Start your property deed transfer — from anywhere in California.

A standard California property transfer is $325 from TruPoint Legal, or $400 for an entity transfer (LLC, corporation, or partnership). Same-day e-recording is a separate $50 add-on. County recording runs about $50 for an owner-occupied home, and about $120 for a second residence. By comparison, California attorneys typically bill $1,000 to $2,000 for the same paperwork.

No. The intake questionnaire and LDA contract are free to complete and take about 10 minutes. After you submit, we review your transfer details, confirm the exemption your transfer qualifies for, and email you a secure payment link with the preparation fee and any applicable add-ons. Preparation only begins after payment is received — so the total is confirmed before any work starts.

Within one business day we review your intake, confirm the exemption your transfer qualifies for, and email a secure payment link with the preparation fee plus any applicable add-ons (such as e-recording, title search, or a BOE exclusion form). Once payment is received we prepare the document to your county Clerk-Recorder format, complete the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report, and send it for signature. With the same-day e-recording add-on it records the same business day we receive the signed original.

Most documents are prepared within one to three business days of payment. Once you sign the original before a California notary and return it to us, the same-day e-recording add-on submits to your county Clerk-Recorder through the California ERDS system the same business day — typically returned recorded within an hour to the next business day. We email you the recorded copy.

Yes. A California Registered Legal Document Assistant authorized to submit through ERDS can prepare and electronically record property deeds at the client’s direction. TruPoint Legal is LDA #268, Santa Clara County, registered and bonded, and records in all 58 California counties. Attorneys typically charge $1,000 to $2,000 for the same paperwork; TruPoint’s standard deed is $325.

It depends on what is changing. Adding a spouse is usually an interspousal transfer deed. Removing an ex after divorce is a divorce transfer deed. Putting the house in your trust is a trust transfer deed. Moving it into a company is an entity deed at $400. Clearing a deceased owner is an affidavit of death, not a deed at all. If you are unsure, start the questionnaire and describe the situation — we tell you which applies before you pay anything.

The current recorded deed, or the property address and APN so we can pull it; the exact legal names of everyone giving and receiving the property; how the new owners want to hold title; and whether the transfer is a gift, a sale, a divorce transfer, or a move into a trust or entity, because that determines which exemption we claim. Ten minutes is usually enough.

Because most of them only prepare deeds as part of a sale they are already handling. If there is no sale — adding a spouse, gifting to a child, funding a trust, moving a rental into an LLC, or clearing a deceased owner — there is no escrow file to attach it to, so they decline. That is the gap we fill, and it is why most people arrive here having been turned away somewhere else.

It depends who is receiving the property. Spousal transfers are excluded. Moving your own home into your own revocable trust is not a change in ownership. A parent-to-child transfer may qualify under Proposition 19, but only for a family home the child makes their principal residence, with a claim filed and a value cap applied — rentals and second homes are reassessed at market value. We are not tax advisors: we claim the exemption you direct on the face of the deed, and the County Assessor decides.

Yes, at the same fee. What matters is where the property is, not where you are. We prepare the deed and email it with signing instructions. From another state you sign before any notary public licensed where you live, scan it back, and we e-record it with the California county. From outside the country the acknowledgment is normally taken at a U.S. embassy or consulate, and California also accepts a notary of that country, though some counties want the signature authenticated first. You never travel to California.

You can, and for a simple transfer it sometimes works. The failures we get called about are consistent: the template was written for another state, the exemption recital was left blank so a property tax exclusion is lost, the legal description was copied off the tax bill, or the vesting did not match what the family intended. A rejected deed costs you a week. A deed that records with a failed exemption is worse, because the reassessment notice arrives months later and by then it is on the public record.

Yes. Rejections come from a short list: the legal description was copied from the tax bill instead of the recorded deed, the notary acknowledgment was incomplete or on the wrong form, the documentary transfer tax declaration or exemption statement was missing, the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report was not attached, or the margins failed the recorder’s format rules. Send us the rejection notice with the deed and we prepare a compliant version and re-submit it.

Yes, every deed has to be signed before a notary before it can record. You can use any notary public licensed where you are signing — we send written instructions telling them exactly what is needed. Locally we can arrange a mobile notary or an in-office signing at 434 Blossom Hill Rd. The notary fee is paid to the notary and is separate from our preparation fee.

All 58 California counties, at the same fee. Where a county accepts electronic recording we submit directly and a signed deed received before the afternoon cutoff can be on record the same business day. Where a county still requires paper, it takes longer — and we tell you which applies to yours before you commit rather than after.

Yes, and it is usually cleaner. Each property needs its own deed and its own recording, because each has its own legal description and its own county recorder, but the intake happens once and we prepare them as a set. A Bay Area home and a Central Valley rental stay with one contact rather than two offices. Tell us how many and which counties and we quote the package before you commit.

Start here and tell us, but the document you need is probably not a deed. How title was held decides it: joint tenants means an affidavit of death of joint tenant, a trust means an affidavit of death of trustee, and sole ownership means a probate route such as a small estate affidavit. Send us the recorded deed and we will tell you which before you pay anything.