Conservatorship Bond Calculator

Because Cal. Prob. Code § 2320(c) lists them as a separate line item, not a subset of "income." The statute sums the value of the personal property, the probable annual gross income of the property, and the probable annual gross payments the conservatee receives from Social Security, VA benefits, or other public assistance — three distinct figures, added together. A conservatee living entirely on SSI or a VA pension with no investment income still needs a bond sized to those payments, which is easy to miss if you only think of "income" as dividends and rent.

Section 2320(c)(4), added effective January 1, 2008, requires 'a reasonable amount for the cost of recovery to collect on the bond, including attorney's fees and costs' — but the statute doesn't set the number. California Rules of Court, rule 7.207(b) fills in the formula: 10% of the combined estate value up to $500,000, 12% of the amount between $500,000 and $1,000,000, and 2% of anything above $1,000,000. It's tiered rather than flat because the Judicial Council reasoned that recovery costs don't scale linearly — collecting on a $2 million bond doesn't cost four times what collecting on a $500,000 bond costs.

Almost never. Section 2320(d) doubles the entire bond amount — subtotal plus recovery-cost buffer — if you post through personal (individual, non-admitted) sureties instead of a licensed surety company. Doubling the penal sum usually erases any premium savings from skipping a corporate carrier, and personal sureties still have to qualify with the court and re-qualify if their financial position changes. Almost every conservatorship bond BSB issues uses an admitted surety insurer for this reason — run both toggles in the calculator above and compare the two bond amounts side by side.

It gives you the base mechanism most states share (assets plus expected annual income) but without California's two codified add-ons: the Rule 7.207 recovery-cost tiers and the § 2320(d) personal-surety doubling rule. Nevada is a useful contrast — NRS 159.065 just says the guardian must file a bond 'in such amount as the court determines is necessary for the protection of the estate,' full stop, no formula at all. Treat the 'other state' output as a floor a judge could exceed, not a number you can file with the court.

The § 2320(c) formula is what an admitted surety insurer's bond amount 'shall be' under the statute, but courts retain discretion to adjust it — most often upward, if the estate includes real property the conservator has authority to sell (added on top of the personal-property figure) or if the accounting reveals assets grew since the last bond review. Use this calculator to walk into the hearing with the number a producer will quote from; the judge's order on the Letters of Conservatorship is still the figure that controls.

The site's broader probate bond cost estimator applies a single state multiplier (1.0x-2.0x) to assets-plus-income across all 51 jurisdictions and all five fiduciary roles. This calculator does one thing the multiplier model can't: it reproduces conservatorship's actual three-part California statute — personal property, income, and public benefits summed separately, then the Rule 7.207 tiered recovery-cost add-on, then the § 2320(d) doubling rule for personal sureties. If you need a fast multi-state ballpark, use the estimator; if you're in a California conservatorship and want the filed-formula number, use this one.