California Small Estate Affidavit: The No-Court Route

General information, not legal advice. California thresholds adjust over time and asset holders set their own paperwork. Confirm the current limit and the bank's requirements before you rely on this.

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Do you even go to court in California?

No, and that is the whole appeal of the California approach. Under Probate Code section 13100, the small estate affidavit is a collection tool you use directly with whoever holds the asset. You are not filing anything with a judge, not opening a case, not paying a court fee. You fill out the affidavit, sign it, and present it along with a certified death certificate and identification to the bank, brokerage, or other institution, and section 13105 obligates them to hand over the property to you. It works whether or not the person left a will, which is another point where California differs sharply from states like Texas that reserve the affidavit for intestate estates.

The section 13100 limit and the 40-day wait

Two numbers govern eligibility. The limit is $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, a figure the state recalculates every three years, so the next scheduled change is April 2028. The second number is the wait: you cannot present the affidavit until at least 40 days have passed since the death. That waiting period is not optional, and banks do check the date, so an affidavit brought in on day 30 will be turned away. Together these define the window, under the dollar cap and past the 40-day mark, in which the affidavit route is available to you.

What the affidavit can and cannot collect

The section 13100 affidavit reaches personal property: bank accounts, uncashed checks, stocks, a vehicle, wages, the ordinary contents of an estate. It does not reach real estate at all. If a house is involved, you are in different territory: a primary residence worth up to $750,000 goes through a court petition rather than the affidavit, and low-value non-residential real property has its own separate affidavit procedure. Also excluded from the count are assets that already pass outside probate, such as anything in joint tenancy, in a living trust, or with a named beneficiary; those do not go through this process and do not count against the limit.

Where people get rejected

Most failed affidavits trace back to a handful of mistakes. The biggest is miscounting the limit, because California measures gross value, not equity: a car worth $15,000 with a $12,000 loan against it counts as the full $15,000, and people routinely forget vehicles, final paychecks, or uncashed checks entirely. The next is timing, presenting the affidavit before the 40 days are up. Others try to include the house, which the affidavit cannot touch, or file when a probate case has already been opened, which blocks the affidavit route. Vague asset descriptions also draw rejections, so identify each account and item precisely. Clean arithmetic and clean descriptions are what get the bank to say yes.

Written by the Trámites Notariales US editorial team, based on California Probate Code sections 13100 to 13116. Thresholds adjust over time; confirm the current figure and the asset holder's paperwork.