California intestate succession is its own beast. Community property rules, separate property rules, and the probate court all collide the moment someone dies without a will. The result is rarely what the family expected.
When someone dies without a will in California, lawyers call it dying "intestate." The state then steps in with a default plan written into California Probate Code sections 6400 through 6402. That default plan does not care about your verbal promises, your group text with your siblings, or the fact that your stepdaughter was the one who actually drove you to chemo. It cares about two things: who you were married to, and who your blood relatives are.
This matters more in California than in most states because California is a community property state. That single fact reshapes the entire inheritance math. Half of everything earned during the marriage already legally belongs to the surviving spouse the moment of death. The intestate rules then divvy up the other half, plus any separate property, according to a fixed formula. The formula is rarely what families expect.
Before any distribution happens, the probate court has to sort every asset into one of two buckets.
Community property includes almost everything earned, bought, or accumulated during the marriage by either spouse. Paychecks, retirement contributions made during the marriage, the equity built into the family home if it was purchased after the wedding, the car bought last year. If it was acquired with marital effort or marital money, it is community property.
Separate property includes anything owned before the marriage, anything inherited individually, anything received as a gift to one spouse alone, and anything earned after a permanent separation. The childhood Roth IRA, the cabin Grandma left to you specifically, the engagement ring.
If you die without a will in California, your surviving spouse automatically inherits 100% of all community property. Not half. The whole thing. They already owned half by operation of marriage. The intestate statute hands them the other half too. Where the rules get interesting is what happens to your separate property.
The Probate Code does not write a custom plan for your family. It writes five plans, one for each broad situation, and your family gets sorted into whichever bucket it fits. Here is how each one resolves.
The surviving spouse inherits everything. All community property, all separate property, every account, the house, the cars. This is the cleanest outcome and the one most people assume happens automatically. It only happens when there are no other living relatives in the chain.
Spouse takes 100% of community property. Separate property splits based on the number of children. With one child, the spouse and child each get half of the separate property. With two or more children, the spouse gets one-third of the separate property and the children divide the remaining two-thirds equally. The family home, if it was community property, goes entirely to the spouse. The vacation cabin Mom bought before the wedding gets sliced.
Same math as scenario two, but families never expect what comes next. The children from the prior relationship are entitled to their share of the deceased's separate property right alongside any kids from the current marriage. If your separate property includes a meaningful asset, your kids from a previous marriage get a piece of it the moment you die. The surviving spouse cannot block them, cannot delay them, and cannot redirect those assets back to the children from the current marriage.
If you die without a spouse or descendants, your parents inherit everything in equal shares. If only one parent survives, that parent takes the entire estate. This is the scenario that shocks adult children of divorce: the estranged parent who left when you were eight is still legally entitled to half if the other parent is also alive. There is no test for emotional contribution.
If the search exhausts every line of descendants, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins back through the family tree without finding a single living heir, the estate "escheats" to the State of California. In practice this is rare because the search goes far. Cousins of cousins have inherited California estates because no closer heir could be found.
Scenario three is the single biggest reason California families end up in probate fights. The surviving spouse expects to keep the home and the savings to raise the kids still at home. The deceased's adult children from the first marriage expect their share of Dad's separate property. Both groups are right under the statute. The only way to avoid this is a will, a trust, or both.
California has carved out a faster track for smaller estates so families do not have to drag every modest inheritance through full probate. As of 2026, the small estate threshold is $184,500. If the deceased's total estate, after excluding certain assets like real property held in joint tenancy and accounts with named beneficiaries, falls below that number, the heirs can use a Small Estate Affidavit.
The affidavit lets an heir collect personal property, bank balances, and other non-real-estate assets by presenting a notarized form to the institution holding the asset. No court appearance, no letters of administration, no months of waiting. Most banks process it within a few weeks.
For real property worth less than $184,500, California offers the Petition to Determine Succession to Real Property. It is a single-petition court filing that asks a probate judge to declare who inherits a specific piece of real estate without opening a full probate. The hearing is usually short and uncontested if the heirs agree on the outcome.
If the estate is larger than $184,500, none of the simplified options apply. Full probate begins, which in California typically takes 9 to 18 months and costs between 4% and 7% of the gross estate in statutory attorney and executor fees combined.
Plenty of assets do not flow through the intestate statute at all because they pass by another mechanism. Knowing what bypasses probate helps you understand where intestate succession actually bites and where it does not.
This is why so many California families build a plan that combines a will with a revocable living trust and properly maintained beneficiary designations. The will catches anything that slipped through. The trust handles real estate and large assets without probate. The beneficiary designations route retirement and insurance dollars cleanly.
Even families who know California is a community property state regularly get tripped up by three details. First, the surviving spouse does not automatically get the entire estate just because they were married. Children, including adult children, including stepchildren if they were legally adopted, slice into the separate property pile.
Second, the intestate rules do not honor your relationships. A devoted stepchild who never got around to being legally adopted inherits nothing. A biological child you have not spoken to in twenty years inherits the same share as a child who lived next door and managed your care. A non-marital partner of fifteen years inherits zero.
Third, the rules do not honor your stated wishes. If you told your sister you wanted her to have the engagement ring, and you died without a will, the ring follows the statute. The conversation does not survive you. The same goes for "everyone knows the cabin was supposed to go to my brother." Without a will, "everyone knew" is not a legal instrument.
A simple will, properly executed under California law, overrides every default outcome described above. You can name your spouse as the sole beneficiary of your separate property. You can leave the cabin to your brother. You can disinherit a relative the statute would otherwise reward. You can name a guardian for minor children. The intestate statute is the floor; a will is the lever that lets you build above it.
Most people who avoid writing a will assume their family will sort it out, or that their spouse will simply receive everything. Neither assumption holds up under California Probate Code 6400-6402. If you want a primer on how state default rules vary across the country, our overview of what happens when you die without a will walks through the broader patterns and the states with the most surprising rules.
Once you have decided that the default outcome is not what you want, the next step is writing a will that reflects your actual wishes. Our walkthrough on how to write a will covers the essentials, including California's witness and signing requirements. For families who want to keep the home, the trust, and the retirement accounts moving without a probate court timeline, our guide on how to avoid probate explains the tools California recognizes.
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