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Eric Hunt CPA

16133 Ventura Blvd, Suite 700, Encino, CA 91436
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Serving Individuals and Businesses Since 1999

Estate Planning Services in Los Angeles

Most families looking for estate planning services in Los Angeles are told to worry about the federal estate tax. For the large majority, that is the wrong thing to worry about. The federal exemption now sits at $15 million per person, and California has no estate tax of its own.

What actually costs Los Angeles families money is a pair of California rules almost nobody explains clearly: how your property taxes change when a home passes to your children, and what probate charges to move your assets. Eric M Hunt, CPA, holds a Master of Science in Taxation and has worked in accounting and taxation across Southern California since 1999.

Who Does What

Your attorney drafts the will, the trust, and the powers of attorney because those are legal documents and drafting them is the practice of law. We handle the numbers side: the tax consequences, the property tax exposure, the cost comparisons, the business valuation questions, and the returns that follow. Most families need both, and the plan works best when the two people talk to each other.

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Satisfied Clients

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Our Service

What Our Estate Planning Services in Los Angeles Cover

Here is the work a CPA owns in an estate plan.

Estate and Gift Tax Planning

Including whether your estate is anywhere near the federal threshold.

Proposition 19 Modeling

So you know what your children will actually pay in property tax.

Cost Basis Planning

Including the step-up your heirs receive on assets passing at death.

Probate Cost Estimates

A real figure for your estate, so you can weigh what a trust saves.

Beneficiary and Titling Review

These override your will when the two conflict, and often do.

Business Succession

Valuation support and the tax side of passing on a company.

Charitable Giving

Structured for the deduction as well as for the cause.

Gift and Estate Tax Returns

Prepared and filed when they are required.
Start Here

Why Most Los Angeles Families No Longer Owe Federal Estate Tax

The 2025 federal tax law raised the estate and gift tax exemption to $15 million per person, which is $30 million for a married couple, and made that level permanent with annual inflation adjustments. California has no estate or inheritance tax of its own. You can confirm the current federal rules on the IRS estate tax page.

You can also give away $19,000 per recipient in 2026 without touching that exemption or filing anything, and a married couple can combine for $38,000 to the same person. Gifts above that amount do not create a tax bill for most people either. They simply use up part of the lifetime exemption and require a gift tax return.

The practical takeaway is that the estate tax is a live issue for a small number of Los Angeles households, mostly those with a large business, a concentrated stock position, or a substantial property portfolio. If your estate is comfortably under the threshold, planning should be aimed at the two California costs below, which apply no matter how modest your estate is.

The Local Issue

Proposition 19 and Your Family Home

This is the single biggest financial issue for Los Angeles families passing property to the next generation, and it catches people who have never heard of it. Under Proposition 13, your assessed value rises slowly, so a home bought decades ago often carries a tax base far below what it is worth today. Proposition 19 changed what happens to that low base when the home passes to a child. The official rules are published by the California Board of Equalization.

Three things decide the outcome. The home has to have been the principal residence of the parent, and it has to become the principal residence of the child, with at least one inheriting child actually living there. The exclusion is capped at the existing factored base year value plus $1,044,586 for transfers between February 16, 2025, and February 15, 2027, a cap adjusted every two years, with any market value above it added to the new tax base. And there are deadlines: the homeowners’ exemption within one year, the parent-to-child exclusion claim within three years.

Two consequences surprise people. Rental and investment property no longer qualifies at all, so an inherited duplex or apartment building gets reassessed to full market value. And if the child moves out later, the property is reassessed from the next lien date, so the exclusion holds only while the home stays a principal residence.

The Other Cost

What Probate Actually Costs in California

California sets probate compensation by statute as a percentage of the estate. The attorney and the personal representative are each entitled to the same statutory amount, so the real cost is roughly double the figure in the schedule. Here is how it is calculated, and you can read about the process itself through the California courts.

Portion of the estate Statutory rate
First $100,000 4 percent
Next $100,000 3 percent
Next $800,000 2 percent
Next $9 million 1 percent
Next $15 million 0.5 percent
Above $25 million The court sets the amount

The detail that matters most in Los Angeles is that the fee is calculated on the gross value of the estate, with no deduction for the mortgage. A home worth $2 million with $800,000 still owed on it is treated as a $2 million estate for this purpose. That is why probate hits property-rich families here so hard.

