 And they may be inheriting a $2 million house a year from now or 2 years from now, but you got to pay for the bond now is the challenge before you can get your letters approved and that's the challenge for many people is managing that that interim period where you're now running a business called the probate estate and there's expenses with it and if you don't have the capital or cash to deal with it gets expensive. On the other hand, you don't want to go to limited authority versus full authority if you all can if you can avoid it. Talk a little bit about the strategic decision of trying to get your class your client on full authority even if they pay for a bond versus a limited authority.

22:28 Well, part of this the tools that I have to be able to ask the court to reduce the bond is either bond waivers. I could have the all the persons all the heirs of the estate waive a bond and maybe the court might reduce the bond or eliminate it. but I can also ask the court for two more there's two more levers I can pull to ask the court to reduce it. The one is that place the cash of the estate into a blocked account for the estate. So a blocked account would be an account at a bank where the funds cannot be withdrawn without a further court order. So now the personal representative doesn't have access to the cash. The second the last lever that I've got to be able to reduce the bond is to maybe ask for limited authority. Now the biggest thing when someone passes normal people, and I'm a normal person, have a house.

23:25 You sure? I am, Bill. You say that with confidence, Sam. I'm just Plain vanilla. Plain [laughter] vanilla. If you tell people if you can tell people you're normal, I don't know if that makes you normal. I'm just kidding.

23:34 Just say what I have what I own is I have a house, I have a bank account, I have a car. I have a retirement account, but those have that's non-probate property cuz I have beneficiaries' names. I have life insurance, I have beneficiaries' names. That's non-probate property. So the stuff that's going to go through probate is my house, my car, my bank account, if I don't have it in a trust.

23:54 [snorts] So this is what most people have, and the biggest issue is the house because if I have full authority as the personal representative, the I could sell that house without having to go through a big court process, file a petition with the court to report and confirm the sale, and I can sell it giving a notice of proposed action procedure. If I have I have one sister. If my sister and I sign a waiver of our notice of proposed action, we don't have to do that process even, or she and I can consent to the notice of proposed action to sell the house. Super easy. The court although there's no court hearing, the court has some paperwork that I still have to do. But it's super minimal paperwork. I could send a letter to the escrow company saying we've complied with the notice of proposed action procedure, we have full authority, there's no estate tax issues, close escrow. So that's super simple when we have full authority. If I have to ask for limited authority in order for the court to approve a reduced or no bond, then with limited authority, I'm required to report a sale to the court. And in reporting that sale to the court, I have to file a petition. I have to mail notice. I have to have a newspaper publication advertising the house for sale.

25:17 And I have to go to court hearing. And at that court hearing is an auction. And then the court the judge is the auctioneer. And they're not talking all fast like they're selling cattle, but anybody in the world could come and bid on the house.

25:32 Yeah, that that's when that whole process and that's what I specialized in LA cuz, you know, it's it's not common, but you know, there's a lot of non-common things in LA. the auction, people say like, well, what increment does the judge raise the bid? And I say, there's no way to know. The judge doesn't know. I've seen judges hold two auctions same day and use different increments. Like there's no it's hard to tell. And as a result, my data suggests that you're going to sell the house for about a 3% discount to the fair market value because a buyer is not sure they're going to end up with the house. And you can convince them all you want, but somebody could walk in and overbid and they're out their appraisal money and their inspection money and their time and their money was logged in for a while. So, that's the area where you want to avoid that if you can. Again, that's a lever you might choose to use once in a while. I just find a lot of attorneys their choice will defer to that. They feel like it's safer for the court to confirm. To me, that's a bit of a cop-out. And it's cheaper on the bond. Again, I think that's a cop-out cuz you're going to pay what you're going to lose way more on the sale of the house than you will on the bond. But then that's my non-legal personal business assessment as far as that goes. And then now

26:42 You know, what I want to say too, Bill, is like, you know, I don't sell houses. You're the expert at that. So, what I want to say is what my experience is is like, look, if you have limited authority and you're required to get court confirmation of sale, the only buyers of that property are investors.

26:56 Yes. And investors are expecting a deal because a homeowner that has to put down 10%. No one's getting 10% down financing. They're getting FHA financing or they're getting some other type of financing, right? But if you have to do a court confirmation of sale, you have to put down 10% as a earnest money deposit, and that you have to wait for the court to approve it, which can be many months. And so, a homeowner who's going to live in the home typically is not buying this property for, you know, top dollar fair market value because it's going to go to an investor.

27:28 Yeah. Yeah. So now, and the other area I think sometimes people spike the ball on the 5-yard line is you go to the hearing and your publication's done right, your notice is done right, you got your bond set up, your paperwork's done good, you either you show or it's approved before the hearing, recommend for approval, and you're approved, but you still can't do anything cuz you don't really have the order signed by the judge. Now, you're in San Bernardino County, it's a whole different world. I don't I know you do business in LA County as well, but for listeners, the judge will say to me, "Why I filed the bond before the hearing, so the judge has it already." And I would say, "Well, in LA County, they don't look at any bond before the hearing date cuz they assume that some changes made. You need to resubmit your order to get to get signed." I'm not giving legal authority, that's the business process in LA County. In San Bernardino, I believe the only time I was there, the clerk I types it up, hands it to the judge, the judge signs it, you walk out the door with a signed order. Like, that's not happening in LA County at all. But you might you can't do anything till you have the signed paperwork in your hands, correct?

