By Corcoran Smith Law Corp. · Published 2026-08-20 · Updated 2026-10-02

Executor Duties in California: A Family Checklist

A California personal representative must inventory and appraise estate property within four months of letters, give notice to creditors, pay valid debts and taxes, and account before distributing. Full authority under the Independent Administration of Estates Act still leaves defined acts requiring court approval.

Serving as an out-of-state executor

Your residence and the decedent’s domicile answer different questions. A California resident’s estate does not become an ancillary probate merely because its executor lives in another state. If the person who died lived elsewhere and left California property, review ancillary probate before assuming the home-state appointment is sufficient.

Before arranging a sale or distribution, ask California counsel to confirm appointment requirements, any bond, authority to act and the court’s appearance procedures. Do not assume every hearing can be handled remotely. A local lawyer can help identify what needs to happen in the county where the estate is administered. The bond, service and address rules for a representative who lives in another state, and the bar on one who lives outside the United States unless the will names them, are set out in serving from outside California.

What a family executor should prepare

• The will, death certificate and any court appointment or letters.
• A list of assets showing how each is titled and where it is located.
• The known heirs, beneficiaries, debts and notices received.
• For a house: the deed, mortgage, insurance, tax information and occupancy situation.

Keep sensitive records for the firm’s secure intake process. Start with the first weeks after a death, or read the guía en español para albaceas y familias.

The duties the code actually imposes

Notice: who the executor must tell, and when

Taking control of the estate

What that means in the first month

• Secure the residence and any vehicles; make sure insurance stays in force
• Redirect mail and stop automatic payments that no longer serve the estate
• Open an estate bank account and stop using personal accounts for estate money
• Obtain certified death certificates — several more than seems necessary
• Locate every account, policy and deed before valuing anything

What full authority does and does not cover

Authority is not the same as freedom from notice. Many actions taken without prior approval still require notice of proposed action under §10580.

The deadlines a representative is actually on the hook for

Closing the estate

Can an executor be paid?

Yes, on the same statutory schedule as the attorney — four percent of the first $100,000, three percent of the next, two percent of the next $800,000. On a $1,000,000 estate that is $23,000. But allowance of it is one of the acts section 10501 reserves to the court even under full independent authority, so it is applied for rather than taken. A representative who is also a beneficiary sometimes waives it, since the fee is taxable income while an inheritance generally is not. The fee schedule is set out in full here.

Where representatives get into trouble

Rarely through theft. Far more often through delay, informality, and self-dealing that nobody labelled as such.

Mixing funds

Paying estate expenses from a personal account, or estate money into one, makes every later accounting an argument. It is the easiest failure to avoid and one of the hardest to explain away.

Letting a relative occupy estate property

Allowing a sibling to live rent free can raise questions about lost rental value and ordinary care. Section 9650(c), however, permits leaving property with a person presumptively entitled to it when possession is not needed for administration. A surcharge claim depends on the representative’s duties and the circumstances, not occupancy alone.

Paying claims that should have been examined

Allowing a doubtful claim is a decision beneficiaries can question later. After notice of rejection is given, section 9353 generally allows ninety days to sue or seek a qualifying referral for a claim then due. For a claim not yet due, the period runs from when it becomes due, and vacancies in the representative’s office are excluded.

Letting the inventory slide

Everyone agrees there is no rush until there is. A late inventory is visible in the court file and it is the first thing an unhappy beneficiary points at.

Can a personal representative be removed?

Yes. Persistent failure to account, self-dealing, or simply not moving are grounds beneficiaries can act on, and the exposure is personal rather than institutional — a representative who mishandles the estate answers from their own assets, which is precisely what the bond exists to secure where one was required. Where the conduct looks deliberate rather than merely slow, it becomes contested probate.

If the immediate problem is silence, start with what the court file shows and a written request for the missing information. The guide to an executor who will not share estate information walks through that first step.

Related: the whole process, what the representative and attorney are paid, the deadlines, selling property, and what beneficiaries can demand.