California Request for Special Notice — Form DE-154

[Music] That is Keith Davidson at Albertson and Davidson in this video I'm going to cover the request for special notice this is a filing that you can do in a probate action and it will help ensure that you get notice of everything that occurs in that probate action there's times when you may not be legally required to be noticed based on what action somebody's taking in a probate case and it could be a probate case like a will or it could be a trust case anything that's filed in probate court there's times when you might be entitled to notice there might be times when you're not necessarily entitled to notice but once you file a request for special notice then you must receive notice of everything that's filed in that action so a lot of times we'll file this form just to make sure that we get notice of everything so we're gonna start by going in Google to the Judicial Council forms and we're going to go to the California Court website once there we're gonna click on probate decedent's estates and we're going to go down to form de 154 and this is our request for special notice the nice thing about the request for special notice is it's easy to file you just file it and whatever probate action you're interested in and once you do that then you'll be sure to get notice of everything so we're gonna start off by just filling in our information and if you're doing this and you don't have a lawyer you can just put your name and then put pro per after it if you are a lawyer then obviously you'll go ahead and put your bar number in this location and we'll put in the firm name as well and we'll put in the firm address and there's room over here for your telephone and fax number you always want to do that just to make sure that people can get ahold of you if they need to and then you're going to list out the court information so what court are you in and what is the street address for that court and the mailing address for that court you also need to put in the branch name if you know it and you can always go on the courts website and find all of this information for whatever court you're in and then you're gonna list out the name of the estate you're dealing with so we're gonna use the name Bob Smith a state of and they want to know is he a decedent conservative minor or trust so decedent means it's a will case has something to do with in a state or an intestate estate trust is obviously a trust case and then conservator your minor would be a guardianship matter so click whatever box is appropriate to you and then make sure you put in the case number it's really important that you file this form in the right case number because that's how the courts going to know that you require notice if you file this in the wrong case number nobody will know that you're entitled to notice so then you have to say that either I am a person interested in this proceeding or I'm the attorney for a person interested in this proceeding and you has to specify the name of the interested party so you're not allowed to refile a request for special notice if you have no relationship to the estate of the trust you have to have some interest in the proceeding but for example if you're a creditor of an estate you may want to file a request for special notice just to make sure that you know everything that's being filed and nobody forgets to give you notice and under some circumstances a creditor may not be required to be noticed depending on what the filing is so this is where you want to fill in your information as to who's why they're entitled to notice so this this would be whatever person is entitled to notice so this is the estate of Bob Smith so let's say he has a son by the name of Richard oops and so Richard Smith the son wants to make sure that they received notice and I as the attorney I'm filing this on behalf of Richard Smith and then it wants to know I request special notice of and you can specify what you want special notice of you can say all matters so I want all manners for which special notice may be requested in which case you don't check any of these other boxes or you can say well I just want to know when the inventory and appraisal is filed or I just want to know when objections to an appraisal or filed I don't want anything else so you can be a little bit picky about what you want to get notice of you can also select other if there's something in particular you're on the lookout for and you can specify what that other is personally I wouldn't check other you could say all petitions that might be okay I wouldn't specify a petition because chances are you might get the name wrong I think you're better off just saying just give me notice of all matters if that's what you want now they want to know under number three where do you send these notices so send the notices to the interested person at the following address or send it to the attorney for the interested person so since I'm an attorney this is what I would fill out and I would ask that everything be sent to me and my law firm that way when people are giving notice they know that they have to send an extra copy my way and then you're gonna put the date and then we'll go ahead and sign this you also need to put if I since I'm signing it as an attorney I need to put what who's the client name is so that they know that I'm signing it on behalf of Harvard Smith on the second page is where we're gonna have our proof of service by mail you do need to file this form with the court but you also have to serve it on everybody who's interested in the estate and so that's where you're going to serve it by mail and you're gonna fill in this out just like you do any proof of service so you the person who is serving this you're gonna put your name you can't be a party to the action by the way if you're serving this you'll notice right here you have to be over the age of 18 and not a party to this cause so you have to either have your attorney serve it or you can hire an attorney service to serve it something like that so I would put my name and I'd put my address this is the business address from which this proof of service will be mailed number three ought to say whether I'm going to deposit it directly into a post-office box or I'm going to place it into my firm's ordinary business practice for mailing and then I'm going to put the date that it's deposited into the mail and we're going to put the place where it was mailed and then you're gonna date and sign it again you're signing this under penalty of perjury so every all the information above has to be correct and then you're going to put in the name and address for each person that you served we typically will click this box and just attach it in a separate attachment cuz it's a little easier to type the names and addresses in a word document a separate word document although up here I typically would say see attached so that everybody is clear that there's an attachment with the names and addresses on it down here you can also have the personal representative admit service so they can accept service and say that I acknowledge that I received this and that way everybody knows that the personal rep has this information once you fill this out you'll mail it and then the form itself will be filed with the court and that way the court will know that you must get special notice you must get a copy and notice of all filings that are going to happen in that probate matter moving forward. 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