Trustee Notice to Beneficiaries Requirements in California

At a glance

California's initial trustee notice has a name of its own: the notification by trustee, required by Probate Code § 16061.7. Unlike states that start the clock when a trustee accepts office, California starts it when one of four events happens.

Requirements one by one

Governing law and initial notice duty

Section 16061.7 states the duty in mandatory terms — "A trustee shall serve a notification by the trustee" — and subdivision (i) closes the obvious escape route: "Any waiver by a settlor of the requirement of serving the notification by trustee required by this section is against public policy and shall be void."

Keep it separate from three neighbouring duties. Section 16060 imposes a general duty to keep beneficiaries reasonably informed. Section 16061 requires the trustee to supply requested information on reasonable request. Section 16062 governs annual accountings. The § 16061.7 notification is a one-time, event-driven document, and none of the other three substitutes for it.

Triggering events and knowledge rule

Section 16061.7(a) lists four:

1. A revocable trust or any portion becoming irrevocable because of the death of one or more settlors, or — by the trust's express terms — becoming irrevocable within one year of a settlor's death because of a contingency related to that death.
2. Any change of trustee of an irrevocable trust.
3. A power of appointment retained by a settlor becoming effective or lapsing on the settlor's death, as to an inter vivos trust that was, or purported to be, irrevocable when created. Charitable remainder trusts as defined in IRC § 664(d) are expressly excluded.
4. The duty belongs to the continuing or successor trustee, and any one cotrustee may serve it.

The clock runs from the event itself, not from the trustee's knowledge of it — with two express exceptions built into subdivision (f), covered under the deadline dimension.

Recipients and beneficiary class

Section 16061.7(b) names three recipient groups: each beneficiary of the irrevocable trust or irrevocable portion, subject to § 15804's representation limits; each heir of the deceased settlor, but only when the trigger is a settlor's death or the one-year death-related contingency; and the Attorney General if the trust is a charitable trust under Attorney General supervision.

California does not narrow this to "qualified beneficiaries" and sets no age threshold. Section 15804 can, however, let one person receive notice on another's behalf — a parent for minor children where no guardian has been appointed, a conservator for a conservatee, a trustee for trust beneficiaries, or a person with a substantially identical interest for someone unborn, incapacitated, or unlocatable. That representation is unavailable where the representative and represented person have a conflict of interest on the matter.

On heirs, § 16061.7(c) sets the standard: the trustee must rely on a known final judicial determination of heirship, and absent one "shall have discretion to make a good faith determination by any reasonable means."

Deadline after acceptance

California has no acceptance-based deadline. Merely accepting a trusteeship does not start a notification clock. What does start one is a change of trustee of an irrevocable trust, which is its own § 16061.7(a)(2) trigger and carries the ordinary 60-day period.

Deadline after irrevocability

Sixty days. Section 16061.7(f) says the notification "shall be served not later than 60 days following the occurrence of the event requiring service."

Two clocks can restart it, and both are easy to miss:

• Later-discovered recipients. If a person entitled to notification "was not known to the trustee on the occurrence of the event," that person's 60 days runs from when the trustee became aware of them.
• Trustee vacancy. If the office of trustee was vacant when the event occurred, or the event itself caused the vacancy, the 60 days "commences on the date the new trustee commences to serve as trustee."

Required notice contents

Section 16061.7(g) lists five items, and only five:

1. The identity of the settlor or settlors and the trust instrument's date of execution.
2. The name, address, and telephone number of each trustee.
3. The address of the physical location of the principal place of administration under § 17002 — the usual place where day-to-day trust activity is carried on, defaulting to the trustee's residence or usual place of business.
4. Any additional information the trust instrument expressly requires.
5. A statement that the recipient may, on reasonable request, receive a true and complete copy of the terms of the trust.

Death-triggered notifications carry a sixth element. Section 16061.7(h) requires a warning "set out in a separate paragraph in not less than 10-point boldface type, or a reasonable equivalent thereof," reading: "You may not bring an action to contest the trust more than 120 days from the date this notification by the trustee is served upon you or 60 days from the date on which a copy of the terms of the trust is delivered to you during that 120-day period, whichever is later."