Gross estate value Statutory fee to each Likely combined cost
$1,000,000 $23,000 $46,000
$1,500,000 $28,000 $56,000
$2,000,000 $33,000 $66,000
$3,000,000 $43,000 $86,000

Those figures come straight from the statutory schedule and do not include court filing costs, appraisal fees, or the year or more the process often takes. A living trust, drafted by your attorney, is the usual way to keep assets out of probate entirely. Our part is showing you what probate would cost in your case, so the decision rests on a number rather than a hunch.

A Tension Worth Knowing

Where Income Tax and Property Tax Pull in Opposite Directions

Here is a tension that a documents-only estate plan tends to miss, and it comes up constantly with appreciated Los Angeles real estate.

When an asset passes at death, its cost basis resets to the market value on that date. For a home bought in the 1990s, that step-up can erase hundreds of thousands of dollars of capital gain, so your heirs could sell shortly afterward and owe little or nothing in capital gains tax. That argues for holding property until death rather than gifting it during your lifetime, because a lifetime gift carries your original basis over to the person receiving it.

Property tax can point the other way. Depending on who will live in the home and what it is worth, the Proposition 19 outcome may be better or worse than alternatives your attorney can structure. The right answer depends on the actual numbers in your situation, which is the sort of question worth modeling before documents get drafted rather than after.

A Real Example

A Real Example of How This Plays Out

A hypothetical Los Angeles family, with illustrative numbers.

Current factored base year value

$ 0

What the home is worth today

$ 0 M

The capped Prop 19 exclusion

$ 0

Probate cost without a trust

$ 0

A mother bought a home in Sherman Oaks in the 1990s. Its factored base year value today is about $400,000, and it is now worth roughly $2.1 million. At a property tax rate of about 1.1 percent, she pays a little over $4,000 a year. She also owns a small rental duplex, and her estate is nowhere near the federal exemption.

When she passes away, the federal estate tax is not an issue, and California charges no estate tax. Her daughter also receives a step-up in basis on the home, so decades of appreciation escape capital gains tax if she sells. So far so good. The property tax is where the real money is:

Situation New taxable value Approximate yearly tax
Today, before any transfer $400,000 About $4,400
Daughter moves in and claims the exclusion About $1,055,000 About $11,600
Daughter does not move in $2,100,000 About $23,100

Even in the best case, where the daughter moves in and files everything on time, the tax bill more than doubles, because the market value sits above the capped exclusion and the excess gets added to the base. If she keeps the house but lives elsewhere, the bill is roughly five times what her mother paid. The rental duplex gets reassessed to market value no matter what she does, since investment property no longer qualifies for any exclusion.

And if the home was never placed in a trust, the estate goes through probate, where the statutory fees are calculated on the full $2.1 million without subtracting the mortgage. That is roughly $34,000 each to the attorney and the representative, so about $68,000 before any other costs. None of this is exotic planning. It is arithmetic that should happen while there is still time to act on it.

Estate Planning for Entertainment Professionals

Income that keeps arriving after someone dies creates an estate problem most planning templates ignore. Residuals, music royalties, and publishing income can continue for decades, and copyright generally runs for the life of the author plus 70 years. That raises questions a standard plan does not answer: what the stream is worth for estate purposes, who has authority to administer it, and how the income is taxed once it reaches an estate or heirs. A loan-out corporation adds another layer, since it does not simply pass to heirs along with everything else. Our entertainment accounting work covers the ongoing side.

Business Succession and Real Estate Transfers

If you own a business, the hardest estate question is usually not who inherits it. It is what it is worth, whether the people inheriting it want to run it, and whether there is enough cash elsewhere to treat several children fairly when one takes over the company. Real estate investors face the Proposition 19 problem in its sharpest form, because rental property receives no exclusion at all. Those decisions sit alongside our year-round tax planning rather than apart from it.
Working Together

How We Work With Your Attorney

Estate planning takes two professionals, and it is worth being plain about who does what.

