LA County Probate Courts Reorganized

Starting next month, new Los Angeles Superior Court probate cases will be filed in one central courthouse, instead of multiple district locations throughout the county.
Currently, there are 10 courthouses that hear probate cases.

On April 8, new cases concerning wills, trusts, estates, guardianships and conservatorships will be filed in Room 429 in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 N. Hill St. in Los Angeles, according to a news release earlier this month.

For a short time, between April 8 and June 10, district courthouses will continue to hear cases already set for hearing, said Mary Hearn, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Superior Court. But on June 10 all remaining adjudicated cases will be transferred to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.

The Antelope Valley Courthouse, in the North District, is the only facility that will not be impacted by change.

There is one accommodation the court plans to make regarding the transferred guardianship and conservatorship cases.

"If there is some overriding hardship that prevents parties in those cases from traveling to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, the court will consider hearing the case at an outlying location," Hearn said. "The reason is that conservatorship and guardianship cases frequently involve people with some kind of physical or mental disability that make traveling that distance especially difficult."

"They can make a motion to the court to have the matter heard in a location closer to where they reside."

The consolidation is part of an effort to save between $55 million and $85 million in the 2013-14 fiscal year.

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LA County Probate Cases Reorganized