Starting Monday, March 2, 2020 North County residents will no longer be required to drive to downtown San Diego to file their Probate matters. A dedicated Probate counter will be open in the Court’s Family/Civil Business Office located at 325 Melrose Drive in Vista. Court services dealing with decedents' estates, trusts, guardianship of minors, and conservatorship of adults who are unable to provide for their personal needs or manage their financial resources, were discontinued at the North County courthouse in 2012 as the Superior Court faced historic budget cuts. Because of the reduction in staffing, all Probate services were consolidated at the downtown Madge Bradley courthouse and then moved to the new Central Courthouse located at 1100 Union Street. State funding has since improved and the Court has sought ways to restore services in order to provide more conveniences for court users. “It was not easy taking away the North County Probate office and requiring court users to spend hours driving out of their communities to access the Court. We are pleased we can restore these services and make our Court more available to residents’ needs,” says Mike Roddy the San Diego Superior Court Executive Officer. (MORE) Superior Court of California, County of San Diego NEWS RELEASE Page 2 of 2 2/21/2020 Commencing March 2, Probate-related documents may be filed at the North County courthouse. The cases will continue to be assigned to the Probate Judges located at the Central Courthouse, and Probate hearings will continue to be held at the Central branch. This is the first step in making Probate matters more accessible for North County residents. The Court is working towards expanding services further by enabling parties who live in North County to appear at the Vista courthouse on guardianship matters, and be linked to their assigned Judge at the Central courthouse, via video conference.