The Estate Plan Review Scorecard for California Families

How often should I review my estate plan?

There is no single deadline that forces a review, but several of the numbers built into a typical California plan change on a fixed schedule whether you touch the plan or not. California’s small estate affidavit threshold under Probate Code §13100 adjusts every three years, and the Proposition 19 parent-child property tax exclusion cap under Revenue and Taxation Code §63.2 adjusts every two years. A plan that was accurate the day you signed it can fall out of step with current law within a few years without anyone doing anything wrong.

The one thing to remember

Your plan didn’t change while it sat in the drawer, but the law did. Prop 19 rewrote the property tax rules in 2021, and the SECURE Act rewrote the retirement rules in 2020. If your plan predates those two dates, it was built on assumptions that are no longer true. A plan can be perfectly valid and still be perfectly wrong for the law we have now.

Does an old trust automatically keep my family out of probate?

A revocable living trust only keeps an asset out of probate if that asset was actually retitled into the trust’s name, a step often called funding. Buy a new account, refinance, or acquire property after the trust was signed and never retitle it, and that asset can still end up in probate even though a trust exists. A plan review checks funding as closely as it checks the document language.

Has the federal estate tax exemption changed enough to matter to my plan?

For 2026, the federal estate and gift tax exemption is $15,000,000 per person, or $30,000,000 for a married couple, set under IRC §2010(c) by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. If your trust was drafted when the exemption was far lower, it may still carry tax-driven provisions, such as a mandatory split at the first spouse’s death, built for a number that no longer applies to most families. A review checks whether those provisions still make sense or now just add cost and complexity.

Score yourself: ten questions, one point per honest yes

Give yourself a point for every honest yes. Read the reasoning under each one, because the point isn’t the score; the point is spotting the specific gap before it costs your family. Answer for the plan you actually have, not the plan you meant to finish. If you’re not sure, that counts as a no, and a no is exactly what you want to catch here.

1. Is your trust actually funded? Are your house and your accounts titled in the trust’s name today? An unfunded trust sends your family to probate no matter how well it’s written.
2. Are your beneficiary designations current? Retirement accounts and life insurance pass by the form, not the will. An ex-spouse or a deceased beneficiary on that form beats your whole plan.
3. Does your property plan predate Prop 19? If it was written before 2021, it may assume the old parent-child exclusion that let children inherit the low property tax basis. That assumption is mostly gone (Cal. Const. art. XIII A §2.1; Rev. & Tax. Code §63.2).
4. Does your IRA plan predate the SECURE Act? Plans written before 2020 often assume a beneficiary could stretch distributions over a lifetime. Most non-spouse beneficiaries now have ten years (Pub. L. No. 116-94 (2019)).
5. Is a mandatory A/B split still the right structure? Older married-couple trusts often force a split at the first death that once saved estate tax and now often just creates cost and lost basis step-up. Worth a fresh look.
6. Is your trustee and agent lineup still right? The person you named years ago may have moved, aged, fallen out of favor, or died. Read the names and ask if they’re still the ones you’d pick today.
7. Are your power of attorney and health care directive signed and findable? A directive nobody can locate at the hospital is no directive at all. Confirm they exist, they’re signed, and someone knows where they live.
8. Have you moved, married, or divorced since signing? A California move changes the tax math, and a marriage or divorce changes who the law protects. Any of these calls for a review (Fam. Code §852, on changing the character of property between spouses).
9. Is every business interest assigned to the trust? An LLC or corporate interest that was never assigned isn’t in the plan, and it can drag the whole thing into probate.
10. Are guardians named for any minor children? If both parents are gone and no guardian is nominated, a judge picks from whoever shows up. One signature outranks every relative’s opinion.

What does your score actually mean?

Four moves, in order

1. Total your score. Be honest about the maybes. A maybe is a no for this purpose, and a no is a finding worth having.
2. Circle the noes. Each no is a specific gap: funding, a stale beneficiary form, a pre-2021 property assumption, a pre-2020 IRA assumption. Name them.
3. Pull the documents. Find the trust, the powers of attorney, the directive, the deeds, and the beneficiary forms. A document you can’t find is its own problem.
4. Get a targeted review. You don’t necessarily need a whole new plan. Often an amendment or a restatement closes the gaps while keeping the trust’s name and date, so nothing has to be retitled.

What triggers demand a review right away?

• The plan predates 2021 and you own California real property.
• The plan predates 2020 and it points a retirement account at a trust.
• You’ve married, divorced, moved to California, or lost someone named in the plan.
• You have minor children and no guardian nominated.

What’s the rule of thumb for reviewing your plan?

Your plan didn’t change while it sat in the drawer, but the law did. Grade it against these ten questions in ten minutes and find out whether it still does what you paid for.

This is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it doesn’t make you a client. Retirement and federal tax points should be confirmed with your CPA.

If the scorecard turns up questions about your own documents, a trust health check looks at the actual paperwork, not just the ten questions.

Want this guide as a PDF?

Download the printable scorecard and grade your plan on paper.

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