Allison Chapleau's trust, probate, estate and partition sales in San Francisco
Allison Chapleau is a San Francisco real estate broker and Senior Vice President at Compass Commercial Brokerage. She sells inherited property for executors, successor trustees, heirs and court-appointed partition referees, including probate sales that go through court confirmation and overbid. Many of these estates hold a two-unit flat or a rent-controlled apartment building, which is the property type she has sold since 2002.
Her court-supervised results include 228 Collins Street in Lone Mountain, which sold for $3,250,000, $1,500,000 over its list price after bidding in court. She was also San Francisco's #1 listing agent for 2 to 4 unit buildings from 2021 to 2025, with 78 listings to 36 for the next agent, per San Francisco MLS data from Broker Metrics.
New estate listings are posted on her San Francisco available properties page. Court-supervised listings carry a "Probate," "Partition" or "Trust Sale" label on her San Francisco partition, probate and trust sales page.
Every property below is inside San Francisco. Sales from the last two years come first, newest at the top, followed by earlier sales by price. "Partition referee" means Allison represented the court-appointed referee who sold the property.
See every closed deal on her San Francisco sold properties page.
San Francisco is a hard place to inherit a house. Values are high, much of the housing is two to four unit flats and older apartment buildings, and many of those units fall under the city's rent law. Redfin put the county's median sale price at about $1.5 million for the three months through August 2026, up 16.7 percent from a year earlier.
The caseload is steady too. In fiscal year 2024 to 2025, San Francisco Superior Court logged 716 "other probate" filings, a category that covers decedents' estates and trusts, per the Judicial Council's 2026 Court Statistics Report.
How an inherited property gets sold depends on how the owner held title. The rules below come from California law and official court sources. They're general information, not legal advice, so confirm how they apply to your estate with a probate or trust attorney.
Probate cases in the city are heard in Department 204 of the San Francisco Superior Court, at the Civic Center Courthouse, 400 McAllister Street. The San Francisco Probate Court hears probate appearance matters at 9 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The court first appoints a personal representative, an executor if there's a will or an administrator if there isn't, and issues letters that give that person authority to act.
Under the Independent Administration of Estates Act, the court grants either full or limited authority. With full authority, the representative can usually sell real estate without a court hearing by sending a Notice of Proposed Action to heirs, who get at least 15 days' notice (Probate Code section 10586). If someone objects, or if the representative has limited authority, the sale needs court confirmation.
At a confirmation hearing, the accepted offer must be at least 90 percent of the value set by the court's probate referee appraisal (Probate Code section 10309). Other buyers can then bid in the courtroom. The first overbid must beat the accepted price by at least 10 percent of the first $10,000 plus 5 percent of the rest (Probate Code section 10311). On a $1,000,000 accepted offer, that's a minimum opening overbid of $1,050,500.
The executor files an inventory, and a probate referee appointed from the State Controller's list appraises the real estate. Creditors generally have four months from the date letters are first issued to file claims (Probate Code section 9100). The California courts' formal probate overview says the whole process typically takes 9 to 18 months, and sometimes longer.
California also sets statutory fees for the executor and for the estate attorney, each figured on the estate's value: 4 percent of the first $100,000, 3 percent of the next $100,000, 2 percent of the next $800,000 and 1 percent of the next $9 million (Probate Code sections 10800 and 10810). On a $1,500,000 estate, that's $28,000 each for ordinary services.
For deaths on or after April 1, 2025, California lets heirs skip full probate for a primary residence worth up to $750,000 through a simpler court petition (AB 2016, Probate Code section 13151). The small estate affidavit limit for other assets rose to $208,850 on the same date, per the California courts' simple transfer guide. With a county median near $1.5 million, most San Francisco homes sit above that line, so most inherited homes in the city still go through regular probate.
If the owner put the home in a living trust, the successor trustee sells it. The San Francisco court's trusts page notes that a living trust can pass assets without a probate case, so most trust sales have no referee appraisal and no confirmation hearing. A trust comes to court when its terms are unclear or a beneficiary challenges the trustee. Within 60 days after the trust becomes irrevocable, the trustee must send a notice to beneficiaries and heirs, who then have 120 days to contest the trust (Probate Code section 16061.7 and 16061.8).
When siblings or other co-owners can't agree to sell, any one of them can file a partition action (Code of Civil Procedure section 872.210). The court orders a sale when the parties agree or when a sale is more equitable than dividing the property (section 872.820), which is the usual result for a San Francisco flat or single lot. The court appoints a referee to sell the property (section 873.010), and the referee reports the sale to the court for confirmation. Overbids at that hearing follow the same 10 percent and 5 percent formula used in probate (section 873.740).
