Probate · Trust Administration · Wills · Disputes
California Probate and Inheritance Help
Find the next step for an estate, a trust or an inheritance dispute. Start with a guide below, or tell the firm what happened.
Choose your next step
Free to ask. No account, no obligation. Submitting a case profile does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Live now — a person answersSettling a parent’s estate or trust?
Start with the responsibility you have today. A family executor, a successor trustee and a beneficiary may need different advice.
- My parent died with a houseSecure the property and work out which process applies.
- I am the successor trusteeYour first steps, records and responsibilities.
- I am the executor, including from another stateConfirm authority, organize the estate and prepare for counsel.
- Herencias y sucesiones en CaliforniaGuía en español para familias, albaceas y fiduciarios sucesores.
Helping a client? Resources for referring attorneys, fiduciaries and financial professionals.
Most people arrive here days after a death, needing to know what has to happen next. This site explains California inheritance law from the statutes: settling an estate, administering a trust, what a will has to contain — and, where something has gone wrong, the deadline for doing anything about it.
Start with the deadline
The most common reason a valid California inheritance claim is never filed is not weakness. It is timing. The 120-day trust contest period runs quietly, and most people learn about it far too late.
It starts with an envelope. A trustee serves a notice under Probate Code §16061.7, and from the day it is served the clock runs — whether or not anyone explains that to you, and whether or not you have seen the trust.
Check your deadlineFree. Takes about a minute. No account required.
What this site covers
Five categories. The first two are about getting an estate or a trust settled; the last three are about what happens when that goes wrong.
- Probate AdministrationSettling an estate through the court: whether you need probate at all, opening the case, the four-month inventory, creditor claims, the statutory fee schedule, and final distribution.20 guides · getting it done
- Trust AdministrationThe successor trustee’s job after the settlor dies: the notice that starts every clock, the duties the Trust Law imposes, what a trustee may charge, and the accounting beneficiaries are owed.5 guides · getting it done
- Will LitigationWhat makes a California will valid, and what unmakes one: execution and handwriting, undue influence, capacity, fraud and forgery, plus the heirs a will left out by accident rather than intention.6 guides · when it goes wrong
- Trust LitigationDisputes over a living trust: contesting the instrument, removing or surcharging a trustee, and recovering what left the trust.10 guides · when it goes wrong
- Probate LitigationContested estate administration: who serves as personal representative, what belongs to the estate, and how property that left it is recovered.5 guides · when it goes wrong
What is happening to you?
Most people arrive here able to describe the situation but not to name it. Find yours below.
- You need help receiving your inheritanceIdentify the asset, your share and what comes nextGet my inheritance
- A parent died and you do not know where to startThe first weeks, in orderWhat to do when someone dies
- You are not sure whether probate is neededIt depends on how each asset was titledDo you need probate?
- You have just been told you are the successor trusteeThe office, and what it requiresWhat a trustee must do
- The house is still in your parent’s name§13151 petition, or full administrationThe home, without probate
- You need to know what probate will costA statutory fee on gross valueWork out the fee
- A spouse or child needs support during administrationFamily allowance and homesteadSupport while the estate is open
- An asset was left out of the trustSigned but never retitledHeggstad petitions
- You are not sure the will was signed properlyTwo witnesses, or the testator’s own handWhat makes a will valid
- A trustee or sibling won’t show you the trustBreach of the duty to informYour rights as a beneficiary
- You received a notice and don’t know your deadlineA §16061.7 notice may have started a 120-day clockWhat that notice means
- The trust was changed shortly before deathUndue influence or incapacityHow trust contests work
- The trustee is mismanaging or self-dealingBreach of fiduciary dutyRemoving a trustee
- You were left out of a willWill contest or omitted heirWill contests
- Money moved out of accounts before the deathFinancial elder abuseElder financial abuse
What is actually at stake
For most families the estate is not a portfolio. It is a house someone lived in for forty years — and the question of who gets to keep it.
California inheritance disputes are rarely about greed. They are about a document that changed at the wrong moment, a sibling who moved in and took over, a trustee who stopped answering the phone. The law has specific names for each of those, and specific windows in which each can be raised.
What happens next, and where
Two questions come up before anything else: what the process actually involves, and which court hears it. For an estate being settled, that is probate administration and, for a funded trust, ordinarily a private administration outside court. Where there is a dispute, how a California trust dispute works walks the stages and realistic timing. Where we practice explains which county hears your matter — and why that decides the venue, not who can represent you.
Work it out yourself first
Three of these questions have arithmetic behind them rather than judgment, so the site answers them directly. The probate fee calculator returns the statutory fee for an estate of a given value and shows what it takes from actual equity once a mortgage is counted. The deadline calculator estimates the contest window from the date a notice was served. And the Probate Code index routes a bare section number to the page that explains it. All three are free, and none of them asks for an email address.
How a case starts here
| Step | What happens | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| 1. You tell us what happened | A short case profile in your own words | Nothing |
| 2. An attorney reads it | Not an intake screener — an attorney of this firm | Nothing |
| 3. We tell you what we think | What process the estate needs, or whether there is a claim — and what deadline governs it | Nothing |
| 4. If we can take it, we say so | If we cannot — capacity, conflict, venue — we say that too | Nothing |
Who publishes this
California Inheritance Law is published by Corcoran Smith Law Corp., a California litigation firm founded by Mark C. Smith, a U.S. Army combat veteran and UC Berkeley School of Law graduate. The firm represents heirs and beneficiaries statewide, meeting clients in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.
This is the firm’s own publication, not a directory and not a matching service. Every attorney is named, and every bar number links to the State Bar’s own record so you can check it. More about the firm, or visit corcoransmithlaw.com for the firm’s full practice — estate planning, real estate, veterans law, and general counsel work alongside inheritance litigation.
This site exists to explain the law. When you are ready to instruct someone, the firm is who you instruct.
Need help with legal fees?
We litigate select cases on contingency, with no upfront fees.
Costs are separate from the fee, and whether you are responsible for them is set out in the written agreement before you sign anything.
How contingency fees work in California
A contingency fee means the attorney is paid from what is recovered rather than by the hour, so a beneficiary who cannot fund litigation out of pocket can still bring a claim. California regulates these agreements closely. Under Business and Professions Code section 6147, the agreement must be in writing and the attorney must give the client a duplicate copy, signed by both, when the contract is made. It must state the agreed contingency rate; how disbursements and costs incurred in prosecuting or settling the claim will affect that fee; and to what extent the client could be required to pay for related matters. Unless the matter falls under section 6146, the agreement must also state that the fee is not set by law and is negotiable. These are not formalities: failure to comply with any provision of section 6147 makes the agreement voidable at the client’s option, leaving the attorney entitled only to a reasonable fee.
Sources: Business and Professions Code s.6147 - Contingency fee contracts · Verified 2026-08-03.
Not every matter suits a contingency arrangement, and the firm does not take every case on one. Whether yours qualifies depends on the facts, the likely recovery, and the assets actually available to satisfy a judgment. Ask when you call.
We Answer 24/7 — Call Anytime · (415) 275-1492Meet the firm behind this guide
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