Delivery, service, and publication

Section 16061.7(e) is short: serve "by any of the methods described in Section 1215 to the last known address." Section 1215 supplies a closed list:

• Mail — first-class within the United States (which includes certified, registered, and express), or international mail abroad. Delivery "is complete when the notice or other paper is deposited in the mail," and "[t]he period of notice is not extended."
• Personal delivery, complete when handed to the recipient.
• Electronic delivery, but only where the recipient "has expressly consented on the appropriate Judicial Council form" and supplied an electronic address for that purpose.

There is no publication fallback, and nothing in either section requires certified mail, a process server, notarization, or a filed proof of service.

Waiver, modification, and confidentiality

The settlor cannot waive it (§ 16061.7(i)). The trust terms cannot dispense with it. What the statute does allow is over-service: § 16061.7(j) lets a trustee serve the notification on anyone beyond the required list, and says the trustee "is not liable to any person for serving or for not serving the notice on any person in addition to those on whom the notice is required to be served."

California's waiver machinery lives elsewhere and covers different documents. A beneficiary may waive the right to an account in writing, and may withdraw that waiver in writing as to later transactions (§ 16064(b)). And while a trust is revocable with a competent holder of the power to revoke, § 15800(a) directs the trustee's duties to that person rather than to the beneficiaries; § 16069(a)(1) applies the same limit to accounting, trust terms, and requested information. None of that reaches the § 16061.7 notification, which is triggered precisely when revocability ends.

Legacy exceptions and notice consequences

The last sentence of § 16061.7(j) sets a hard cutoff: no notification is required "if the event that otherwise requires service of the notification by trustee occurs before January 1, 1998."

Subdivision (d) excuses two categories of recipient — a beneficiary or heir known to the trustee "but who cannot be located by the trustee after reasonable diligence," and one "unknown to the trustee."

Section 16061.9 supplies the penalty, and it differs by recipient. Failing to serve a beneficiary makes the trustee "responsible for all damages, attorney's fees, and costs caused by the failure" unless the trustee made a reasonably diligent effort. Failing to serve a known heir who is not a beneficiary carries damages only, with no fee shifting; there the statute defines "reasonably diligent effort" concretely as delivering notice under § 1215 to the heir's last actually-known address.

What trips people up

Serving late does not extend the contest window — it moves it. Section 16061.8 was amended in 2022 to say the 120-day bar applies to a person served under § 16061.7(a)(1) "whether the notice is served on the person within or after the time period set forth in subdivision (f)." A trustee who serves on day 200 still starts a 120-day clock on the day of service. The lateness exposes the trustee to § 16061.9 damages; it does not hand the recipient an open-ended right to contest.

The 120-day bar only attaches to death-triggered notifications. That same 2022 amendment limited § 16061.8 to notifications served "pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision (a)." A notification sent because an irrevocable trust changed trustees under (a)(2), or because a power of appointment took effect under (a)(3), is still required — but it does not start the 120-day contest clock, and § 16061.7(h) does not call for the boldface warning in those cases.

Heirs get notice, and heirs are not beneficiaries. People routinely serve only those named in the trust. When the trigger is a settlor's death, § 16061.7(b)(2) also requires service on every heir of the deceased settlor — including a disinherited child who takes nothing under the instrument. Missing a known heir carries its own damages exposure under § 16061.9(b).

A vacancy resets the clock, and a settlor's death often creates one. Where the settlor was serving as their own trustee, the death is simultaneously the triggering event and the cause of the vacancy. Section 16061.7(f) then starts the 60 days when the successor "commences to serve as trustee," not on the date of death.

Electronic service needs a court form, not an email reply. Section 1215(c)(1) conditions electronic delivery on express consent given "on the appropriate Judicial Council form" in the proceeding before the court, plus an address supplied for that purpose. A recipient who simply corresponds by email has not consented.

