California

California: claiming a deceased parent's money, under the right year's cap.

California's small-estate cap is not one number — it's three, and the one that governs your claim is the one in force on the day your parent died. Pages that quote a single figure (stale ones still teach $150,000 or $166,250 for everyone) send families into probate they don't need, or into affidavits that get rejected. Here is the band table, the affidavit, and the rest of the California chain.

The cap by date of death — DE-300

Date of death§13100 threshold (the cap)
Before April 1, 2022$166,250
April 1, 2022 – March 31, 2025$184,500
April 1, 2025 – March 31, 2028$208,850

Probate Code §13100 as indexed under §890; Judicial Council form DE-300 publishes the bands. The test is the gross value of the deceased's California real and personal property, with the §13050 exclusions (joint-tenancy property, trust property, and the other listed exclusions don't count toward the figure). A death on Jan 15, 2026 with a $150,000 estate sits under the $208,850 band — affidavit route open. The same estate at $250,000 is over every band: court route.

The affidavit — §13101

The small-estate affidavit itself is Probate Code §13101 (the section listing what the affidavit must state: the death, the property, the affiant's right, the heir facts). It is sworn, it waits 40 days after the death for most property, and for the unclaimed-property claim it accompanies the Controller's own claim form. The checker computes your band from the death date you enter — no date, and it uses the current band and says so.

California's chain wrinkles

The official doors

Search at the Controller's official search and file through ClaimIt — both free, both the state's own. Records of property are not public until a year after delivery to the state, which is why a finder's "we found it first" pitch deserves the decoder page's read.

Run your own claim. The free checker takes your state, your relationship, and your amount — and returns the probate-skip verdict, your document chain in order, the signatures you'll need, and the finder fee you'd avoid. Run the checker →

The working papers for this claim

The pages above are the map. The kit is the paperwork: the per-state checklists, the Table of Heirs worksheet, the letters that line up every heir's signature, and the chapter for the state's reply.

Included in the $39 MoneyLeftBehind Kit

  • The per-state chain checklists: the exact document ladder for your state and your relationship, in order — which certificate, which form, which signature — with the state-specific rungs (Texas's tiers, New York's Table of Heirs, Florida's all-beneficiaries rule) built in
  • The probate-skip decision worksheets: affidavit vs. summary administration vs. full probate, state by state, with the math run against your state's cap — including California's date-of-death bands
  • The Table of Heirs worksheet: the fillable family map New York, California, Ohio, and Minnesota work from — every class, no blank lines — with a worked example of the hardest case, the heir nobody can find
  • The deficiency and rejection recovery chapter: how to read the state's 'we need more' letter, fix the exact gap (wrong certificate, stale court letters, a missing generation), and resubmit so the claim lands the second time
Get the $39 MoneyLeftBehind Kit

One payment, yours to keep. We never file for you and never touch your money — you file everything yourself, with the state. See everything inside the kit →

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