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Notification by Trustee in California: What to Mail, to Whom, and How

The paralegal's mailing job for a California Probate Code 16061.7 notice: who gets one, the required contents and 120-day warning in a copyable notice, the first-class mail line in section 1215, the 60-day timing, the record to keep, and how to mail a dozen from a laptop.

POSTMARKR8 MIN READ

A notification by trustee is the letter a California trustee sends when a revocable trust becomes irrevocable, most often because the settlor died, telling each beneficiary and heir who the trustee is and that they may ask for a copy of the trust. The lawyer decides who is on the list and signs off on the wording; this page covers the mailing job: what goes in the envelope, the mail class the Probate Code names, the 60-day timing, the record to keep, and how to get a dozen out from a laptop. It shows structure, not legal advice.

Who gets the notice#

Where the official guidance lives: Probate Code section 16061.7 (opens in new tab), subdivision (b), lists the recipients: each beneficiary of the irrevocable trust, each heir of the deceased settlor when the trigger is a death, and the Attorney General if the trust is a charitable trust under the Attorney General's supervision (checked October 14, 2026). Subdivision (d) covers people the trustee cannot locate or does not know about.

Take the list from the lawyer with one mailing address per name. Which relatives count as heirs, and whether a charity's copy goes to the Attorney General, are the lawyer's calls; your job starts when the list exists.

Send 12 notices from a laptop#

The notice body is the same for every recipient. Only the address changes, so the fastest route is one PDF and one spreadsheet.

  • One signed PDF, many addresses: save the signed notice as a PDF. In Postmarkr's Bulk Send, upload the PDF once and a CSV of recipients with the columns name, address_line1, address_line2 (blank is fine), city, state and zip. Each address is checked for USPS deliverability, you approve one proof and the total, and you pay by card. A batch takes up to 100 recipients and $1,000, so a dozen beneficiaries and heirs is one batch.
  • A salutation on each letter: if the lawyer wants "Dear Ms. Alvarez" rather than "To the person named above", save the notice as a letter template with {{salutation_name}} and add a salutation_name column to the CSV. Every field needs a value in every row, up to 512 characters. A template with merge fields goes through Bulk Send even for one recipient (a one-row CSV).
  • One or two recipients: upload the PDF, type or pick the address, approve the preview and pay. Several different letters, such as the notice plus a cover letter to the Attorney General, go in the Cart, up to 10 PDFs, and check out once.

A one-page black-and-white letter is $2.05 all in: printing, the address page we add, the envelope, USPS First-Class postage and the processing fee. Printed the next business day following payment. Each letter gets a status page with mail-stream status and USPS scan updates when available, and you can download a PDF of exactly what was printed for the trust file. If USPS confirms a letter was lost, we'll resend it for free.

Postmarkr sends USPS First-Class letters only. It doesn't send Certified Mail, issue a Certificate of Mailing (PS Form 3817), give a USPS-confirmed mailing date, include return envelopes or enclose originals. If the lawyer wants a signed-receipt method for some recipients, use a post office counter or a Certified Mail provider for those, and Postmarkr for the rest. Our guide to certified mail alternatives explains what each USPS option records.

What goes in the envelope#

There is no Judicial Council form for this notice; the forms search at the California courts' self-help site returns none under "trust", so firms draft their own. Section 16061.7, subdivision (g), lists what the notice must contain, and subdivision (h) adds a warning when the trigger is a settlor's death. The checklist:

  • The identity of the settlor or settlors and the date the trust instrument was executed.
  • The name, address and telephone number of each trustee.
  • The address of the physical location where the trust's principal place of administration is.
  • Any additional information the trust instrument itself requires.
  • A statement that the recipient is entitled, on reasonable request to the trustee, to a true and complete copy of the terms of the trust.
  • When the trigger is a death: the warning paragraph below, in its own paragraph, bold, 10 point or larger.

Enclose the trust terms only when the lawyer says to. If the lawyer does, the notice plus the trust is still one PDF.

Copy the notice below into the firm's letterhead, set the warning paragraph in bold at 10 point or larger, and have the trustee or the lawyer sign. {{double_braces}} marks a merge field; [square brackets] mark wording you write once. Lines are broken to fit a phone screen; join each paragraph after you paste.

{{date}}

NOTIFICATION BY TRUSTEE
(California Probate Code section 16061.7)

Re: {{trust_name}}

Dear {{salutation_name}}:

1. Settlor(s) and trust. The settlor(s) of the trust:
{{settlor_names}}. The trust instrument was executed on
{{trust_execution_date}}.

2. Event. {{trigger_statement}}

3. Trustee(s). The name, address and telephone number of
each trustee:
{{trustee_name}}
{{trustee_address}}
{{trustee_phone}}

4. Principal place of administration. The physical
address where the principal place of administration of
the trust is located: {{administration_address}}

5. Additional information required by the trust:
{{additional_information}}

6. Copy of the trust. You are entitled, upon reasonable
request to the trustee, to receive from the trustee a
true and complete copy of the terms of the trust.

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.

[Set the paragraph above in bold, 10 point or larger.]

{{trustee_signature_name}}, Trustee
[Firm name, address, phone, email]

For {{trigger_statement}} the lawyer supplies one sentence, for example that the trust became irrevocable on the settlor's death on a stated date. For {{additional_information}} write "None" if the trust instrument requires nothing extra. If you take the template route, type the values that are the same for everyone (trust, settlor, trustee, dates, administration address) straight into the saved template and keep only {{salutation_name}} as a merge field; every merge field needs a value in every row of the CSV.

Mail class and address#

Where the official guidance lives: section 16061.7, subdivision (e), says the notice "shall be served by any of the methods described in Section 1215 to the last known address," and Probate Code section 1215 (opens in new tab) lists those methods. For a United States address, section 1215 reads: "By first-class mail if the person's address is within the United States. First-class mail includes certified, registered, and express mail." The same section says the notice goes in the mail in a sealed, postage-paid envelope addressed to the recipient.

Postmarkr mails plain First-Class letters. Whether any recipient should get certified, registered or express mail instead is the lawyer's call. Section 1215 also covers addresses outside the United States and electronic delivery.

Timing#

Where the official guidance lives: section 16061.7, subdivision (f), sets the clock at 60 days and says when it starts, including the case where a person entitled to notice becomes known later and the case where the trustee's office was vacant. The Orange County Superior Court's self-help page on trusts (opens in new tab) puts the common case in one line: "60 days after becoming trustee or 60 days after the settlor's death, whichever happens later."

The lawyer sets the mail-by date and will check it against the deposit line in section 1215; log the date each envelope went into the mail.

Proof to keep#

The sections above name no court filing and no Judicial Council proof-of-service form for this notice, so the record is the firm's own. What offices keep:

  • A copy of the notice exactly as mailed, including any enclosures.
  • The recipient list with the address used for each person, and the source of each address.
  • The date each envelope was deposited in the mail and who deposited it.
  • A signed declaration of mailing, if the lawyer wants one in the file.
  • Any later request for a copy of the trust, and the date the copy went out.

Postmarkr's record (the printed PDF and the per-letter status page described above) covers the first and third items in part. It is not a Certificate of Mailing, it does not show a USPS-confirmed mailing date, and it does not show who deposited the letter or where. If the lawyer wants a declaration naming the person who deposited the letters, Postmarkr's record can't supply that; our guide to certificate of service by mail explains what a mailed-service record usually states.

Where the official guidance lives#

More from our law firm mailing hub: letters to opposing counsel and clients and how Bulk Send works.

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