Short answer: An estate plan works through one of two tracks: a will that only takes effect after a court validates it through probate, or a properly funded revocable living trust that lets whoever you choose distribute your assets privately, without a probate case at all. If you die with neither in place, California’s intestate succession statutes decide who inherits, not your own wishes or anything you told your family informally. Getting this right means naming who receives your property, who is in charge of distributing it, who raises your minor children if both parents are gone, and who can act for you if you become incapacitated before you die.
What happens if you die without a will in California?
If you die without a will or a funded trust, Probate Code § 6400 controls what happens to your property, not any instructions you left informally. For community and quasi-community property, a surviving spouse takes all of it, both their own half and the half that belonged to the person who died, under Probate Code § 6401(a) and (b). Separate property is split differently: the surviving spouse’s share depends on who else survives, ranging from all of it if there are no surviving children, parents, or siblings, down to one-third if there are two or more children, under Probate Code § 6401(c).
If nothing passes to a surviving spouse, or the person who died was unmarried, the estate passes down a fixed order set by Probate Code § 6402: first to children and their descendants, then to parents, then to siblings and their children, then outward to grandparents and beyond. Stepchildren who were never legally adopted and unmarried partners generally inherit nothing under this scheme, under Probate Code §§ 6401 and 6402. Dying without a will does not avoid probate either. An intestate estate above the small estate threshold still goes through full, court supervised probate under the same statutory fee schedule as an estate with a will.
What’s the difference between a will and a living trust?
A will only takes effect once a court validates it through probate. Probate is a public, court supervised process. The California Courts Self-Help Guide estimates nine months to a year and a half for a typical case, measured from the date the court appoints a personal representative, and in practice twelve to eighteen months is a realistic expectation. A properly funded revocable living trust works differently. Once your assets are actually retitled into the trust’s name, your successor trustee can distribute them according to the trust’s terms without opening a probate case at all. That privacy and speed is the main reason most California estate plans are built around a trust rather than a will alone.
The word “funded” matters. A living trust that is never funded, meaning your accounts, real estate, and other assets are never retitled into it, does not avoid probate for those un-retitled assets. A trust sitting in a drawer while your house is still deeded in your own name accomplishes nothing. Some assets bypass probate on their own regardless of a trust, including property held in joint tenancy, payable on death or transfer on death accounts, and life insurance or retirement accounts with a named beneficiary.
Who manages everything, an executor or a trustee?
If you have a will, the court appoints an executor, or if none is named, an administrator, under a priority order set out in Probate Code §§ 8460 through 8469. That person is a fiduciary who owes duties to the estate and reports to the probate court. California pays executors on a statutory schedule under Probate Code § 10800: 4 percent of the first $100,000, 3 percent of the next $100,000, 2 percent of the next $800,000, and lower percentages above that. The estate’s attorney is entitled to an identical fee, calculated separately on the same schedule, under Probate Code § 10810. On a $1,000,000 estate, that schedule produces $23,000 to the executor and a separate $23,000 to the attorney, $46,000 in ordinary statutory fees before court costs or bond, and that fee runs on the gross value of the estate with no reduction for a mortgage or other debt.
A trustee is different. A trustee is paid whatever the trust document specifies, under Probate Code § 15680, and if the trust is silent, only “reasonable compensation under the circumstances,” under Probate Code § 15681. There is no statutory percentage for trust administration. A trustee also owes a duty to administer the trust according to its terms and may not use trust property for personal benefit, under Probate Code §§ 16000 and 16004. Beneficiaries can petition the court to compel an accounting or, in serious cases, remove a trustee who isn’t doing the job.
What about incapacity, not just death?
A complete plan does not wait for death to matter. Most people also put in place a document that lets someone else manage their finances if they become unable to, generally called a financial power of attorney, and a document that lets someone make medical decisions and states treatment preferences, generally called an advance healthcare directive. Without these in place, your family may need to go to court to get authority to act for you while you are alive but incapacitated, which is slower and more public than having the documents ready in advance. If you have minor children, your will is also where you nominate a guardian for them. Courts generally give weight to that nomination, but it is not automatic, so naming a guardian and a backup guardian is worth doing carefully rather than as an afterthought.
What does a complete plan cost?
Ridley Law charges a flat fee for a complete trust based estate plan, meaning a revocable living trust, pour over will, incapacity documents, and the deed work to move your California home into the trust: $4,100 for a married couple and $3,700 for a single person. Matters that fall outside a standard plan, such as a trust administration dispute, are generally billed hourly instead. Details on scope are on the fees page.
Figures verified July 2026.
What to do next
If you don’t have a will or trust, or you have one that was never funded, that gap is the thing to fix first. Pull together a list of what you own, decide who should receive it and who should be in charge, and talk with an estate planning attorney about whether a will alone or a funded living trust makes sense for your situation. Ridley Law’s practice is limited to California estate planning, trust administration, and probate.
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