Who Inherits My Woodland Hills Home If I Die Without a Will?

Jonathan Lopez, Woodland Hills Realtor | Jim Sandoval Group | CA DRE #02282844 · Updated September 2026

Most homeowners assume that if something happens to them, their house naturally goes to whoever they'd want it to go to, a spouse, a favorite child, whoever's been helping out the most. Without a will, that assumption is wrong. California's intestate succession law, not personal wishes, decides who inherits real property when someone dies without a valid will, and the actual order of priority surprises a lot of families.

More Families Than You'd Expect Are Affected

Caring.com's 2025 Wills and Estate Planning Study, conducted with YouGov, found only 24% of Americans currently have a will, down from 33% in 2022. That means a majority of homeowners are, right now, leaving the outcome for their house entirely up to California's default intestate succession rules rather than their own decision.

If There's a Surviving Spouse

Under Probate Code section 6401, community property, which usually includes the family home if it was purchased during the marriage, passes entirely to the surviving spouse. Separate property (owned before the marriage, or received individually as a gift or inheritance) splits differently depending on who else survives: the spouse gets all of it only if there's no surviving child, parent, or sibling. With one surviving child (or the issue of one deceased child), the spouse gets half, and the child gets the other half. With more than one child, the spouse's share drops to a third, and the children split the remaining two-thirds equally.

If There's No Surviving Spouse

Probate Code section 6402 sets a strict order: the estate passes first to surviving children (or their descendants) in equal shares. If there are no children, it passes to surviving parents. If no parents, to the issue of the parents (the decedent's siblings, nieces, and nephews). The law works through several more tiers after that (grandparents, then more distant relatives), but the large majority of intestate estates resolve at the children or parents tier.

Intestate Doesn't Mean No Probate

A common misconception is that dying without a will somehow simplifies things or avoids court. It doesn't. Real property titled solely in the deceased's name still has to pass through the probate court so a judge can confirm the legal heirs and clear title, exactly like a testate (with-a-will) estate. The one narrow exception: since April 1, 2025, California's AB 2016 allows a simplified Petition to Determine Succession to Real Property (Probate Code sections 13150-13157) for a primary residence valued at $750,000 or less, in place of full probate. Woodland Hills' current median sale price sits well above that threshold, so most local homes won't qualify for this shortcut regardless of whether there's a will. A separate tool, the small estate affidavit, covers a different and narrower set of circumstances, and this look at whether it actually helps you skip probate lays out where it does and doesn't apply.

When Multiple Heirs Inherit Together

If intestate succession splits a house among two or more people, siblings inheriting from a parent, for example, they take title as co-owners, specifically as tenants in common. That arrangement requires general agreement on what happens next: sell, keep, or rent. When co-owners can't agree, any one of them can file a partition action to force a resolution. That's a real, separate process with its own costs and timeline, covered in more depth in what happens when siblings disagree about selling an inherited home.

What This Means Practically

If you're the one settling an estate where there was no will, the first real step is figuring out where in this priority order the estate actually lands, since that determines who has to be involved in any decision about the house, and whose signatures a sale will eventually need. This is a companion question to the broader what actually matters after inheriting a house overview, which covers probate timelines, step-up in basis, and the Prop 19 property tax trap once the succession question itself is settled. A probate attorney can confirm the legal specifics for your family; once that's settled, the real estate side, pricing, timing, and the sale process itself, is where I can help.

Frequently Asked Questions