When a revocable trust becomes irrevocable at death, the successor trustee has to serve a statutory notice on the beneficiaries and on the decedent's heirs. Probate Code section 16061.7 is the section, and the recipients then have 120 days from that notice to bring a contest.
That 120-day window is the reason you send it early rather than putting it off, and the reason you send it correctly.
Beneficiaries of the trust, obviously. Also the decedent's heirs at law, meaning the people who would have inherited if there were no trust at all. That second group is what surprises trustees. The disinherited son gets the notice. The statute requires it precisely because he is the person most likely to challenge the document.
Leaving him off does not protect anything. It leaves the contest window open indefinitely as to him, which is the opposite of what you want.
The notice is what starts the clock
No notice, no 120 days. A trustee who quietly administers and distributes without serving notice has not avoided a contest, they have preserved one, and they have done it while handing out the assets that would be needed to unwind it. This is the most expensive corner anyone cuts in trust administration.
What the notice contains
- The identity of the settlor and the date the trust was executed
- The name, address, and telephone number of each trustee now serving
- The address of the principal place of administration
- A statement that the recipient may request a complete copy of the trust and its amendments
- The statutory warning that a contest must be brought within 120 days of service, or 60 days after a copy of the trust is mailed if that is later
Serve by mail to the last known address, and keep proof. Track the mailing. Keep a copy of exactly what went in each envelope, including which amendments were enclosed. Four years later, in a deposition, the question will be what you sent and when, and your memory will not be evidence.
“I sent a notice once to a beneficiary who had not spoken to her mother in nineteen years. She called me crying, not about money, but because she had not known her mother had died. That is the other thing this notice does, and it is worth doing with a little care about the cover letter.”
Delia Vasquez-HartWhat happens when someone requests the trust
You give it to them. A beneficiary or heir entitled to notice can request a complete copy, and the answer is not a redacted version or a summary. Trustees who resist this look like they are hiding something, and a court hearing about it later will treat the resistance as evidence of exactly that.
Once the window closes without a contest, you are on much firmer ground to distribute. Not invincible, since claims about your own conduct as trustee are a separate matter with their own timelines, but the document itself is far harder to attack. Most careful trustees treat that date as the earliest sensible point for meaningful distributions.
Questions we get asked
Does a no contest clause do the work instead?
No. A no contest clause discourages challenges, and California limits when it can actually be enforced. The notice is a separate statutory requirement and the clause does not substitute for it.
What if I cannot find an heir?
Make and document a genuine search. Serve at the last known address. An unlocatable heir is a real problem worth getting advice on rather than skipping.
Can I distribute before 120 days?
You can, and you may need to for practical reasons, but you are accepting risk. Partial distributions with signed receipts and a reserve are the usual compromise.
Do I have to send it if I am the only beneficiary?
Probably still yes, because the heirs at law are entitled to notice even when they take nothing. Sole beneficiary does not mean sole recipient.
Build the notice list before you draft the notice: every beneficiary named anywhere in the document, plus everyone who would inherit under intestacy. Send that list to us and we will tell you who is missing from it.