Common questions

Does the notification have to include a copy of the trust? No. Section 16061.7(g)(5) requires only a statement that the recipient may request one. The duty to actually hand over the terms sits in § 16061.5, and it runs to a beneficiary or heir "who requests it." Note the timing interaction: delivering the terms within the 120-day window under § 16061.8 gives that person 60 days from delivery if that lands later.

What counts as "the terms of the trust" if the trust was amended or restated? Section 16060.5 defines it to include signatures, amendments, disclaimers, and directions affecting disposition. If the trust was completely restated, superseded instruments and amendments before the last restatement are excluded, but amendments executed after the restatement are included.

My parent's trust is still revocable and I am named in it. Am I entitled to notice now? No. Under § 15800(a), while the trust is revocable and a competent person holds the power to revoke, that person — not the beneficiary — holds the rights, and the trustee's duties are owed to them. Section 16069(a)(1) says the same for accounting and information. If no holder of the power to revoke remains competent, § 15800(b)(1) triggers a separate 60-day notice with a copy of the instrument to the beneficiaries who would take had the settlor died.

Can one cotrustee handle this, or must all of them sign? Section 16061.7(a)(4) says "any one cotrustee may serve the notification." The contents rule still requires listing the name, address, and telephone number of each trustee (§ 16061.7(g)(2)).

Statutes and sources

All sections below are the current official text published by the California Legislative Counsel in its public bulk data release, section data timestamped 2026-07-27, retrieved 2026-08-01 from https://downloads.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/. Each entry notes the operative amendment the official record assigns to that section.

• Cal. Prob. Code § 16061.7 — notification by trustee: triggering events, recipients, heirship determination, unlocatable and unknown recipients, service, 60-day deadline with later-discovery and vacancy restarts, five content items, boldface contest warning, void settlor waiver, permissive over-service, and the January 1, 1998 cutoff. Amended by Stats. 2017, Ch. 319, Sec. 87 (AB 976), effective January 1, 2018.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 1215 — the closed list of permitted delivery methods, completion rules, and the Judicial Council consent condition on electronic delivery. Amended by Stats. 2017, Ch. 319, Sec. 18 (AB 976), effective January 1, 2018.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 16061.8 — the 120-day contest bar, limited to notifications served under § 16061.7(a)(1) and applying whether service was timely or late. Amended by Stats. 2022, Ch. 30, Sec. 1 (AB 1745), effective January 1, 2023.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 16061.9 — consequences of failing to serve, split between beneficiaries and known non-beneficiary heirs. Amended by Stats. 2017, Ch. 319, Sec. 89 (AB 976), effective January 1, 2018.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 16061.5 — duty to provide a true and complete copy of the terms on request. Amended by Stats. 2010, Ch. 621, Sec. 4 (SB 202), effective January 1, 2011.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 16060 — general duty to keep beneficiaries reasonably informed. Enacted by Stats. 1990, Ch. 79. § 16061 — on-request reporting duty. Amended by Stats. 2010, Ch. 621, Sec. 3 (SB 202), effective January 1, 2011.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 16064 — when no accounting is required, including written beneficiary waiver and its withdrawal. Amended by Stats. 2010, Ch. 621, Sec. 7 (SB 202), effective January 1, 2011.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 16069 — revocable-trust and trustee-is-beneficiary exceptions to accounting, trust terms, and requested information. Amended by Stats. 2021, Ch. 749, Sec. 2 (AB 1079), effective January 1, 2022.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 15800 — to whom duties are owed while a trust is revocable, and the 60-day incompetency notice. Amended by Stats. 2022, Ch. 420, Sec. 42 (AB 2960), effective January 1, 2023.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 15804 — virtual representation: who may receive notice binding another person, and the conflict-of-interest limit. Repealed and added by Stats. 2025, Ch. 39, Sec. 2 (AB 565), effective January 1, 2026.
• Cal. Prob. Code § 17002 — principal place of administration. Enacted by Stats. 1990, Ch. 79.