Is There a Deadline to File Probate in California?

Short answer: California has no general statute of limitations for opening probate — an estate can be probated a year, five years, even a decade after a death. But there is one hard deadline hiding inside that answer: whoever is holding the original will must lodge it with the superior court within 30 days of learning of the death. That’s Probate Code §8200, and the filing fee is $50. So “no deadline” and “30 days” are both true — they just apply to two different things.

Figures verified against the California Probate Code and Judicial Council forms, 2026. This is general information, not legal advice for your situation.

Why AI gives you three different answers

Ask a chatbot whether there’s a deadline to file probate in California and you’ll get “no deadline,” “one year,” or “three years,” depending on the day. Here’s what’s actually going on. There are two separate questions, and the confident-sounding answers keep mashing them together:

• Opening the probate case itself: no statute of limitations. The petition for probate can be filed whenever someone gets around to it.
• Depositing the will with the court: 30 days. Under Probate Code §8200, the custodian of the will — whoever physically has the original — must deliver it to the clerk of the superior court in the county where the person lived, within 30 days of learning of the death. The clerk charges $50.

The “one year” and “three years” answers you see floating around are usually garbled versions of other states’ rules or of creditor-claim timing. Neither is a California deadline to open probate.

The 30-day rule for the will

Lodging the will is not the same as opening probate. It’s simpler: you hand the original document to the court clerk (or mail it), pay $50, and the will goes on file. You haven’t started a case, hired a lawyer, or taken on any duties. You’ve just done the one thing §8200 requires of whoever ended up with the document.

This applies to you even if you’re not the executor, even if you think the family won’t probate the estate, and even if the will is old. If Mom’s will has been sitting in your Camarillo kitchen drawer since the funeral, the statute says it belongs at the Ventura County courthouse.

One practical note before you go looking for it: if the will is locked in a safe deposit box, California lets you open the box before you have any court authority — a death certificate, the key, and your ID will get you in to retrieve it.

If the will can’t be found at all

Here’s where waiting gets genuinely risky. Under Probate Code §6124, if a will was last known to be in the testator’s own possession and it can’t be found after death, the law presumes they destroyed it on purpose — meaning they revoked it. That presumption can be rebutted, but rebutting it takes evidence, time, and often a court fight. Every year that passes makes the evidence colder. If you know a will existed and can’t locate the original, that’s its own problem with its own playbook, and it’s worth dealing with now rather than later.

What waiting actually costs

Legally you can wait. Practically, waiting is expensive. A few ways it bites:

• The house sits in limbo. Nobody can sell, refinance, or borrow against a Ventura County home titled in a dead person’s name until someone has authority. If the property needs a new roof or the market softens while the family stalls, that’s real money. On an $850,000 house, a few percent of market movement is tens of thousands of dollars.
• Bills don’t pause. Property taxes, insurance, and utilities keep accruing. Homeowner’s insurance on a vacant house can get cancelled or rewritten at a much higher premium.
• Creditors and interest keep running. The formal creditor-claim process only starts once probate opens. Until then, debts sit there accruing interest, and nothing is being cut off.
• People scatter and memories fade. Witnesses move, account statements stop arriving, the sibling who “was going to handle it” changes jobs and stops returning calls. Family friction grows in the gap.

Probate already takes a year or more in most California counties. Adding a year of delay on the front end just pushes everything — including the money — further out.

You might not need probate at all

Before you assume you’re filing anything: many estates skip probate entirely. If everything the person owned passes by trust, joint title, or beneficiary designation, there may be nothing to probate. And if the property that would go through probate totals $208,850 or less (for deaths on or after April 1, 2025), heirs can usually collect it with a small-estate affidavit under Probate Code §13100 — a form and a 40-day wait, no court case. Even then, the §8200 lodging rule still applies to the original will. Lodge it, then use the affidavit.

Questions people actually ask

Is there a penalty for not filing probate in California?

There’s no fine for not opening a probate case — the deadline that carries teeth is the will-lodging rule in §8200. Sitting on a will past 30 days puts you on the wrong side of a statute and looks terrible if anyone later questions your motives. The bigger penalties for not probating are practical: frozen assets, accruing costs, and a harder case later.

How long after death do you have to file probate in California?

There is no fixed deadline to open the probate case itself. The 30-day clock in Probate Code §8200 applies only to depositing the original will with the superior court. That said, most families who need probate file within a few months, because nothing can be sold or distributed until they do.

What happens if the executor never files the will?

Anyone else with an interest — an heir, a beneficiary, a creditor — can petition to open probate; the case doesn’t depend on the named executor’s cooperation. And the §8200 duty to lodge the will sits on whoever holds the document, executor or not. An executor who withholds a will is doing themselves no favors on their eventual appointment.

Can you file probate 5 or 10 years after death?

Yes. It happens more than you’d think — usually when a family finally needs to sell a house still titled in a parent’s name. The case can still be opened, but expect extra work: stale records, lost documents, heirs who’ve died in the meantime, and if the original will can’t be found, the §6124 revocation presumption to overcome.

Do all estates have to go through probate in California?

No. Assets in a living trust, joint tenancy property, and accounts with named beneficiaries all pass outside probate. And estates where the probate assets total $208,850 or less can usually be collected by affidavit under §13100 with no court case at all.

The bottom line

There’s no legal deadline to open probate in California — but there’s a 30-day deadline to lodge the will, and every month of delay after that costs the estate money, options, and goodwill. If you’re holding a will, take it to the courthouse. If you’re not sure whether the estate even needs probate, that’s a 20-minute conversation, not a project. Talk to Eric and find out where you actually stand.

Sources: Cal. Prob. Code §8200 (custodian must lodge will within 30 days; $50 fee); Cal. Prob. Code §6124 (lost-will revocation presumption); Cal. Prob. Code §§13100–13101 (small-estate affidavit, $208,850 for deaths on/after 4/1/2025); Judicial Council form DE-300.