California Notice of Petition for Probate–Form DE-121

[Music] Keith Davidson from Albertson and Davidson in this video we're gonna go over a notice of hearing for a petition for probate this is going to be form number de 1:21 in a previous video I went over how to fill out the petition for probate which was form de 1:11 and now that you have your petition for probate the next thing you need to do is provide proper notice to everybody who's interested in the estate so we're gonna start off here at Google and we just do a search for Judicial Council of California and we'll go ahead and pull up the forms so we want the court website and that's what this is here and then we're going to go to select a category and all the forms we're going to use for our probate are gonna be under probate students estates and we'll see the forms this purpose we're gonna want form de 1:21 which are which is our notice of petition to administer the estate and here it is here so the form de 1:21 is unique to a petition for probate I have another video where I walked through a notice of hearing using form de 120 and I said in that video that you use that notice of hearing for every purpose when you're giving notice of a hearing in a probate matter and that's true except for a petition for probate when you're doing a petition for probate you have to use this form because this form gives you some unique information that the other form simply doesn't include so the only time you're going to use a de 121 is when you're filing a petition for probate to open a probate in California so let's go through how this works so at the top here I put in my name and address if you're self represented you're doing this yourself you just put in your own name your own address here I put in the client that I would be representing Bob Smith made-up client if you were representing yourself you could either put pro per or you can just put your own name in there Keith Davidson attorney for Keith Davidson everybody understands what that means but we're gonna keep it Bob Smith for now if I there we go and then we're gonna do the estate of Rachel Smith and Bob's wife and this is where the notice begins and you can already see if you look at the de 120 you can already see that this notice is very different just the layout of it and the information it provides is quite different so this is a notice of petition to administer the estate of which we already set a state of up there but they want us to type it in again and then the case number so by now you should have the case number because you're gonna give notice of the hearing date and you're not going to get your hearing date until you file your petition for probate but a lot of Courts are going to want you to have this form filled out and they're gonna want you to submit it to the court at the time you file your petition for probate so that the court can stamp in the dates some courts want you to do that some don't so what you should do is have this form ready take it with you to the courthouse and if you don't need it don't worry about it if you do then you'll have it you are gonna need it eventually because you're gonna have to give notice to everybody so we have our case number up here and then it starts off saying to all Ayers beneficiaries creditors contingent creditors everybody who might have an interest in this estate and they want to know specify all names by which the Seton was known and so we just have the one but I guess if you had multiple names you could put them here and then they're giving notice that a petition for probate has been filed by and they want the name of the person who filed that petition in our case it's gonna be Bob Smith and they want to know in what court or what county it was filed so everybody knows where to find this probate action if they want to appear and do something so we're filing in Los Angeles County for this one just as an example if you're in San Mateo Santa Clara San Diego Orange County just type it in there the petition for probate requests that and this is where you're gonna put in the name of the person who you want to act as the personal representative personal representative is just an umbrella term that we use to describe both executives and administrators an executor is somebody who's named in a will to manage the estate an administrator is everybody else who's not mentioned in a will or if you have an estate with no well than the person managing that estate is the administrator they're all referred to as a personal representative so in our petition for probate we had asked that Bob Smith be appointed as the personal representative he happens to be both the petitioner and the personal representative they're not always the same so Bob Smith was filing a petition trying to open the probate but the will says that somebody else is supposed to be the personal rep then you would type in that other name right here and that'd be fine that's no big deal number four the petition requests that decedent's wills and codicils of if any be admitted to probate so if you have wills then you're gonna click number four if you're doing an intestate estate meaning somebody who died without a will then you don't have to worry about number four because you're not asking that it will be admitted number five the petition requests authority to administer the estate under the independent administration of mistakes act so we talked a little bit about this in our petition for probate video there is an act it's quite long under Probate Code section 10500 you can find all the particulars and what the Act does is allows the personal representative to take certain actions without seeking court approval first and so it gives the executor a little bit more freedom there's still a lot of things the executor can't do without court approval like making distributions of the assets or paying themselves for a claim that they might have against the estate but there's a lot they can do so the law wants us to tell everybody in the world when we're giving notice that we're asking that the personal representative be given this independent power so that's something that is very important that you check if you're asking for it in your petition for probate now if for some reason you're not asking for independent powers and your petition for probate then you can just leave that blank but do not make the mistake and I've made this mistake when I was early in my career where I asked for independent powers in a petition but I didn't check this box on the notice and the court simply won't hear it they'll require you to reserve this notice and they'll continue the hearing out and just it causes a delay in time so I learned very early on that these forms are important and these boxes are important so make sure you take them seriously so if you're asking for that power just go ahead and click that now you have to fill in when the first hearing is going to be and that the court will give you that so let's say that our hearing is on November 1 so we're gonna go ahead and type in November 1 and let's say it's going to be at 9:30 and Department 11 we don't have a room number so we'll just leave that blank there is a room number then you'll fill that out and then they want to know the address of the court most of the time it's going to be the same as noted above so I had already filled this in but right here I have the street address and the mailing address of the Los Angeles downtown courthouse if