Short answer: Start with four documents: a will that names a guardian for your children, a financial power of attorney, an advance healthcare directive, and, if you want your family to avoid probate court, a funded revocable living trust. A will alone does not keep your estate out of probate in California. Ridley Law’s flat fee for a complete trust-based plan, which includes the trust, a pour-over will, the incapacity documents, and the deed to move your house into the trust, is $4,100 for a married couple and $3,700 for one parent.
What happens to my kids if my spouse and I both die without a plan?
Without a will, you have not named a guardian, so a California court decides who raises your children based on who petitions and what the judge finds is in their best interest. That can mean a slower process during an already difficult time, and it can mean a relative you would not have chosen ends up with the job.
Money works differently. If you die without a will, California’s intestate succession statutes decide who inherits your property, not your wishes. Citation: Probate Code § 6400. If you are married and the property is community property, your spouse takes all of it. Separate property is split between your spouse and your children under a formula set by statute. Citation: Probate Code § 6401. If you are unmarried and living with a partner, or if you have a stepchild you never legally adopted, intestate succession generally leaves them nothing. Citation: Probate Code §§ 6401 to 6402. For blended and unmarried families, that gap is often the single biggest reason to get a will and a trust in place rather than assume things will sort themselves out.
Does a will alone keep my family out of probate court?
No. A will has to go through probate before it does anything. It tells the court who you want as guardian and how you want assets divided, but the court process still applies. Only a revocable living trust that is actually funded, meaning your house and other major assets are retitled into it, passes property to your family without a probate filing.
An unfunded trust does not help. If you sign a trust and never move your house or accounts into it, those assets still go through probate, and the trust document sits in a drawer doing nothing for them.
What do a power of attorney and a healthcare directive actually do?
A financial power of attorney names someone to handle your bills, accounts, and other financial matters if you are unable to. A healthcare directive names someone to make medical decisions for you and lets you write down your treatment preferences. For young parents, the practical reason these matter is timing: incapacity from an accident or sudden illness can happen at any age, and without these documents your family may need a court proceeding just to get authority to act for you while you are alive. Both documents are part of a complete plan, alongside the will and trust.
What assets pass to my kids without going through probate at all?
Some assets skip probate on their own, regardless of whether you have a will or trust. Property held in joint tenancy, payable-on-death or transfer-on-death accounts, life insurance with a named beneficiary, and retirement accounts with a named beneficiary all pass directly to whoever you named. Citation: Probate Code § 13050.
This is worth checking now, not later. Many young parents already have life insurance through work or a retirement account with an old beneficiary designation from before they had kids or got married. Those designations control, no matter what your will or trust says, so they need to match your actual plan.
What does a complete plan cost and what does it include?
Ridley Law’s flat fee for a complete trust-based estate plan is $4,100 for a married couple and $3,700 for a single parent. That covers a revocable living trust, a pour-over will, the incapacity documents (power of attorney and healthcare directive), and the deed work to move your California home into the trust. Matters that fall outside a flat-fee plan, such as a trust administration dispute, are billed hourly.
Figures verified July 2026.
What to do next
If you have young children, the guardian nomination in a will is usually the most urgent piece, since it is the document that tells a court who you want raising your kids. From there, decide whether a funded living trust makes sense for your family’s assets, and get the power of attorney and healthcare directive signed alongside it. An estate planning attorney can put a full plan in front of you, including a will and a living trust, in one engagement rather than piecing it together over time.
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