Short answer: California estate planning looks different from other states because California is a community property state, has no state estate or inheritance tax, and forces any estate above $208,850 in gross assets into formal probate. A properly funded revocable living trust keeps most families out of that court process, but the trust itself does nothing to change your property tax, income tax, or federal estate tax exposure. Those are separate problems with separate rules.
Why does California require a different approach to estate planning?
California is a community property state. Most assets a married couple acquires during the marriage belong equally to both spouses, regardless of whose name is on the account or the deed. That single rule changes how a plan has to be built, because a will or trust for a California couple needs to sort out which assets are community property and which are separate property, since the two categories can pass to different people under different terms.
High property values raise the stakes further. A single-family home in Ventura County can be worth enough on its own to force a probate case if it is not titled in a way that avoids probate, even when the rest of the estate is modest.
Does California have an estate tax or inheritance tax?
No. California has no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax, under Revenue and Taxation Code § 13301. That does not mean large estates are free of tax exposure, only that the exposure comes from the federal government rather than the state. For 2026, the federal estate and gift tax exemption is $15,000,000 per person, or $30,000,000 for a married couple, under Internal Revenue Code § 2010(c), made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Most California estates fall well under that number, but anyone whose real estate, retirement accounts, and business interests add up close to it needs a plan that addresses federal exposure directly, not just probate avoidance.
Does a living trust avoid probate in California?
A will requires probate to take effect. It does not avoid probate on its own. A properly funded revocable living trust does avoid probate, because assets titled in the trust’s name pass to beneficiaries directly under the trust terms rather than through a court proceeding. California requires formal probate for any estate with more than $208,850 in gross assets subject to probate, for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, under Probate Code § 13100.
“Funded” is the operative word. A trust that is signed but never actually gets the house, accounts, and other assets retitled into its name does not protect those un-retitled assets from probate. This is the single most common way a California trust fails to do its job. If you are not sure whether your trust was properly funded, a living trust attorney can check your deeds and account titling directly.
What happens if you die without a will in California?
If a Californian dies without a will, the state’s intestate succession statutes decide who inherits, not the decedent’s actual wishes, under Probate Code § 6400. For community and quasi-community property, a surviving spouse takes all of it, both their own half and the deceased spouse’s half, under Probate Code § 6401(a) and (b). For separate property, the surviving spouse’s share depends on who else survives: all of it if there are no surviving children, parents, or siblings; half if there is one child, or no children but a surviving parent or sibling line; one-third if there are two or more children, under Probate Code § 6401(c).
Stepchildren who were never legally adopted, and unmarried partners, generally inherit nothing under these rules, no matter how long the relationship lasted. And dying without a will does not avoid probate either. An intestate estate above the small-estate threshold still goes through the same court-supervised process as an estate with a will.
How does Proposition 19 affect a family home you leave to your children?
Proposition 19 lets a child keep a parent’s low property tax base-year value on an inherited home, but only if the child makes it their principal residence within one year of the transfer and files for the homeowners’ exemption, under California Constitution article XIII A section 2.1 and Revenue and Taxation Code § 63.2. The exclusion is also capped: for transfers occurring between February 16, 2025 and February 15, 2027, the cap is the home’s factored base-year value plus $1,044,586, and that cap is indexed every two years.
A revocable living trust does not change any of this. Reassessment turns on occupancy and the homeowners’ exemption filing, not on whether the property happens to sit inside a trust. Moving the home into a trust does not disturb the existing Prop 13 base-year value either way.
Figures verified July 2026.
What to do next
If your plan predates Proposition 19, or you have never confirmed whether your trust actually got funded, that is worth checking before it becomes your family’s problem instead of yours. Bring your deeds, trust documents, and account statements to an estate planning attorney and get a direct answer on whether your plan will do what you think it does.
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