First: nothing legal has to happen this week.
Bills can wait. The bank can wait. Do not pay estate debts out of your own pocket, do not sell or give away anything, and do not sign anything a creditor sends you. Take care of the funeral and your family. Then call me.
Does this estate even need probate?
Not every estate does, and the first thing I do is find out. Often there is a faster road:
- There was a living trust. Then there is no court case at all — only trust administration, which I can walk the successor trustee through.
- Everything was joint or had a named beneficiary. Retirement accounts, life insurance, joint accounts and transfer-on-death deeds pass outside probate.
- The estate is small enough for a shortcut. California has simplified procedures for smaller estates, and the dollar limits have gone up in recent years. Whether you qualify is a five-minute question — ask me before you assume you don’t.
- The surviving spouse takes everything. A spousal property petition is a much shorter, cheaper proceeding than full probate.
If it does: the road through the Kern County Superior Court
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Petition to open the estate
I file the petition, publish the required notice, and get a hearing date. This asks the court to appoint you as executor or administrator.
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Letters issue — you get authority
Once the judge signs, you have the document banks and title companies have been asking you for. Now you can actually do something.
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Inventory, appraisal, creditors
Everything gets listed and valued by a court-appointed referee, and creditors get their window to make claims. This is the long middle stretch.
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Sell what needs selling, pay what needs paying
Real property sales, final tax returns, valid debts. I handle the court approvals these require.
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Final accounting and distribution
A last petition, a last hearing, and the court orders the estate distributed. Then you are done, and discharged.
How long
A straightforward Kern County probate generally runs about a year. Estates with real property to sell, disagreements among heirs, or messy records take longer. Anyone who promises you three months has not read the file.
What it costs
In a full California probate, the attorney’s fee is set by statute as a percentage of the estate — not by me, and not by the hour. I will calculate it for your estate on our first call so you know the number going in, along with the court filing fee, the publication cost, the probate referee’s fee, and the bond if one is required. Nothing comes out of your pocket up front; these are paid by the estate.