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Cal. PROB § 10257

This is the official text of Cal. PROB § 10257, part of California’s Probate Code — governs wills, trusts, estates, and conservatorships.

Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.

Official statutory text

(a) Personal property may be sold for cash or on credit.

(b) Except as may otherwise be ordered by the court pursuant to Section 10258, if a sale is made on credit, not less than 25 percent of the purchase price shall be paid in cash at the time of sale, and the personal representative shall do one of the following:

(1) Take the note of the purchaser for the balance of the purchase money, with a security interest in the personal propery sold, to secure the payment of the balance.

(2) Enter into a conditional sale contract under which title is retained until the balance is paid.

(c) The terms of the note and security interest or conditional sale contract shall be approved by the court at the time of confirmation of sale.

(d) Where property sold by the personal representative for part cash and part deferred payments consists of an undivided interest in personal property or any other interest therein less than the entire ownership and the owner or owners of the remaining interests therein join in the sale, the note and security interest may be made to the personal representative and such others having an interest in the property. The interest of the personal representative in the note and security interest shall be in the same interest and in the same proportions as the estate’s interest in the property prior to the sale.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.