Hi I'm Elizabeth Talbot with the Talbot Law Group in Walnut Creek California. Let's talk about the probate process in California and how it works when you have to go through a probate. So when do you have to go through probate? When someone dies without a trust or beneficiary listing on an asset or more than one asset that is worth over more than 180,000 dollars, that asset or those assets will go through probate in order to be distributed to the heirs or beneficiaries.

What does that mean? There are several different layers to moving through a probate in the California court system. The first is the general overall probate code. The probate code is the laws outlined by the state of California and there are over 5000 separate probate codes which is kind of crazy which is a lot to keep in mind. Basically, there are a lot of documents and forms called judicial council forms that are set by the state of California that one can use in order to go through a probate. You have those specific forms and the California laws that are kind of the overarching governing aspect of the probate estate in California.

What is the next thing you have? Each probate that occurs happens in a specific county's probate court. That probate court is generally wherever the person who died resided. So let's say for example, that they passed away in Santa Clara County. Their estate would have to go through the Santa Clara County probate court. Now each probate court and each different county in California has its own set of local rules and its own set of processes. One needs to be familiar with at a higher level in the California probate code laws and then at a secondary level, the local rules of that Court specifically and how things work. For Example, how does one file a document at that Court and how does it work? In Santa Clara County, like we were talking about, they have an efiling system which many of the courts have now adopted. What does it look like to efile in Santa Clara County? What efiling service can you use and what's the process for getting those documents back? In Santa Clara it takes about three weeks to a month for your document to actually be efiled and returned to you by the court. That can be kind of a big deal if you're not used to dealing with it. Alright, so now that we have the overall overarching California probate code, then we have the County's local rules and filing procedures

Next we have the probate examiners and they're another level at the court. These are individuals that are going to review all the documents that you submit and make sure that they align with the California law in general, the probate Court's local rules and that everything is in order before it goes before the judge. There's so many cases and so many matters but the judge can't be reviewing everything. The probate examiners are really key to previewing and making notes for people and (letting it go through before they go to the judges. It can actually be kind of really good to know what the probate examiners in each County are looking for in order to let it go to the judge.

So assuming that you have the law right, you have the local rules right, and you get past the probate examiners, you can often go before the judge for your hearing. At that point, of course, the decision is up to the judge and it's in their hands. They can either let you move forward, they can delay your hearing or they can deny it all together. And then you're kind of back to where you started. That's a bit of an overview of the layers of probating in a state in California and how the California courts work. In other videos we'll get into more specific counties and details of each.
Thanks so much!