California Has a Built-In Plan for You
Dying without a will does not mean an estate goes unclaimed or ends up with the state. Under California Probate Code Section 6402, the law sets out a specific order for who inherits property when someone dies without a valid will, starting with children and moving outward through parents, siblings, and more distant relatives if no closer family survives. Courts sometimes describe this framework as the state’s own default will, since it reflects a general assumption about what most people would likely want. Only in exceedingly rare cases, where no relative of any degree can be located, does an estate ultimately pass to the state itself.
Why Community Property Complicates the Picture
California’s status as a community property state adds another layer to this analysis. A surviving spouse generally receives all community property outright, while separate property gets divided according to the priority order in Section 6402, depending on which other relatives survive. Distinguishing community property from separate property is not always straightforward, particularly for assets acquired before the marriage but improved or maintained with marital funds afterward. A home purchased before the marriage but paid down with joint income during the marriage, for example, can end up partly community and partly separate property, each governed by a different rule.
Assets That Skip Intestate Succession Entirely
Not everything a person owns during their lifetime passes through these default inheritance rules automatically. Some categories of property transfer automatically to a named recipient regardless of whether a will exists, including:
- Life insurance policies with a named beneficiary
- Retirement accounts with a designated beneficiary on file
- Real estate held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship
- Assets already placed in a living trust
A Stockton estate planning lawyer can help identify which specific assets in a given estate fall into these categories, since they bypass the priority order entirely and go straight to the named person or joint owner.
Why the State’s Default Plan Rarely Matches Personal Wishes
The priority order in Section 6402 applies the same way to every estate, regardless of family circumstances, which means it often produces results a person would not have chosen. The team at Yee Law Group Inc. frequently works with families who discover, only after a death, that intestate succession left out a stepchild, a longtime partner, or a close friend who was never formally added through adoption or marriage. By the time this becomes clear, there is usually no way to correct it, since the statute looks only at legal relationships rather than the relationships that actually mattered.
Situations Where Default Rules Create Real Problems
Blended families are especially likely to run into results that feel deeply unfair under these default rules. A surviving spouse from a second marriage may receive a share of separate property that leaves children from a first marriage with less than the deceased intended, since the statute does not account for informal family relationships or unwritten intentions. A Stockton estate planning lawyer can help draft a will or trust that reflects the family structure as it actually exists today, rather than the one the statute simply assumes.
Taking Control of How Your Estate Is Divided
Writing a will does not have to be complicated, but skipping it entirely hands the entire decision over to a statute that has no way of knowing who mattered most in a person’s life. Even a simple will naming beneficiaries directly can prevent the kind of confusion and disappointment that intestate succession often creates for families left behind. A short conversation about goals and family circumstances is often all it takes to put a plan in place that actually reflects someone’s wishes.
If you want to make sure your estate goes to the people you actually intend, speak with our team about putting a plan in place that reflects your actual wishes.