the addresses are different you have to put in the right street address mailing address you can find these on the courts website so down here all that's asking is well is that where the rings gonna be held or is it going to be at some other address of the court so most the time it's gonna be the same as noted above and you'll just click that now on number seven it's just giving everybody notice that if you object to the granting of this appearance of this petition then you really need to appear and state your objection and if you don't then you're gonna waive your objection if you're a creditor or contingent creditor the decedent then it's telling you you must file a claim with the court within these timeframes so four months out from the date when letters are issued we're going to talk about letters of administration or letters testamentary in a separate video but there isn't another document that you're gonna see that you have to have in your petition and we'll go through that but this is just number eights just giving creditors notice of all this of what they have to do number nine you may examine the file kept by the court and it talks about how to do that and then number ten the petitioner or the attorney for the petitioner and you have to put in your name and address so that people know how to contact you so if a creditor wants to file a creditors claim they have to know where to mail that claim and so that's why we're going to put in this information if you're representing yourself no problem you'll just put in your address where you get your mail so that you can get the creditors claims or any other objections that people might have and then you have to make sure you put in your telephone numbers so people can reach you there and then you should be good to go number page two here the second part this is the proof of service so this is where you're going to be signing under penalty of perjury that you took these actions so it's important that you fill this out properly and that you actually do what this form says that you're going to do so first of all you have to be over the age of 18 or else you can't give notice you have to be a resident or employed in the county where the mailing occurred so you can't go to some County where you don't work or live to mail its mail it where you work or live and then you have to put in your address so you can use your business address if you want people to notify you there you can use your home address I obviously would use my law firms address because that's where mail goes to and I'll just put it in and that way people know how to get ahold of us and then number three I served the foregoing notice a petition to administer the estate on each person name below by enclosing a copy and an envelope addressed and shown below and you either deposited it with the post office yourself or you put it into the mailing process at your work so a lot of businesses corporations or big law firms they have a mail Department you may not be the one who actually puts it into the post office or the post box or gives it to the mail person but you put it within your mail system at work and you know that that mail system means that it'll be mailed on the same day with postage prepaid you have to make sure you know that if you're gonna check box B if you don't know that just deposited it in the mail yourself with the postage fully prepaid and that way you know that you did exactly what you said you were going to do and then let's put the date that we're giving notice and the city and state where we mailed it that's where we gave the notice from now number five is important it says that along with this notice you also sent a copy of the petition or other document referred to in the notice well the petition that's referred to in this notice it's a petition for probate form de 111 and you're gonna have to fill that out and file with the court anyway we strongly recommend that you check number five and that you send a copy of that petition with this notice that way people can't complain later that well I got the notice but I didn't get the petition the court might continue the hearing to allow people to get a copy of the petition do yourself a favor make it easy on everybody and uneasy on yourself primarily and this check this box and send a copy of the petition for probate with this notice you'll be happy you did it makes it real easy and then you're gonna put the date that you signed this it doesn't necessarily have to be the same day that you mailed it some people say it shouldn't be the same day as you mailed it although most the time it is because you'll mail it and then you'll sign this form then down below you're gonna put the name and address of every person who's entitled to notice if you can't fit it in with these six lines you can continue it on an attachment we almost always use an attachment because it's just easier to keep track of people that way and if you have it on a separate word document that you attach to this notice you can use that separate word document for other purposes in your in your probate and you will need to serve it with various different forms so sometimes it's easier just to use an attachment I always type in C attachment up here just so people know that we're not just leaving it blank it's easy to miss this little checkbox down here so I just say C attachment now it's important that you send this to everybody who's entitled to notice the people who are entitled to notice is everybody named in the will I doesn't matter how their name doesn't matter if they're current or contingent beneficiaries if you see a name and a will doesn't matter even if their success or executor --zz if you see a name and a will give notice just send them notice and then you also have to serve notice on all heirs at law even if they're not in the well so let's say a decedent has children but the children aren't receiving anything under the will you still have to give those children notice so make sure you serve notice on everybody named in the will and everybody who's an heir at law which would use usually be a spouse and children if somebody passes away and they don't have a spouse and they don't have children then the heirs at law might be the parents if they don't have a parent then it's gonna be their brothers and sisters and so make sure that you include those people it's way better to give too much notice than not enough notice because if you don't get enough notice the court can't hear your petition and the court will never grant it so you're better off over noticing and so make sure you that you notice everybody at the end you're gonna print this form you can save it and ultimately you're gonna file it with the court so the whole purpose of this form is to notify the court that you took the actions that you said you did under this form so this blank area appear it says for court use only that's where you're going to take it to the court the courts gonna stamp it and file it and then you will have proof that you gave proper notice to everybody if you don't have this form de twenty-one served and filed with the court by the time your hearing comes along the court simply will not hear your petition because it can't it doesn't have the power to hear your petition until proper notice is given so this form is crucially important so make sure you fill it out mail it out and file it and then you'll be good to go. 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