28:31 So, yes, correct. what happens is when we have a court confirmation of sale, and we get the order, we get it approved. But I'll tell you, I just recently showed up, I was in Do I don't say which county? I don't want to say it. I'll say it. It's It was I was in Riverside County. And my paperwork was right and tight. Everything was set to be approved, but the court didn't grant it because the buyer did not appear in person. So, the parties are required to appear in person in many courts when there's a court confirmation of sale. So, the buyer wasn't there in person. The and the buyer's agent, he literally the day before said, "Okay, I'll be there." All right, cool. Bring your bring your bring your buyer. He forgot. The guy forgot. And so, he shows up by Zoom, and the judge doesn't approve our petition. We get continued out 60 days because he didn't the buyers weren't there. So, anyway, that can happen, too.

29:25 Anything else Good. It In some of these counties, in San Bernardino Riverside counties, the you have to submit your order at the time you file your petition. That's not the case in LA and Orange County, maybe some other counties, but some counties want you to file the order along with the petition to make sure it all everything is all matching up. and the order confirming sale is so important because not only do you have to put the buyer's name, and often times it's an entity cuz it's it's the buyer is a an investor, but you have to get the name down to the letter correct.

30:00 Yes. Because if it's anything is messed up on that, title won't close because the deed has to match whatever name is on that title and that order. And you also have to vest the vesting correct. So, it might be ABC Investments LLC, and the vesting would be a California limited liability company. You have to have that correct every time. so many investors want to flip it to another investor, so they'll buy it ABC Investments LLC or nominee. You can't have or nominee as part of the buyer's name. So, there's a lot to having this court confirmation of sale and making sure your order is right.

30:43 And then even for filing the initial petition for probate, again, you have to get everything right, you have the bond, and the judge approves it, you still need to get from the court a signed, in many cases, a certified copy of an order to get your letters in order to move forward to actually get the bank to give information to open escrow and things like that, correct? That's not In LA, that's not automatic. In San Bernardino, I think it they just do it right there while you're in court.

31:08 So long as you don't need bond. So, if you what you they do is they will the order the judge signs the order right then and there, but they still have to walk it over to the clerk's office and process it. Now, if you if you have a temporary restraining order, you need something in a hurry, they're going to accommodate you in Riverside, San Bernardino County. The Inland Empire is great about that. But if on a normal if it's if it's normal processing, it'll take a couple days in order to get the order, but the judge is signing it that day.

31:34 It's amazing. And I mean, the first time I saw that, I'm like, "He's doing what?" And the clerk handed to him like The clerks aren't doing anything. I don't mean to knock them down. They're busy in LA. It's a different We live in a different world. It's not it's not a knock and damn, it's a different it's a different process, a different beast entirely, but I couldn't believe it how you walked out the court with a order of with the letters of authority, basically, that day. That just doesn't happen in Los Angeles.

31:59 You know what? It used to be, and this was gosh, this was pre-COVID. what used to happen is in court, the judge would sign the order, and then the bailiff would come and hand you the order that the judge just signed and ask you to go downstairs to the clerk's office and file it. They handed you the order. It wasn't even it wasn't even filed with the court yet, but you had to go down to the clerk's office and file it yourself. I mean, if you didn't want to want to wait or whatever, I think they probably would walk it down themselves, but if you wanted your order or your letters, you would you would walk it down yourself.

32:33 They don't do that anymore. No, they don't even do that now. And look, the judges are very they work very hard, and I'm not knocking them or the process. It's a reflection of the service of everything in Los Angeles. We just have so many people and in limited resources. So, okay, well, here we are, you know, my allocated time. I'm over time here with you.

32:52 Oh, we're only at step two. We're only at step two. We're We're still We're only at step two out of six. And I think, you know, that just speaks to two things. One, how complicated the process is, and two, why you want somebody who's an expert like Sam both to educate you as well as to service you. And so, let's just talk about Let's kind of We'll stop the process here. Let's talk a little bit about your practice. You're located in Redlands. Talk a bit about how your approach is to serving the customers that come to you for probate service.

33:17 Well, the first thing you have to do is come with compassion because we got to understand that our clients are coming to us to solve a problem that they can't solve on their own. And they've just lost a loved one. And so, this is a process that they don't understand, they're not familiar with, that that This is probably the first time they've ever hired an attorney often times. And, probate is complex, and it needs, someone who can guide them through with confidence. So, the issue is number one, we have to understand have some compassion for our clients. And then take the time. Literally, my job is to explain things. That's pretty much what I A lot of my time is when I'm meeting with the client is just to explain the probate process and the procedures and, what their responsibilities are as the personal representative.

