Estate of Mays CA3

BACKGROUND

We treat this case as an appeal on the judgment roll, because it reaches us based on a clerk’s transcript. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.832 (undesignated rule references are to the California Rules of Court); cf. Dumas v. Stark (1961) 56 Cal.2d 673, 674; Allen v. Toten (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 1079, 1082-1083.) When the case is presented in this posture, we presume the trial court’s findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence, and its conclusions of law are binding upon us unless error appears on the face of the record. (Bond v. Pulsar Video Productions (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 918, 924.) Mays died intestate in April 2006. She was survived by two children, appellant Bedford and Roy Flemons. At her death, Mays lived in a home on West 4th Street in Stockton (the residence). After Mays’s death, Bedford petitioned to be appointed administrator of the estate. In her petition, Bedford declared Mays’s estate consisted principally of the residence,

2 which Bedford valued at $245,000. The probate court granted Bedford’s petition, and indicated letters of administration would issue “upon filing [of a] Surety Bond in the sum of $245,000.” Thereafter, DHCS filed a creditor’s…