{"id":779,"date":"2015-10-05T23:19:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T23:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/?p=779"},"modified":"2022-06-22T16:33:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T16:33:32","slug":"who-is-in-charge-of-a-california-probate-when-there-is-no-will-who-will-be-the-administrator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/who-is-in-charge-of-a-california-probate-when-there-is-no-will-who-will-be-the-administrator","title":{"rendered":"Who is in charge of a California probate when there is no will? Who will be the administrator?"},"content":{"rendered":"

California law dictates who has priority to serve as administrator of your probate estate if you died without a will and with a California estate large enough to require a California\u00a0probate.<\/p>\n

In such cases, a\u00a0person in the following relation to the decedent is entitled to appointment as the California administrator in the following order of priority:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Surviving spouse or registered domestic partner<\/li>\n
  2. Children<\/li>\n
  3. Grandchildren<\/li>\n
  4. Other descendants<\/li>\n
  5. Parents<\/li>\n
  6. Brothers and sisters<\/li>\n
  7. Descendants\u00a0of brothers and sisters<\/li>\n
  8. Grandparents<\/li>\n
  9. Descendants of grandparents<\/li>\n
  10. Children of a predeceased spouse or domestic partner<\/li>\n
  11. Other descendants of a predeceased spouse or domestic partner<\/li>\n
  12. Other next of kin<\/li>\n
  13. Parents of a predeceased spouse or domestic partner<\/li>\n
  14. Descendants of parents of a predeceased spouse or domestic partner<\/li>\n
  15. Conservator or guardian of the decedent<\/li>\n
  16. Public administrator<\/li>\n
  17. Creditors<\/li>\n
  18. Any other person (i.e. friends)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    (See Probate Code Section 8461 and the exceptions at 8462-8469.)<\/p>\n

    And what appears above also applies in a probate if the decedent had a will but failed to name an executor who was able to serve as executor.<\/p>\n

    Of course, these statutory rules do not apply if the decedent had a will that nominated an executor who would be willing and able to act. Nor should these rules apply if the decedent’s assets were titled properly in a living trust and with proper beneficiary designation (to avoid probate).<\/p>\n

    Copyright 2015 Phillips Law Offices, A Professional Corporation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    California law dictates who has priority to serve as administrator of your probate estate if you died without a will and with a California estate large enough to require a California\u00a0probate. In such cases, a\u00a0person in the following relation to the decedent is entitled to appointment as the California administrator in the following order of … Continue reading Who is in charge of a California probate when there is no will? Who will be the administrator?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,16,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elder-law","category-estate-planning","category-probate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions\/1096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pleasantonestateplanninglawyer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}