California added heirs property protections in 2022 through AB 633. A 2022 follow-up law (AB 2245) renamed them the Partition of Real Property Act and, for cases filed on or after January 1, 2023, applies them to any tenancy in common with no written co-owner agreement on partition. That covers many siblings who inherit a parent's home together. Under the act, the court usually orders an appraisal, co-owners who didn't ask for a sale get 45 days to elect to buy out those who did, and a court-ordered sale is normally an open-market sale by a licensed real estate broker at no less than the appraised value (Code of Civil Procedure section 874.320).
Proposition 19 changed parent-to-child transfers starting February 16, 2021. A child keeps a parent's property tax base on the family home when the child makes it a principal residence within one year and files for the homeowners' exemption. The exclusion is capped at the home's taxable value plus $1,044,586 for transfers from February 16, 2025 through February 15, 2027, per the Board of Equalization. Rentals and other property that pass to children no longer qualify and are reassessed. That's one reason many San Francisco heirs sell an inherited rental instead of holding it.
The transfer to heirs by inheritance is exempt from San Francisco's transfer tax, per the Assessor-Recorder. A later sale to a buyer is taxed on the full price, at these city rates (Proposition I, November 2020):
So a $2,000,000 estate sale in San Francisco carries $15,000 in city transfer tax. A measure on the November 3, 2026 ballot would restructure the tiers above $10 million. Confirm the current rate with your escrow officer before you close.
The San Francisco Rent Ordinance stays with the building when it's sold. Tenants in an inherited flat or apartment building keep their leases and protections, and the buyer takes on those tenancies. That's why the sales above list which units were vacant and which were occupied. It's a major driver of price in estate sales of San Francisco multi-unit buildings.
Allison graduated from the University of San Francisco in 2002 with a business degree and a minor in finance. That year she started as a $400-a-week intern at Marcus & Millichap in San Francisco. She was named the firm's Rookie of the Year in 2007 and focused on San Francisco apartment buildings by about 2010.
She moved to Paragon Commercial Real Estate in 2010, became a licensed broker that December, and joined Vanguard Properties in 2019. Her trust sales go back to those years, with trust-held buildings sold in Haight Ashbury, Glen Park, Twin Peaks and the Mission.
Partition work grew after that. She has sold San Francisco partition properties in NoPa, Lower Pacific Heights, Noe Valley, the Inner Sunset, Lake Street, Nob Hill, Cole Valley, the Mission and Portola, most of them for court-appointed referees. The Collins Street sale, $1,500,000 over list after bidding in court, remains her largest documented overbid result.
In January 2024 she joined Compass Commercial Brokerage. At Compass she has closed trust sales of tenant-occupied buildings, like the two 12-unit Golden Gate Avenue sales in 2025, and probate sales like 401 Huron Avenue. She now publishes a library of guides for San Francisco executors, trustees and heirs.
Allison writes the San Francisco Market Insights blog, which covers probate court steps, probate timelines, trust sales, partition actions and family-owned buildings. Her probate hub lays out her process for each sale type. It covers pricing built for confirmation review, statutory marketing, and buyer qualification for deposits and as-is terms.
Court-appointed referees and executors have also brought Allison into partition and probate sales around the Bay Area. Examples include 3038 Everdale Drive in San Jose, which sold $421,000 over list for the partition referee, and 36701 Olive Street in Newark, which sold $112,750 over list in January 2026. She also closed a Daly City probate sale at 60 Rockford Avenue in May 2026.
This review comes from the attorney on a San Francisco partition case that Allison sold.
"Allison was such an asset that I doubt that the case would have resolved without her. Although the parties agreed in principle to sell the property, the fact remained that there were multiple difficult personalities on both sides and relations between the parties were contentious at best... And she was able to secure a sale price that exceeded my expectations."
Gregory Walston, attorney, on a partition action in San Francisco Superior Court (Allison Chapleau probate, trust and partition page)
An estate sale in San Francisco is usually two jobs at once. The attorney handles the court. The agent has to price the property so it survives the referee's appraisal, market it so real bidders show up, and keep heirs informed when they don't agree. Allison has done that on single-family homes in Noe Valley and Portola and on 12-unit and 24-unit buildings on Golden Gate Avenue.
Her results speak for the method: trust sales $1,205,000 and $505,000 over list, and a partition sale $1,500,000 over list after bidding in court. If you're an executor, successor trustee, heir or referee, start with a confidential San Francisco property valuation or call her at (415) 516-0648.
Last updated: September 29, 2026
Whether you're considering selling, exploring a 1031 exchange, or simply want to understand where your property stands in today's market, an accurate valuation is the starting point.
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