Lis Pendens in a California Trust Dispute: Who Can Cloud Title, and How Fast You Must Fight Back

Three properties you own in Los Angeles County have a lis pendens recorded against them. You served for a while as successor trustee of a family trust, a guardian ad litem has accused you of taking money out of it, and none of the three properties belongs to that trust. They are yours. Now you cannot refinance, you cannot sell, and any buyer who pulls title will walk away. So you appeal. Fifteen months later the Court of Appeal dismisses your appeal, and no judge ever decides whether those lis pendens should have been recorded at all.

That is Grimberg v. Pour (July 17, 2026, D085888), certified for publication by the Fourth Appellate District, Division One. The trustee may well have had the better argument. She never got to make it.

What happened in Grimberg

Priel and Jacob Grimberg created an irrevocable trust in 2017 holding two residential units on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. They lived in one and rented the other. After Jacob died, Priel purportedly signed an amendment naming her niece, Libby Pour, as successor trustee, followed by a notice of resignation confirming Pour in the role.

Priel's son challenged both documents, alleging his mother lacked capacity and that Pour had manipulated her into signing. He later filed a second petition to remove Pour as trustee and surcharge her, alleging she diverted the rental income, let the other unit fall into foreclosure, sold it below market, and moved the proceeds to herself.

The probate court appointed a guardian ad litem for Priel. His accounting identified more than $66,000 in unexplained cash withdrawals and more than $122,000 in trust assets transferred directly to Pour, and he recommended a surcharge north of $229,000. Pour had asked to serve without a bond and been denied one. So the guardian ad litem asked the probate court for authority to cloud title on all real property Pour owned personally, three properties in Los Angeles County, to keep her from moving those assets beyond the reach of a future surcharge.

Pour objected on the ground that matters most here: the probate case did not assert any claim to her real property, and the lis pendens statutes require exactly that. The probate court authorized the recording anyway. The lis pendens went on, came off during a bankruptcy stay, and went back on in January 2025. Two months later, Pour appealed.

The rule that swallowed the appeal

Code of Civil Procedure section 405.39 says that no order or other action of the court on a lis pendens is appealable. The only route is a petition for writ of mandate, filed and served within 20 days of service of written notice of the order. The trial court can extend that once, by no more than 10 days, and only if you ask inside the original window. The outside deadline is 30 days.

Pour argued that the Probate Code got her around this. Section 1300 makes appealable any order directing, authorizing, approving, or confirming an encumbrance of property, and any order authorizing, instructing, or directing a fiduciary. Her order arguably did both.

The Court of Appeal assumed she was right about that and dismissed anyway. Probate Code section 1000 provides that where the Probate Code supplies no rule, ordinary civil practice governs, and Probate Code section 1004 points directly at the lis pendens statutes for any probate proceeding affecting title to or the right of possession of real property. Those statutes include section 405.39. Specific provisions beat general ones, so the lis pendens rules control inside probate court just as they do everywhere else.

The court then closed the escape hatch. Pour's order technically authorized a recording rather than denying an expungement, and section 405.39 sits in the expungement chapter. But the way to attack an improper lis pendens is to move to expunge it, and a ruling on that motion is unquestionably nonappealable. In the court's words, Pour "cannot manufacture appellate jurisdiction by failing to take a necessary step in the probate court that would unquestionably have resulted in a nonappealable order." Looking at the legal effect rather than the label, the order was nonappealable.

And even treated charitably as a writ petition, it was late. Pour filed 59 days after the order, roughly a month past the outside deadline. Appeal dismissed, each side bearing its own costs.

A lis pendens is only for a fight about the property itself

Strip away the procedure and the substantive question in Grimberg was a good one. Section 405.20 lets a party record a lis pendens only when the action asserts a "real property claim," which section 405.4 defines as a cause of action that would, if it succeeded, affect title to or the right to possession of specific real property. Not a claim that would help you collect. A claim about the property.

California courts guard that line closely, because a lis pendens is uniquely easy to abuse. It costs nothing to record, it freezes an asset before anyone has proven anything, and it generates enormous settlement pressure. In Urez Corp. v. Superior Court (1987) 190 Cal.App.3d 1141, the Court of Appeal held that "[a]llegations of equitable remedies, even if colorable, will not support a lis pendens if, ultimately, those allegations act only as a collateral means to collect money damages." BGJ Associates v. Superior Court (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 952 applied the same principle to a complaint with nine damages causes of action and a constructive trust request bolted on at the end, and expungement was proper.

The counterexample is Kirkeby v. Superior Court (2004) 33 Cal.4th 642, where the California Supreme Court held that a fraudulent conveyance claim does support a lis pendens, because a successful claim voids the transfer of title itself. The distinction is not whether money is ultimately at stake. It is whether the judgment you are seeking operates on the deed.

Two provisions give that principle teeth. Under section 405.31 the court must expunge if the pleading does not contain a real property claim. Under section 405.32 the court must expunge unless the party who recorded it proves the probable validity of the claim by a preponderance of the evidence. The burden sits on the recording party, which is unusual and important. And section 405.38 directs the court to award attorney fees and costs to whoever prevails on the motion, unless the losing side acted with substantial justification.

Newell is the case beneficiaries should actually read

None of this means a trust beneficiary cannot use a lis pendens. In December 2024 the Second Appellate District, Division Seven, decided Newell v. Superior Court (2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 728, and it is the more useful decision for most clients.

