When someone passes away, the family often assumes the estate gets sorted out in a few weeks. Then they meet probate. In California, probate is the court process that settles what a person owned and passes it to their heirs, and it is slower, costlier, and more public than most people ever expect. Knowing what you are walking into helps, and knowing how to avoid it entirely helps even more.
The honest timeline
Here is the number that surprises people. A typical California probate takes about a year, and it is common for it to run longer. A simple, uncontested estate might wrap up in nine months to a year and a half. Add any complication, and the clock keeps running.
The delay is built into the process. The court has to validate the will, appoint someone to manage the estate, and give creditors a formal window to make claims. Property sometimes has to be appraised or sold. Each step has its own waiting period, and the court’s calendar sets the pace, not your family’s. All of that time passes before your heirs can receive what you left them.
The cost is set by law
Probate is not just slow. It is one of the few legal processes where the fees are written into state law as a percentage of the estate, not the effort involved.
California sets statutory fees based on the gross value of the estate. Both the attorney and the executor can each be paid on that scale. The key word is gross. Say a home is worth 700,000 dollars but still carries a 400,000 dollar mortgage. The fee is usually figured on the full 700,000, not the equity you actually have. On a normal family home, that math can add up to tens of thousands of dollars coming out of the estate before your heirs see a cent.
What drags it out even longer
A few things can turn a one-year probate into a multi-year ordeal. A will that someone challenges. Heirs who cannot agree. An estate with property in more than one state. A missing beneficiary who has to be tracked down. Even a simple backlog at the courthouse can add months. None of these are rare, and any one of them keeps the estate open and the assets frozen.
The good news: most of this is avoidable
Here is what many families never hear. Probate is often optional. With planning done ahead of time, most of an estate can pass to your heirs without going through the court at all.
A living trust is the most common tool. Assets held in a properly set-up trust skip probate and go straight to the people you named, privately and usually within weeks instead of a year. Other tools, like beneficiary designations and the right kind of joint ownership, can move specific assets outside probate too. The catch is that all of it has to be set up while you are alive. Once probate starts, those doors are closed.
Plan now so your family skips the wait
If you want to spare your family the year-long, expensive, public grind of probate, the time to act is now, not after. A straightforward plan can keep your estate out of court almost entirely.
The Law Offices of Andrew Cohen helps Santa Clarita families set up estates that avoid probate and pass smoothly to the next generation. Call 661-481-0100 for a free look at what your estate would face, and how to keep it out of the courtroom.
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