34:03 Anything that occurs through your staff, too. I know I have cases where I'm working on I'm working with the petitioner and some questions, and she's calling in your office. Your you know, a couple of different staff people are helping her, and we're able to explain We're waiting for this relative to sign this form. We're, you know, we're here, we're there. Now we're done. We're ready to file. So, these are things where people, the biggest complaint I get from my clients is lack of communication. And I get Attorneys are busy. I get their hourly rates are high and they're limited. but you have a team of people. Talk a bit about how you've taken time I know you've gone through some changes, but talk about the way you've structured or how you bring your team to bear in servicing your clients to delegate your work, but the way you want it done.

34:43 Yeah, so a lot of the work is is staff-based because we're gathering information and documents and we're preparing paperwork according to my instructions. And so I'll review things, but a lot of the things that we're doing in our office are kind of a bit of autopilot that my office staff know how to do. And so it's not necessarily me. I don't do all the work at my office, but the high-level reasoning, the going to court, explaining legal processes to clients, those are the type of things that I'm doing. But if it's, you know, gathering information and documents to create an inventory and appraisal, my staff are doing that. if it is sending out the documents to the appropriate referee so that they can appraise the property, my staff are doing that. So a lot of the things that are the paperwork of what to do, my staff are doing with and then I review it and then send it out.

35:38 And you're based in Redlands, what areas do you service and does your firm cover? What counties or what part of Southern California you guys cover? Most of our cases are in San Bernardino and Riverside County. Probably our third biggest county is Los Angeles County and I do have cases up and down the state all the way from San Diego all the way to Del Norte, but a scattering of cases here and there, but really the vast majority of our cases are in the San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.

36:03 And the last I checked you were you had a position with the San Bernardino Bar Association. What were you doing? What's your role there or is that something you're still doing? I'm on the board of directors and I'm the chair of our probate and estate planning section. So I do we do monthly educational programs. We have an annual probate symposium that's coming up September 17th, 2026 and so that's a lot of fun. I'm also on the Inland Empire Estate Planning seminar. We do an annual event. this year it's in November and so I do I do the San Bernardino Estate Planning Council. so there's several things that I'm involved with locally.

36:41 And lastly for anybody who wants to learn if you're a professional in the business, whether you're an attorney or a real estate agent, you have a great podcast. I have to say I watch it carefully and I research your podcast for guests. That's a way of saying I stole your guests for my podcast.

36:55 No, I gave you one. See Steven Walter. You got You did. You gave me a few actually. I have to say as well I would Okay, I was stealing them and then we met and then you've been nice enough to give me some Since you know I'm going to steal them anyhow, you just send them to me now, I think.

37:08 I am so surprised what Steven Walter has built with Sunset. Have you taken a look at his website? It's called hellosunset.com. Yes. for free I can't believe he does this for free. You can search for assets of an estate

37:22 Yes. and it is phenomenal what he does. I just had a episode come out with him literally today and he that is one of the best pieces of software I've seen recently that is in the probate space.

37:35 I just recorded my interview with him yesterday. He's going to come out in a couple weeks. But I think for anybody listening one of the features is they solve the problem of how do you get a bank account because so many times most attorneys will say, "Oh, just go open a bank account with your estate." And then the customer goes to Wells Fargo and finds out, "Oh, you have to have a copy of the letters." They go back home, they get a copy of the letters, come back. "No, you need a certified copy." "Okay, I have a certified copy." "No, you need to be a wet certified copy." Whereas Steven's company actually does online the whole process and because they this is something they're set up for. Just that alone, anybody I think in probate, whether you're a petitioner, executor, or an attorney, should look into the service because it's free where you can get an online bank account and they do other services as well helping you get the information at the gathering stage. So thank you for the introduction. But like I said, I literally we watch your podcast every episode. I'm seeing who it is and I'm reaching out to them right afterwards. You do a great job. It's definitely worth the going after and the name of your podcast I think is Probate Notes.

38:31 Probate Notes is the podcast. It's available on Apple Podcast and Spotify. And so, yeah, I'm trying to be I'm trying to blow up like Bill Gross.

38:41 [laughter] You do a great job. Now, I listen to your episodes cuz you have some really good people. So, look, for those of you who want to get more we covered one and two maybe of the six steps. Obviously, you're a wealth of knowledge and we've had him on before. Hopefully, I'll get him on again. But, if you're interested in more Sam Price, the webs the website for his law firm is pricelawfirm.com. The pricelawfirm.com. If you go to the ebooks or resources ebook section, the six-stage probate, you can see the book that we referred to. It's an ebook that you can buy on Amazon and contact them for more information on how to handle your probate. Call with your questions, particularly if you're in San Bernardino, Riverside County. And then, if you want to reach the firm down below, [phone number shown on screen] or the pricelawfirm.com. Sam Price, thank you so much. As always, you're just a wealth of knowledge and we appreciate having you here today. Thank you so much.

39:32 Thanks so much, Bill. Great to see you as always. And for the rest of you, this is Probate Weekly. We get together every week, usually with a probate attorney, not always as accomplished and informative as Sam, but I do my best. but, if you have questions on this episode or any others, reach out. Ask questions in the in the social media that you're watching. Like or subscribe. Reach out to me if I can help at Bill Gross Probate on social media. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks.