Short answer: If you own any property in California, have minor children, or are in a relationship the law does not automatically recognize, you need an estate plan. Under Probate Code § 6400, California’s intestate succession statutes decide who inherits when someone dies without a will, and that default order rarely matches what people actually want. Dying without a plan does not avoid probate either. An estate above the state’s threshold still goes through full, court supervised administration.
Do I actually need an estate plan, or is that just for wealthy people?
California law does not care how much you are worth. If you own a home, a car, a bank account, or have a minor child, you have an estate, and state law already has a default plan for it whether you wrote one or not. The question is not whether a plan exists. It is whether the plan is yours or the legislature’s.
Without a will or trust, the intestate succession statutes of Probate Code § 6400, not your wishes, determine who inherits. That includes people whose net worth is modest. It also includes people whose only real asset is a house, because under Probate Code § 13100, California requires formal probate for any estate with assets subject to probate totaling more than $208,850, gross value, for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. That threshold applies regardless of whether the deceased was wealthy or just owned a home in a state where homes are expensive.
What actually happens if I die without a will in California?
The intestate succession statutes take over, and they follow a fixed order that has nothing to do with what you would have wanted. Under Probate Code § 6401, subdivisions (a) and (b), for community and quasi-community property, a surviving spouse takes all of it, their own half plus the decedent’s half. For separate property, Probate Code § 6401, subdivision (c), sets the surviving spouse’s share based on who else survives: all of it if there are no surviving children, parents, or siblings; one half if there is one child or that child’s descendants, or no children but a surviving parent or sibling; one third if there are two or more children.
If nothing passes to a spouse, or the person was unmarried, Probate Code § 6402 sends the estate down a fixed line: 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 Probate Code §§ 6401 and 6402, no matter how long the relationship or how much care was involved. And dying without a will does not sidestep probate. An intestate estate above the small estate threshold still goes through the same court supervised process, under the same statutory fee schedule set by Probate Code §§ 10800 and 10810, as an estate with a will.
Does owning a home change the urgency?
Yes. Real property is usually what pushes an estate over the probate threshold, and probate on real property is neither fast nor cheap. Most California probate cases take twelve to eighteen months from the date the court appoints a personal representative. The costs come out of the estate before anyone gets a distribution: under the fee schedule in Probate Code §§ 10800 and 10810, a $1,000,000 gross estate produces roughly $23,000 for the executor and a separate $23,000 for the estate’s attorney, about $46,000 in ordinary fees before court costs or bond.
A properly funded revocable living trust is the main tool for keeping real property out of that process. The key word is funded. A trust that exists on paper but was never used to retitle the house does nothing for that house. Anyone who owns California real estate, whether it is a starter home or a rental property, should treat that ownership as the trigger for at least reviewing a living trust or getting a clear picture of what probate would actually cost their family.
What if I have minor children?
A will is where you name a guardian for a minor child if something happens to both parents. Without that nomination on file, a court decides who raises your children, using its own judgment about what is best, not necessarily the person you would have chosen. This is true regardless of the size of the estate. A family with modest savings and two young kids has more urgent business signing a will than a wealthy retiree with adult children, even though the retiree’s estate is worth more on paper.
What if I am unmarried, remarried, or in a blended family?
This is where the default rules do the most damage. Intestate succession has no category for an unmarried partner, no matter how long the relationship lasted or how intertwined the finances became. It has no category for a stepchild who was raised as your own but never formally adopted. Both inherit nothing under the statutory scheme unless you put something in writing that says otherwise.
Remarriage adds another layer. Community property generally goes to the surviving spouse, which can mean children from a first marriage are unintentionally cut out unless the estate plan specifically addresses that. None of this is exotic. It is the ordinary shape of a lot of California families, and it is exactly the situation intestate succession handles worst.
What to do next
Start with the document that names a guardian for your children if you have them, and the document that says who gets your house and accounts if you do not have a will or trust yet. From there, an estate planning attorney can walk through whether a will alone is enough or whether a funded living trust makes more sense given what you own and who you want to leave it to. The right plan depends on your family, not a general rule, so get specific advice before assuming your situation is too simple or too complicated to bother.
Figures verified July 2026.
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