If you die without an estate plan in California, a probate judge divides your property using a fixed formula written into state law. Your accounts and real estate stay frozen until the court appoints someone to manage them.
La Jolla is a coastal community within the city of San Diego, with roughly 46,000 residents spread along about seven miles of Pacific shoreline. It is home to the University of California, San Diego, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Salk Institute. Research, biotechnology, and tourism drive much of the local economy.
Households here often hold real estate, retirement accounts, and business interests that pass unpredictably when no plan exists. Working with an estate planning attorney in La Jolla, CA, allows a person to replace those default rules with clear personal instructions. Here is what the court does when nobody writes anything down.
Your Estate Freezes Until a Judge Appoints Someone
Nothing transfers the moment you die. A relative must petition the Superior Court in your county to be named administrator of your estate.
The court sets a hearing, usually several weeks out, and publishes notice in a newspaper. Until the judge signs that order, nobody can sell the house, close accounts, or pay the mortgage from estate funds.
Most intestate administrators must post a bond. A will can waive that cost, but you left no will.
Who California Counts as Your Heirs
The state applies a bloodline formula. It looks only at marriage and at biological or adopted relatives, never at who depended on you.
If You Are Married
Under California Probate Code section 6401, your spouse receives your one-half interest in all community property. The survivor ends up holding the entire community estate.
Separate property splits differently. Your spouse takes one-half when you leave one child, or no children but a living parent or sibling line.
Your spouse takes one-third when two or more children survive you. Only when no children, parents, or siblings exist does the spouse take everything.
If You Are Not Married
Probate Code section 6402 sends your property to your children first, then parents, then siblings, then grandparents and their descendants.
A partner of thirty years inherits nothing. Stepchildren you raised but never adopted are cut out the same way.
What the Court Process Costs Your Family
Probate compensation in California is fixed by statute, not negotiated between the parties. Under Probate Code section 10810, the administrator and the estate attorney each earn 4 percent of the first $100,000, 3 percent of the next $100,000, and 2 percent of the next $800,000.
Those percentages apply to gross value, not equity. A $1 million home carrying a $700,000 mortgage still counts as $1 million, which produces about $46,000 in combined statutory fees.
Creditors get at least four months to file claims after the administrator is appointed. Most intestate estates stay open somewhere between nine and eighteen months.
Who Raises Your Children
You named nobody, so the judge chooses. Relatives can file competing petitions, and a court investigator may interview the family before the hearing.
The judge decides using the child’s best interest standard. A grandparent you disliked can be appointed over the sibling you trusted.
Money left to a minor stays under court supervision. The full amount is handed over on the child’s eighteenth birthday.
Closing the Gaps the Default Rules Leave
Each item below targets one specific failure point described above.
- Retitle the family home into a funded living trust so it never reaches probate.
- Nominate a guardian in a signed will so relatives cannot compete for the role.
- Document which property stayed separate after marriage, since the spousal split depends on it.
- Delay a child’s inheritance past 18 by naming a trustee in a trust.
- Add contingent beneficiaries to retirement accounts so they never fall into the estate.
Key Takeaways
- Property stays frozen until a judge appoints an administrator.
- A surviving spouse receives all community property automatically.
- Separate property is split one-half or one-third depending on children.
- Statutory probate fees are calculated on gross value, not equity.
- Unmarried partners and unadopted stepchildren inherit nothing.
- Judges pick guardians and release inherited money at age 18.
- Most intestate estates take nine to eighteen months to close.