California Probate Process: Complete Guide

Bay Legal, P.C. guides executors, administrators, and heirs through California probate — from the first petition to final distribution — and helps identify the cases that don’t need full probate at all.

Probate is required in California whenever a deceased person’s assets exceed the state’s small-estate threshold and weren’t otherwise structured to avoid the court process — for example, through a funded living trust, joint tenancy, or beneficiary designations that pass property outside probate. Not every estate needs it: California provides several simplified alternatives for smaller estates, covered below.

Most California probate cases take 9 to 18 months from the initial filing to final distribution, though the timeline stretches for contested estates, complex assets, or a busy county court calendar. A large part of the floor on that timeline is statutory: California requires a four-month creditor claim period under Probate Code §9100 before an estate can close, regardless of how straightforward the case otherwise is.

California sets probate attorney and executor fees by statute, not by negotiation. Under Probate Code §10810, both the attorney and the personal representative are separately entitled to a percentage-based fee: 4% of the first $100,000 of the estate, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, 1% of the next $9,000,000, and 0.5% beyond that. On a $1,000,000 estate, that works out to roughly $23,000 for the attorney and $23,000 for the executor — around $46,000 combined — calculated on the estate’s gross value, before any mortgage or other debt is subtracted.

Not everything a person owns goes through probate. Assets held in a funded living trust, jointly owned property with right of survivorship, and accounts with a named beneficiary (retirement accounts, life insurance, payable-on-death bank accounts) generally pass outside the probate process entirely. Understanding which of a decedent’s assets fall into each category is usually the first step in figuring out whether probate is required at all — and if so, how much of the estate it actually covers.

California provides several shortcuts around formal probate for smaller estates, particularly following AB 2016’s expansion of these thresholds effective April 1, 2025.

For estates that don’t qualify for a simplified alternative, opening probate follows a defined sequence: filing a petition, obtaining Letters (Testamentary or of Administration), giving notice to heirs and beneficiaries, inventorying assets, addressing creditor claims, and ultimately petitioning for final distribution.

Real estate is often the single largest — and most procedurally involved — asset in a California probate estate.

Most California probate estates are straightforward — until real property, a family business, or a disagreement among heirs turns a routine administration into something more complicated. Because Bay Legal also has real estate and business attorneys in-house, the property and business questions that come up during probate don’t have to be handed off to a different firm mid-administration. Bay Legal holds a 4.8-star average across more than 371+ Google reviews, including from clients Sivendra Ganesh Maraj has guided through exactly this process.