An adult child who has just lost a parent is often handed a stack of unfamiliar tasks before the funeral is over, with siblings asking questions and nobody quite sure who is in charge. Most people facing this process have never settled an estate, and the hardest part is not knowing which tasks are urgent and which can wait. This guide walks through the first month in order, from the death certificate to the family home, and says plainly where a licensed professional usually takes over.
The path ahead runs from inheritance to estate settlement, then to the house, the belongings, and the tax decisions that follow. Seven steps cover the first month; the wider process is laid out in the California estate settlement guide.
Before You Start: What You Need and What Can Wait
A few tasks belong in the first days: arranging the funeral, ordering death certificates, and locking down the home, car and valuables. Other tasks carry legal windows measured in weeks, months or years, and those can wait until the documents are in hand.
Documents to find early:
- Find the original will because its custodian has a 30-day duty to deliver it, described in Step 2.
- Find any trust document since a trust usually controls property titled in its name.
- Gather recent account statements from banks, brokerages and retirement plans to show what the parent owned.
- Locate deeds to any real property so the family knows how title was held.
- Collect life insurance policies because each names its own beneficiary.
- Find vehicle titles and registration cards which the DMV uses for a transfer.
Two facts will shape nearly every step that follows: how title to each asset was held, and whether a trust exists. Nobody needs those answers on day one, only the awareness that they matter.
If the reader is working, California gives many employees bereavement leave. Under Gov. Code section 12945.7, an employer with five or more employees may not refuse an employee of at least 30 days up to five days of bereavement leave for a parent's death, completed within three months of the death; the days need not be consecutive.
Step 1: Obtain Certified Copies of the Death Certificate
The death certificate is the document nearly every bank, agency, title company and court will ask to see, and it has to be a certified copy, not a photocopy. Under Health & Safety Code section 102780, the funeral director, or the person acting in that role, prepares the certificate and registers it with the local registrar.
Certified copies come from the State Registrar (the California Department of Public Health's vital records office), the local registrar, or the county recorder. Under Health & Safety Code section 103526, an "authorized person," including the decedent's child, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse or domestic partner, receives an authorized certified copy after signing a statement under penalty of perjury; a request made by mail or fax needs that statement notarized. Anyone else receives an informational copy marked "INFORMATIONAL, NOT A VALID DOCUMENT TO ESTABLISH IDENTITY."
Families commonly order several copies at once, since many institutions keep the copy they receive. The county recorder's office and the Department of Public Health publish the current fee and ordering instructions.
Step 2: Locate and Review the Will and Any Trust Documents
Finding the will and trust early tells the family who is in charge and which legal path the estate is likely on.
A will usually names an executor, the person the will puts in charge of a probate estate, and says how the parent wanted property divided. The executor has no court authority until a judge appoints them. Under Prob. Code section 8440, if no executor is named or none is willing or able to act, an administrator with the will annexed is appointed as personal representative, the person responsible for representing the estate in probate. With no will, Prob. Code section 8461 sets the priority for appointment as administrator: surviving spouse or domestic partner, then children, then grandchildren, then other issue, then parents, with the list continuing through more distant relatives, creditors and any other person. Who inherits without a will is set by intestate succession, the laws that say who inherits when there is no will or trust.
A trust usually names a successor trustee, the person who takes over managing the trust after the parent's death. That is a separate role from executor, even when one person holds both.
- Deliver the original will to the court because, under Prob. Code section 8200, its custodian must deliver it within 30 days of learning of the death to the superior court clerk in the county where the estate may be administered, unless a probate petition is filed first.
- Send a copy of the will to the named executor or, if the executor cannot be found, to a named beneficiary, under the same section.
- Ask the bank about a sole-name safe deposit box since access before probate follows a set procedure.
Under Prob. Code section 331, for a box held in the parent's sole name, a key holder may get access before letters are issued by giving the bank proof of death and proof of identity. That person may inventory the box, remove burial instructions, and remove wills and trust documents after the bank photocopies them, but may not remove anything else. If relatives dispute the will or suspect misconduct, that contested matter is handled by an attorney who litigates trust and probate cases.
Step 3: Secure and Inventory the Estate's Property
What this step means for the family is simple: keep everything as it was until someone has authority to act. The executor, administrator or successor trustee has a duty to protect estate property from loss, damage or unauthorized transfer.
California law treats real property (land and the house) differently from personal property (bank accounts, vehicles, investments, household contents), so the inventory keeps them separate.
- Change the locks on a vacant home to keep track of who has access.
- Notify the homeowner's insurer of the death since a vacant or estate-owned home may need different coverage.
- List the household contents before anything leaves because belongings are part of the estate until the will, trust or law says otherwise.
- Contact the California DMV about each vehicle since it has a transfer process after a death.
- Notify each bank with a certified death certificate so accounts in the parent's sole name are frozen against misuse.
- Leave sole-name accounts untouched until someone has legal authority from probate, a trust or a simplified procedure.
For vehicles, Veh. Code section 5910 lets the heirs or the beneficiaries under the will transfer registration, whatever the vehicle's value, when the parent left no other property needing probate. They present the certificate of ownership and registration card if available, plus a certificate under penalty of perjury stating, among other things, that no probate is underway and unsecured creditors have been paid. The DMV may also require a death certificate and other heirs' names and addresses.
Joint accounts work differently. Under Prob. Code section 5302, money in a joint account generally belongs to the surviving party, and a payable-on-death (P.O.D.) account goes to the named payee, unless there is clear and convincing evidence of a different intent. These survivorship and payee designations cannot be changed by will.