Lucy Mancini Newell was trustee and sole beneficiary of her parents' trust until she learned her father had amended it to name his caregiver in her place. She challenged the amendments, discovered the caregiver had used trust money to buy a property in Van Nuys, recorded a lis pendens against it, and sought a constructive trust. The probate court expunged the lis pendens and awarded fees against her, reasoning that her petition attacked the amendments and the identity of the trustee rather than title to the house.

The Court of Appeal granted writ relief and reversed. Its reasoning is clean and worth carrying around: a trust does not own anything, a trustee does. The trustee holds legal title to trust real property. So a petition that would replace the trustee is a petition that would change the name on title, which is precisely what section 405.4 describes. The probate court was ordered to vacate the expungement, vacate the fee award, and deny the motion.

Note also how Newell reached the Court of Appeal. By writ petition, on time. That is the difference between her outcome and Pour's.

Where this actually leaves trust litigants

Grimberg is being described in some quarters as approval for using a lis pendens as security in a surcharge case. Read the opinion and you will see it holds nothing of the kind. The court dismissed on appealability and expressly declined to reach whether the probate case involved any claim to Pour's property. The merits question is still open.

Set the two cases side by side and the governing line is about whose title is genuinely in dispute:

• Trust real property, with the trusteeship contested. This is Newell. Title stands in the trustee's name, the petition would change who that is, and the claim affects title directly. A lis pendens is on solid ground.
• Property the trust should own but someone else holds. A Probate Code section 850 petition asking the court to transfer specific real property back into the trust asks for a judgment that operates on the deed. That is a real property claim in substance, not a money claim wearing a costume.
• Property bought with misappropriated trust funds. Newell involved exactly this, and Kirkeby supplies the analogous logic where the transfer itself is attacked.
• The fiduciary's own property, pledged as security for a money surcharge. This is Grimberg, and it is the weakest position of the four. A surcharge is a personal money judgment. Nobody claims the trust owns the fiduciary's house. Under Urez and BGJ, using a recorded notice to make sure a defendant still has assets when you win looks like the collateral collection device the statutes were written to prevent.

If you need to keep a fiduciary from dissipating personal assets before judgment, California gives you tools built for that job, with the safeguards that go along with them. A writ of attachment requires an application, a showing on the merits, and an undertaking. So does a preliminary injunction. A lis pendens requires none of that, which is exactly why courts refuse to let it substitute for them.

If a lis pendens lands on your property

Assume you have days, not months, and work in this order.

1. Calendar the deadline the moment you get written notice. Twenty days to file and serve a writ petition, extendable once by ten more if you ask the trial court inside the original window. Pour's appeal was filed 59 days out and that was the end of it. There is no relief for a missed deadline here comparable to what you get elsewhere.
2. Move to expunge, in the trial court, first. Grimberg is blunt that skipping this step does not create an appeal. It destroys your review. File the motion, get the ruling, then take a writ if you lose.
3. Lead with section 405.31. Read the operative petition and ask what judgment it actually seeks. If everything in it resolves into money, say so and quote Urez. This is a stronger argument than most people realize, and it does not require you to disprove anything.
4. Make them carry section 405.32. Even if some real property claim exists, the recording party has to establish its probable validity by a preponderance. Force that showing rather than defending your own conduct.
5. Ask for fees under section 405.38. They are the rule for the prevailing party, not an extra. Note that the probate court in Grimberg denied Pour's fee request after finding the guardian ad litem was justified in what he did, which is the substantial justification exception at work.
6. Do not assume a bankruptcy filing solves it. The automatic stay did pause things in Grimberg, and the lis pendens came off. Then repeat filings shortened the stay to thirty days, it expired, and the notices went right back on.

If you are the beneficiary considering one

The tool is legitimate and sometimes decisive, and title companies treat it seriously. Three things decide whether it survives.

First, plead the real property claim before you record, not after. The test looks at the pleading on file. If your petition currently seeks removal and an accounting and you want to reach a specific parcel, amend it to seek the relief that operates on title, whether that is a section 850 petition, a constructive trust over a traceable property, or an attack on the instrument that moved the trusteeship.

Second, be honest with yourself about what you are protecting. A notice recorded to preserve the trust's claim to a house is doing what the statute contemplates. A notice recorded to give you leverage or to lock down a defendant's assets is one motion away from expungement and a fee award, and the fee exposure runs against the party who recorded it.

Third, get the procedure right. You can have an attorney of record sign the notice under section 405.21, or ask the judge to approve it, as the guardian ad litem did in Grimberg. Court approval is prudent, but it is not a shield. It did not stop the merits objection in Grimberg, and it would not have stopped a motion to expunge.

For background, see our general discussion of how a lis pendens works in California and the lis pendens entry in our legal glossary. On the trust side, see our posts on removing a trustee in California and the fiduciary duties a trustee owes beneficiaries, along with the trust accounting glossary entry.

Talk to a Los Angeles trust litigation attorney

The Darvish Firm's Los Angeles trust litigation lawyers represent beneficiaries and trustees in surcharge and removal proceedings, contested trust amendments, and probate litigation involving real property throughout Southern California. If a lis pendens was just recorded against property you own, the clock started when you received notice. Call (310) 677-3512 or request a consultation.

This article is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case depends on its facts. Consult an attorney about your specific situation.