Dianne Feinstein’s daughter Katherine is accused of ‘rushing’ to sell an $8.5 million Bay Area beach house after changing the locks, as estate battle with her stepsisters intensifies

Following the death of Senator Diane Feinstein at the end of September, the family battle over the estate of her late billionaire husband Richard Blum appears to be intensifying.

Feinstein’s 66-year-old daughter Katherine, a former San Francisco judge, has been at odds with her three stepsisters over the fate of the estate’s Joint Property Trust since Blum’s death last year.

In court filings this week, Michael Klein, one of the estate’s co-managers, accused Katherine of changing the locks on one of the properties on the estate, a waterfront mansion in Stinson Beach, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

After the home was put on the market for $8.5 million, Klein accused Katherine of “hastily” trying to sell the Stinson Beach property against court orders in “an attempt to protect Mrs. K. Feinstein’s own inheritance.” increase during the remaining months of her mother’s life.’

“Not only did she ignore the personal toll this very public lawsuit against Senator Feinstein took, but she also ignored that there are other beneficiaries of the Joint Property Trust,” the filing added.

An attorney for Katherine, John Hartog, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Saturday morning.

However, Hartog told the Chronicle that she disputed certain allegations in the new filing, including that she denied Klein access to the properties in the trust after her mother’s death.

Hartog also said Klein has access to the DC home owned by the trust and oversees the inventory process of the assets therein.

The battle over the estates has been raging since Feinstein’s billionaire husband Blum died of cancer in February 2022 at the age of 86.

He had three daughters from a previous marriage: Annette Blum, Heidi Blum Riley and Eileen Blum Bourgarde. Katherine is Feinstein’s biological daughter, also from a previous marriage.

After his death, much of Blum’s estate went into a marital trust, and Feinstein inherited an annual income of $1 million through her separate trust.

Acting with power of attorney for her mother, Katherine sued the marital trust in which the senator and Blum held much of their property and bank accounts.

The Stinson Beach home has played a major role in the legal feud. Ownership of the house was divided equally between Feinstein and Blum in a joint real estate trust, of which they were co-trustees.

After Blum’s death, his longtime attorney Klein took over as co-trustee, and Katherine took over as co-trustee for her mother in August 2022.

The terms of the joint property trust provide that the property will be divided into a marital trust and Feinstein’s separate trust, with Feinstein receiving all income from the marital trust during her lifetime and the remainder going to Blum’s three biological daughters after her death.

The marital trust also included Feinstein and Blum’s extensive bank accounts, which reportedly held funds in the region of $6 million to $30 million.

Katherine had pushed for the sale of the Stinson Beach home, saying her mother did not want to use the property without her late husband, and she did not want to pay half of the maintenance costs.

Klein had argued that a sale of the property before Feinstein’s death would deprive Blum’s biological daughters of their fair share of the assets in the joint real estate trust.

In addition to the Stinson Beach home, the joint property trust dispute also includes a home on Lyon Street in San Francisco, a home on Nebraska Avenue in Washington, D.C., and a home on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

The San Francisco home and Italian mansion with sweeping views of San Francisco Bay, worth about $21 million, are perhaps the largest items in the trust.

Earlier this month, a judge ordered the case to be resolved through private mediation, likely extending the warring sides’ case into next year.

Feinstein’s last financial disclosure as senator, in May, estimated her net worth at $69.4 million.

However, it is believed that this figure does not reflect the total value of the assets held in the various trusts after Blum’s death, which included a real estate portfolio worth an estimated $102 million, as well as a private jet worth an estimated $62 million.

According to a study by PoliticsIt appeared that the legal battle over the joint property trust was waged almost entirely apart from Feinstein as she struggled with ill health in her final years.

While the properties left behind could become a hostile focal point for Feinstein’s children, this is because the portfolio was downsized by the senator when she sold two of her mansions in the final years of her life.

After her husband’s death in 2022, Feinstein sold her sprawling Bear Ranch home in Aspen, Colorado for $25 million.

The enormous 36-acre mansion offered stunning mountain views, vast forests and seven bedrooms.

She was also able to offload another seven-bedroom behemoth in Lake Tahoe, California, which was snapped up for a striking $36 million – $10 million less than it was originally listed for.

According to the New York Post, Feinstein also owned up to $25 million in a blind trust, in addition to a pension worth up to $1 million.

Although she earned a reputation as one of the smartest political actors in the Capitol, much of Feinstein’s financial power was fueled by Blum.

He invested significant sums in her early political career, including helping her finance a campaign to defeat the 1983 recall election, when she was San Francisco’s first female mayor.

Blum reportedly helped her raise $400,000 for the effort, and also injected $3 million into her failed bid for California governor in 1990.