Fix Los Angeles Probate filings when the court auto-rejects it

Last Update: May 28th, 2019

If you find that the Los Angeles Probate court rejects your filing without a reason (typically within a minute of submission), that means that the court’s software has an issue with one or more of your documents. The result is an auto-rejection before the court has a chance to review the filing.

An auto-rejection looks like this:

In general, this auto-reject is due to one of two reasons:

1) You Converted Your Document from WordPerfect to PDF.

If you use WordPerfect to create your documents, and then save them as a PDF using that program as well, the Los Angele Probate’s e-Filing system may have trouble with that file. During WordPerfect’s conversion to a PDF, it adds characters, fonts, or metadata not compatible with the LA Probate court.

To fix this: Upload the WordPerfect file (not the PDF version), and let our system convert the document to a PDF. Then you can resubmit your filing.

2) Your Document Format is PDF/A

The Los Angeles Probate system may reject your filing if you save ANY document as a PDF/A. If your document is auto-rejected, you will want to make sure you remove the PDF/A formatting, and then resubmit.

Each computer’s software handles how to remove the PDF/A formatting differently, but for Adobe Acrobat users:

  1. Open the document.
  2. Click the Enable Editing button.
  3. Click the OK button when you get the “Editing a PDF will cause…” warning popup.
  4. Save the file with a new file name to keep it separate from the non-converted one.
  5. Submit that version to the court

Note: once you make these changes, if the filing is pending for 2 to 3 minutes after you resubmit, the court’s software will most likely NOT auto-reject it. Still you will want to keep an eye on the pending filing for a few minutes afterwards to make sure.

If you make these changes, and the court continues to auto-reject the filing, other issues for the failure include, but ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

  • Page size not being 8.5×11 inches
  • A resolution higher than 300dpi
  • Use of unintelligible images
  • Unsupported fonts like ZapfDingbats, Wingdings, Symbols
  • A Fillable PDF has not been flattened (learn more)
  • Password protection on PDF documents
  • URLs or shortcuts included in the filing
  • PDF Producers other than Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Word

You might also want to print, and re-scan the document and submit that version if all of these options fail.