Probate here runs through the B.F. Sisk Courthouse on O Street, and the probate examiners are the first gate. They read every petition before the judge does and post notes listing what's missing. A family that files without a lawyer often loses a hearing date fixing those notes. Once letters issue, creditors have four months to file claims. With full IAEA authority, an administrator can sell without a confirmation hearing after mailing a Notice of Proposed Action, which gives heirs 15 days to object. Under full authority, plan on 12 to 18 months from filing to final distribution.

Prop 19 is what turns a lot of Fresno County heirs into sellers. A child keeps the parent's tax base only if the house becomes the child's principal residence, and anything above the value cap gets added in. Farm families get a twist: each legal parcel of a family farm has its own cap. That helps the heir who keeps farming. It does nothing for the three siblings in Clovis, Sacramento and Texas who inherited forty acres of vines and a farmhouse and have no plans to prune anything.

Foreclosure is non-judicial. The Notice of Default is filed of record, the owner has 90 days to catch up, and the Notice of Trustee Sale goes out at least 20 days before the auction. The owner can reinstate until five business days before the sale. In Fresno County most sales happen at the courthouse at 1100 Van Ness, but read the notice, because some trustees use the Van Ness exit, some the breezeway and some an office on North Colonial Avenue. On one-to-four unit homes, tenants and eligible bidders get up to 45 days after the sale to bid.

Tax sales are online through Realauction. A home has to sit in default five years before the Treasurer-Tax Collector can sell it, three for nonresidential commercial. Bidders put down a single $5,000 deposit, everything is sold as is, some encumbrances survive the sale, and the IRS has 120 days to redeem if it holds a lien. The owner can redeem until 5 p.m. on the last business day before the auction. The September 2026 list had 129 parcels, and almost half of them were vacant land or ag ground. That tells you where tax trouble lands in this county.

Here's the kind of call we'd expect from outside Selma. Our caller reaches a woman in Clovis whose father died last year and left a house on twenty acres of raisin grapes. Her brother has letters, and probate is open at the Sisk Courthouse. Neither of them farms. The well is old, the vines are older and the house still has its original wiring. She wants to know what it's worth as is, before another season of paying someone to farm it. You get who signs, the water situation, the condition and her number before you dial.

Fresno County sellers lean retail, and we won't pretend otherwise. Clovis owners sit on a median value near $482,700, and plenty of them have already talked to an agent. So our callers ask on every call whether a realtor or another buyer is involved and put the answer in the note. A seller who has heard the retail pitch and still wants a quick, as-is sale is a real lead. One who wants full market value isn't, and we don't send that one to you.