Most people who arrive in Bonner County keep something back in California
— the rental, the condo, the house the children grew up in. Two bodies of
law now lie on top of one another, and only where they overlap does
anybody notice what it costs.
Still California
It charges its fee on the whole house.
If you die still owning California real property in your own name, it is
probated in California. The state sets the fee by statute, calculated on
the property’s gross value — expressly
“without reference to encumbrances or other obligations on
estate property.”
A $1,200,000 house, statutory schedule
4% on the first $100,000
4,000
3% on the next $100,000
3,000
2% on the next $800,000
16,000
1% on the next $200,000
2,000
Statutory attorney fee
$25,000
Personal representative, again
$25,000
The $800,000 still owed on the house does not reduce it. The fee is
computed on $1,200,000, not on the $400,000 you actually own.
Cal. Prob. Code §§ 10800, 10810
Then Proposition 19, in force since February 16, 2021, reassesses that
property to current market value when your children inherit it — unless
one of them moves in and makes it their principal residence.
Already Idaho
It does none of that.
Idaho has no estate tax and no inheritance tax. Its probate runs on the
Uniform Probate Code, with no statutory percentage schedule — fees are
hourly, or flat, or negotiated, like the rest of ordinary life.
So the trust you signed here works here. That is precisely the problem:
it works here. The parcel in Sonoma or San Diego or
Orange County is still governed by the law of the state you left, and it
does not care what Idaho thinks.
A trust is only as good as the deeds behind it.
An attorney admitted only in Idaho cannot advise on California law and
cannot re-deed a California parcel. So the trust gets restated, the
California house stays in your own name, and nobody notices for twenty
years.
The name on the door has two sides.
Since 1978
Stephen F. Smith
Of counsel
Born and raised in Coeur d’Alene. University of Idaho, and its law school.
First law clerk to the Administrative District Judge of his judicial district.
Practising in Sandpoint since 1978 — in this same building.
Teaches other lawyers at continuing legal education seminars, on wills, estates and trusts — and on attorney ethics.
Since 2000
Sarah B. McOwen
Attorney and owner
Admitted in California in 2000, and in Idaho in 2021.
Business + Finance at Morrison Foerster, in its Silicon Valley office: entity formation, mergers, acquisitions, IPOs.
Juris Doctor, Santa Clara. A certificate in comparative intellectual property law from Oxford.
Bought the practice from Steve in August 2023.
Almost every client here arrives on someone else’s recommendation.
We return telephone calls in less than a day.
What we do
TrustsDrawn here, and read against the law of wherever else you still own something.
WillsA legacy that spares the people you leave behind an unnecessary year.
ProbateDisputed estates, navigated to a settlement everyone can live with.
Real propertySales, purchases, exchanges, easements, boundary disputes, quieting of title.
Business entitiesCorporations and limited liability companies, formed by someone who did it at scale.
Guardianships & conservatorshipsForty years of walking families through the hardest version of this.
AdoptionsDomestic and international. Bringing a family together.
First and Superior
The letters have been on that cedar wall for as long as anyone can
remember. They name the corner the office stands on — First Avenue,
Superior Street — and, read the other way, they name something else.
First and SuperiorThe same words, from the other side of the glass