Your estate attorney Eric M Hunt, CPA
Drafts the will, trust, and powers of attorney Models the tax and property tax outcomes
Advises on legal structure and state law Estimates probate cost and what a trust saves
Handles trust funding documents Reviews beneficiary designations and titling
Represents the estate in probate court Prepares gift and estate tax returns
Guides fiduciary duties and administration Values business interests and income streams

If you already have an attorney, we work with the plan you have. If you do not, we can tell you what to look for and what questions to ask. What we do not do is draft your documents or give you legal advice, and you should be cautious about any firm that blurs that line.

How It Works

How the Process Works

Working with us is simple.

Step 01

A Free Call

What you own, who you want it to go to, and whether you already have documents in place.

Step 02

Review

Your returns, your property, your business interests, and your current beneficiary designations.

Step 03

The Numbers

Property tax outcomes under each realistic scenario, a probate cost estimate, and where any tax exposure sits.

Step 04

Coordination

We take those findings to your attorney so the documents reflect them, or help you find one

Step 05

Review as Things Change

A sale, a move, a marriage, a birth, or a change in the law can all make a plan out of date.

Who It Is For

Who We Help

Families With a Long-Held Home

Where children may inherit a Los Angeles property carrying a low Proposition 13 base.

High-Net-Worth Households

Where the federal exemption is genuinely in play and the numbers need watching.

Business Owners

Who need succession, valuation, and fairness between heirs worked out.

Real Estate Investors

Holding rental or investment property that no longer qualifies for any exclusion.

Entertainment Professionals

With royalties, residuals, or a loan-out corporation in the picture.

Anyone With an Existing Plan

That has not been checked against the current rules. See the industries we serve.
Service Area

Serving Los Angeles From Our Encino Office

The office is at 16133 Ventura Blvd, Suite 700, Encino, CA 91436, in the San Fernando Valley and a short drive from the 101. We work with clients across Los Angeles County, including Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Burbank, Woodland Hills, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Culver City, Glendale, and Pasadena. Property tax questions are handled by the county assessor where the property sits, which, for most of our clients, is Los Angeles County.

Much of the work happens by phone, video, and secure file sharing. If you would like the rest of your finances looked at in the same conversation, that falls under our financial planning work.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Yes, and that describes most Los Angeles families. With the federal exemption at $15 million per person and no California estate tax, the estate tax is not the issue for the majority. Probate cost, property tax reassessment under Proposition 19, and making sure assets reach the right people without delay are the issues, and those apply at every level of wealth.
California sets the fee by statute: 4 percent of the first $100,000, 3 percent of the next $100,000, 2 percent of the next $800,000, and 1 percent of the next $9 million. The attorney and the personal representative are each entitled to that amount, so a $2 million estate commonly costs about $66,000 in combined statutory fees. The calculation uses the gross value of the estate, so a mortgage does not reduce it.
Usually yes, and often by more than people expect. Under Proposition 19, a child keeps the low tax base only if the home was your principal residence, the child makes it their principal residence, and the value fits within the factored base year value plus $1,044,586 for transfers through February 15, 2027. Anything above that cap is added to the new tax base, and rental property gets no exclusion at all.
No. Drafting wills, trusts, and powers of attorney is legal work, and an attorney has to do it. A CPA handles the tax side: what your plan costs, what it saves, how property taxes change, what a business interest is worth, and the gift and estate tax returns. The two roles work together, and you should be wary of any firm that claims to do both.
When assets pass at death, the cost basis resets to the market value on that date. For a Los Angeles home bought decades ago, that can erase a very large capital gain, so heirs who sell soon after may owe little capital gains tax. Property given away during your lifetime does not get that reset, because the person receiving it inherits your original basis, which is one reason gifting appreciated property is often the costlier route.
In 2026 you can give $19,000 per recipient without filing anything, and a married couple can give $38,000 to the same person. Larger gifts rarely create an actual tax bill. They use part of your lifetime exemption and require a gift tax return for the year.
They keep paying, which is exactly why they need attention. Residuals and royalties can continue for decades, and copyright generally lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. The estate has to value that income stream, name someone with authority to administer it, and account for how the income is taxed once it goes to the estate or to heirs.

Start With the Numbers Before the Documents

A plan built without running the numbers tends to produce surprises for the people you leave it to. If you want estate planning services in Los Angeles from a CPA who will tell you what your plan actually costs and saves, book a free call with Eric M Hunt, CPA.

Book Your Free Call Call 213-753-1219