California Estate Planning: Wills, Trusts, Probate, and Taxes

Estate planning in California covers the documents that decide what happens to your property and your care: a will, a living trust, a power of attorney, and a health care directive. This article explains what each document does, how California law treats it, what happens to an estate with no plan at all, and how property moves through (or around) probate after a death. It links to the primary statutes in the California Probate Code and to the California Courts self-help materials for each step, so the specific procedures are one click away.

What estate planning covers in California

Estate planning is the set of decisions about who receives your property when you die, who manages that transfer, and who acts for you if you become unable to act for yourself. In California these decisions are governed mostly by the Probate Code and carried out through a small set of standard documents.

Two goals sit underneath most plans. The first is directing property to chosen people instead of letting the state’s default rules decide. The second is avoiding, or at least shortening, the court-supervised process called probate. California recognizes several tools for each goal, and a typical plan combines more than one: a will as a backstop, a trust to hold the major assets, and separate documents for finances and health care during life.

The California Courts maintain a public self-help center covering wills, estates, and probate. It is a reliable map of the same ground this article covers, and it hosts the official Judicial Council forms the procedures require. The spokes linked at the end of this page go deeper on each individual document and process.

Key documents and terms

A short vocabulary makes the rest of estate planning easier to follow. These terms recur throughout the procedures in this section.

• A will names who inherits property and who serves as executor, the person who carries out the will after death.
• A trust is an arrangement in which a trustee holds property for beneficiaries. A revocable living trust is the version most often used to keep assets out of probate.
• Probate is the court process that proves a will, pays debts, and distributes whatever remains.
• A durable power of attorney authorizes someone to manage your finances if you cannot.
• An advance health care directive names who makes medical decisions for you and records your wishes about treatment.
• Intestate succession is the default distribution the law applies when a person dies without a valid will.

California is a community property state, and that shapes almost every item on the list. Property acquired by a married person during the marriage is generally owned equally by both spouses. That shared ownership affects what a will can give away, how a trust is funded, and who inherits by default when there is no will.

Making a valid will in California

For most people the will is the foundation of a plan. California sets specific formalities for a will to be valid, and getting them wrong is a common reason a document fails in probate.

Under Cal. Prob. Code § 6110, a typed or printed will must be signed by the person making it (the testator) and witnessed by at least two people who are present at the same time and who understand that the document is the testator’s will. Each witness must sign during the testator’s lifetime. A will that skips the two-witness requirement generally cannot be admitted to probate, no matter how clearly it states the testator’s wishes.

California also recognizes a handwritten will. Under Cal. Prob. Code § 6111, a holographic will is valid without witnesses as long as the signature and all material provisions are in the testator’s own handwriting. This is why a letter written and signed entirely by hand can sometimes stand as a will, while a typed form signed without witnesses cannot.

A will also does more than move money. It is where a parent can nominate a guardian for minor children, and where the testator names the executor who will gather assets, pay creditors, and distribute the estate. Those choices carry real weight even when most of the property passes outside probate by other means.

Trusts and other ways to avoid probate

Probate in California is public, and formal probate commonly takes well over a year from filing to final distribution, as the California Courts explain in their guide to probate. Several tools move property to heirs without it.

The most common is the revocable living trust. The person creating the trust transfers assets into it during life, keeps full control as trustee, and names a successor trustee to distribute those assets at death without court involvement. A trust avoids probate only for the assets actually retitled into it, so funding the trust matters as much as signing it. Many plans pair the trust with a short “pour-over” will that catches anything left outside the trust and directs it in.

Real property has its own shortcut. Under Cal. Prob. Code § 5642, a revocable transfer-on-death deed lets an owner name who receives a home when the owner dies. The transfer takes effect only at death, the deed stays revocable until then, and it must be notarized and recorded with the county recorder shortly after it is signed to be effective.

Other assets pass by beneficiary designation or by the form of ownership itself. Retirement accounts and life insurance go to their named beneficiaries. Payable-on-death bank accounts go to the named recipient. Property held in joint tenancy passes to the surviving co-owner. None of these pass through probate, and none of them are controlled by the will, which is why beneficiary forms need to stay current as circumstances change.

Planning for incapacity

Estate planning also covers the stretch of time before death when a person may be alive but unable to manage their own affairs. Two documents handle it, and both operate only while the person is living.

A durable power of attorney covers finances. Under Cal. Prob. Code § 4124, a power of attorney is “durable” when it states that the agent’s authority remains effective despite the principal’s later incapacity. Without that durability language, the authority ends exactly when it is most needed, and the family may have to ask a court to appoint a conservator instead.

For medical decisions, California uses the advance health care directive. Cal. Prob. Code § 4701 sets out a statutory directive form that lets a person name an agent to make health care decisions and record their own wishes about treatment for a time when they can no longer decide for themselves.

When there is no will: intestate succession

If a person dies without a valid will, California decides who inherits under its intestate succession rules. Because California is a community property state, the result depends heavily on marital status and on which relatives survive.

Under Cal. Prob. Code § 6401, a surviving spouse or registered domestic partner receives the decedent’s one-half share of the community property, which means the surviving spouse ends up owning all of the community property outright. The spouse’s share of the decedent’s separate property then varies: the spouse takes all of the separate property when no children, parents, or siblings survive, and a one-half or one-third share when children or other close relatives do survive, with the balance passing to those relatives.

These defaults rarely match what a person would have chosen. They make no provision for an unmarried partner, a stepchild who was never adopted, a friend, or a charity. A will or a trust replaces the intestate defaults with the person’s own instructions, which is the central reason to make one.

Probate and small-estate transfers after death

When an estate does go through probate, the case runs in the Superior Court of the county where the person lived. The court confirms the will (or applies the intestate rules), appoints a personal representative to manage the estate, and supervises payment of debts and taxes before anything reaches the heirs. The California Courts self-help probate section walks through the petitions, notices, and inventory the process requires.

Not every estate needs that process. Under Cal. Prob. Code § 13100, a decedent’s successors can collect personal property by a sworn affidavit, without opening probate at all, when the total value of the estate falls under a threshold that the Judicial Council adjusts for inflation every three years. The current dollar figure and the forms for these simplified transfers are published by the California Courts, and a separate simplified procedure exists for real property of small value. These small-estate tools are why many California estates settle without a formal probate case.

Taxes on a California estate

California imposes no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax. A person who inherits money or property owes no California tax simply for receiving it, which sets California apart from the handful of states that still tax inheritances.

Federal estate tax reaches only large estates. According to the IRS estate tax overview, the tax applies only when a taxable estate exceeds the federal exemption for the year of death, and as of 2025 that exemption is roughly $13.99 million per person, so the large majority of estates owe nothing and file no estate tax return. Income tax is a separate matter: an estate or trust can still owe income tax on income its assets earn after the death, and that is reported apart from any estate tax.

Specific procedures and topics