What to Do When Someone Dies in California
After a death in California, arrange the immediate care of people, pets and property; order certified death certificates; and find the will or trust. The will's custodian must deliver the original to the proper superior court within 30 days after learning of the death. Most estate filings are not due in the first week.
Two things are true at once in the first days after a death, and they pull in opposite directions. Paperwork starts arriving immediately, which makes everything feel urgent. And almost none of it has a deadline measured in days. This page sets out what actually has to happen, in the order it actually happens, so that the urgent and the merely loud can be told apart.
The first two weeks
| Do this | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| Order certified death certificates | Banks, insurers and public agencies may require them; ask whether each keeps its copy | Days 1–7 |
| Secure the home and the vehicle | An empty house is a target, and an unattended one can lose its insurance cover | Immediately |
| Redirect or collect the mail | The mail is how you find the accounts, the insurers and the creditors nobody mentioned | Week 1 |
| Find the original will and any trust | Which document exists decides which process the estate needs | Weeks 1–2 |
| Deliver the original will to the court | A statutory duty on whoever holds it — 30 days from knowledge of the death | Within 30 days |
| Notify Social Security and any pension | Payments made after the death are recovered later, usually at an awkward moment | Weeks 1–2 |
| Review recurring payments | Cancel nonessential subscriptions, but preserve insurance, mortgage, tax and utility payments until an authorized person can decide | Weeks 1–4 |
| List the assets and how each is titled | This is the list that answers every later question, including whether probate is needed | Weeks 2–6 |
Do not distribute or sell estate property before confirming who has authority. Keep records of any preservation expense you pay personally, and do not let essential insurance, housing or utility coverage lapse while authority is being established.
The one thing the law makes urgent
The first estate-specific obligation most families encounter falls on whoever is physically holding the will. Probate Code section 8200 requires the custodian, within 30 days after learning of the death, to deliver the will to the clerk of the superior court of the county in which the estate may be administered, and to mail a copy to the person named as executor or, if none is named and their address is known, to a named beneficiary. That is a duty to lodge the document, not a decision to open a probate. Section 8000 separately allows any interested person, at any time after the death, to petition for administration. Section 8400 makes clear that until letters are issued no one has power to administer the estate, although a person named as executor may pay funeral expenses and take necessary measures to maintain and preserve estate property.
Sources: Probate Code s.8200 - Custodian must deliver the will within 30 days · Probate Code s.8000 - Petition commencing administration · Probate Code s.8400 - No power to administer until letters issue · Verified 2026-08-21.
Which process the estate needs
The answer depends entirely on how each asset was titled on the day of the death, not on what the will says or what anyone was promised. Work through the list of assets one at a time.
| How it was held | What happens to it |
|---|---|
| In the name of a living trust | Trust administration by the successor trustee. No court |
| Joint tenancy with a survivor | Passes to the survivor; title is cleared by affidavit |
| With a named beneficiary — retirement, insurance, payable on death | Passes to the beneficiary directly, outside the estate |
| Sole name, and the spouse inherits | Often a spousal property petition, with no dollar limit |
| Sole name, modest value | A small estate affidavit or a petition for the residence |
| Sole name, above the limits | Full probate administration |
| Meant for the trust but never retitled | A Heggstad petition brings it in |
Most estates use more than one of these at once, which is normal and is not a sign that something has gone wrong. Whether probate is needed at all works through the same question in more detail.
If there is no will
The estate is not lost and nothing escheats to the state simply because nobody made a will. Intestate succession supplies the answer instead, and it is fixed: the surviving spouse takes the community property and a share of the separate property that depends on which other relatives survive, with the remainder passing to children, then parents, then outward. Someone still has to be appointed to administer the estate, and the petition is how that is done.
If you are the one named to do this
Being named executor in a will, or successor trustee in a trust, means the job is available if you accept it — and the two roles have different rulebooks. An executor answers to the court and cannot administer the estate until letters issue: see executor duties. A successor trustee derives authority from the trust, but the duties attach on acceptance and the document may impose conditions: see what a trustee must do. Both roles can be declined, and a fiduciary can be personally responsible for losses caused by a breach.
When to be worried rather than busy
A few things in the first weeks are worth treating as signals rather than as chores. An amendment to the will or trust signed close to the death, particularly one that changes who benefits. Accounts that were emptied or retitled in the months before the death. A relative who has the documents and will not show them to anyone. A caregiver or new partner who has become the main beneficiary. Each of those has a name in California law and its own deadline — undue influence, financial elder abuse, the right to see the document — and the deadlines run whether or not anyone has explained them.
The Probate Code sections behind this page
Each section links to its official text at the California Legislature’s own site. The full index of sections covers the rest of the Code.
Also cited above, explained elsewhere on this site
- Probate Code section 8200
- Custodian must deliver the will within 30 days. Where section 8200 is explained
- Probate Code section 8000
- Petition commencing administration. Where section 8000 is explained
- Probate Code section 8400
- No power to administer until letters issue. Where section 8400 is explained