Short answer: Estate planning for a young family means naming a guardian for your children, putting a trust or will in place to control how and when they inherit, and lining up someone to make decisions for you if you can’t. If you skip this and something happens to both parents, California’s intestate succession statutes decide who inherits your property, not you (Prob. Code § 6400), and separately, a judge decides who raises your kids. None of that is automatic just because you have a will drawer full of good intentions.
Who decides who raises my kids if something happens to both of us?
If you have not named a guardian, a judge decides, based on who petitions the court and what the judge thinks is in the child’s best interest. That might be the person you would have picked. It might not. Naming a guardian in your will puts your choice in front of the court and gives it real weight. It does not guarantee the outcome (a judge can still override it if there’s a strong reason), but it removes the guesswork and the fighting among relatives that shows up when nobody knows what you wanted.
Name a first choice and a backup. Talk to both people before you sign anything. A guardian who did not agree to the job, or who finds out about it after the fact, is a guardian who may say no when it matters.
Does a will or a trust do more for my family?
A will is where you name guardians for your children. That part matters no matter what else you do. But a will by itself does not avoid probate. It only takes effect once a court validates it through a probate proceeding, which is a public, court-supervised process. A funded revocable living trust is different: assets you actually retitle into the trust pass to your beneficiaries without going through probate at all.
For a family with young children, that distinction affects more than convenience. Probate takes time and happens in public court records. A trust lets a successor trustee step in and manage or distribute assets for your kids without a judge’s involvement, on a timeline you set rather than the court’s. See our living trust and wills pages for how each document works on its own.
How do I leave money to children who are too young to manage it?
An outright inheritance at 18 is rarely what you want for a young child. A trust lets you set the terms: an age or a set of ages for distributions, a trustee who releases money for education, health, and support in the meantime, and rules that apply no matter which child inherits or when. Whoever you name as trustee is a fiduciary who has to follow the trust’s terms and act within a reasonable time. They do not get to freelance.
If one of your children has a disability, this matters even more. An outright inheritance can disqualify a disabled child from needs-based government benefits. A properly drafted special needs trust holds funds for that child’s benefit without being counted as the child’s own asset for benefits eligibility. This is not a document to draft yourself from a template. Get it reviewed by someone who works in California trust drafting.
Who handles my estate, and who makes decisions if I can’t?
Your executor is the person who carries out your will after you die: paying debts, filing what needs to be filed, and distributing what’s left. If you name someone in your will, the court generally honors that nomination. If you don’t, the court appoints an administrator following a priority order set by statute (Prob. Code §§ 8400 through 8402, 8460 through 8469). Naming your own choice is the only way to control who that person is.
Separately, you need documents that let someone act for you while you’re alive but unable to make decisions, typically a durable power of attorney for finances and an advance health care directive for medical decisions. These are foundational documents in any plan, and the person you name should be someone whose judgment you trust completely, not just someone convenient. We are intentionally not listing dollar figures, filing rules, or statute numbers for these documents here because that level of detail depends on your specific situation and current law. Talk to an attorney about what your documents should actually say. Our power of attorney page covers the basics.
What else gets missed?
Retirement accounts and life insurance pass by beneficiary designation, not by your will. If you never named a beneficiary, or named one who has since died or divorced you, that account can end up back in probate regardless of what your will says. Check every account, every policy, and update them after a marriage, divorce, birth, or adoption.
A few more things people forget: instructions for pets (a simple pet trust or at minimum a clear designation of who takes them), a memorandum listing who gets specific personal items so your family isn’t guessing or arguing over it, and some plan for who can access your digital accounts. None of these are complicated on their own. They just get skipped because nobody thinks of them until it’s too late to ask.
What to do next
If you have young children and no guardian named anywhere, that’s the first gap to close, even before you finalize a trust. From there, a complete plan covers guardianship, a trust or will for how your kids inherit, a named executor, and the incapacity documents that let someone act for you while you’re alive. An estate planning attorney can put all of it in one coordinated set of documents instead of leaving pieces scattered or missing. See our estate planning overview for how the pieces fit together.
Figures verified July 2026.
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