Since April 2025, California has let families transfer a deceased parent’s home worth up to $750,000 without a full probate. That change, made by AB 2016, is genuinely good news, and it is also one of the most misdescribed rules I see online. The most common version of the mistake: “California raised the small-estate affidavit limit to $750,000.”
It did not. The $750,000 rule is not an affidavit. It is a court petition, with an appraisal, a notice requirement, a hearing, and a judge’s order at the end. Families who walk into a bank or a title company expecting to hand over a form and collect a house are describing a procedure that does not exist.
Here is what the rule actually is, how it works, and, the part almost nobody explains, how it fits together with the $208,850 affidavit limit I wrote about in June.
Two rules that share a chapter, not a mechanism
California’s small-estate procedures live in one part of the Probate Code, and each one trades court involvement against dollar limits.
The affidavit under section 13100 is the famous one: for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, a successor can collect up to $208,850 in qualifying personal property, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, vehicles, with a sworn form presented directly to whoever holds the asset. No court filing at all.
The petition under section 13151 is the $750,000 rule. If the decedent’s primary residence in California has a gross value of $750,000 or less, and 40 days have passed since the death, a successor may file a petition in the superior court of the county where the estate could be administered, asking the court to order that the home now belongs to them.
The word petition is doing real work in that sentence. Here is what the procedure involves, straight from the Judicial Council’s own form:
- A filed court case. The petition is form DE-310, “Petition to Determine Succession to Primary Residence,” filed with a filing fee in superior court.
- A probate referee’s appraisal. You cannot pick your own appraiser. The Inventory and Appraisal (forms DE-160 and DE-161) must be completed by a probate referee appointed for that county, and it rides along as an attachment to the petition.
- Notice to the family. Under a requirement AB 2016 added, the petitioner must deliver notice of the petition to every heir and devisee named in it within five business days of filing. Everyone with a potential stake finds out.
- A hearing and an order. The court sets a hearing. If the petition is granted, the order, form DE-315, is the document that actually moves title, and a certified copy of it is recorded with the county recorder.
Compare that to the affidavit, which never sees the inside of a courthouse, and the difference between the two rules stops being a technicality.
The part worth knowing: the two rules stack
Buried in AB 2016 is the provision that makes the whole scheme far more useful than either rule alone. When the Legislature created the $750,000 petition, it also amended the affidavit sections so that a home included in a section 13151 petition does not count against the $208,850 affidavit limit.
That means the procedures can run side by side. Take a common San Diego County estate: a paid-off condo appraised at $700,000, plus about $150,000 across bank and brokerage accounts, no trust. Before April 2025, that estate was headed to full probate, likely more than a year of it. Today, the condo can pass through a DE-310 petition and the accounts through the 13100 affidavit, and the estate never opens a probate administration at all.
The date of death controls which numbers apply, the same as with every figure in this corner of the law. For deaths before April 1, 2025, the old petition limit of $184,500 governs, and it applied to any California real property, not just the residence. The current figures, and the next adjustment date of April 1, 2028, are printed on Judicial Council form DE-300, which must be attached to the petition.
Where families misjudge it
A few specifics decide most real cases, and they are the ones the confident summaries tend to skip.
Gross value, not equity. The $750,000 test uses the referee’s appraisal of the property’s value at the date of death, without subtracting the mortgage. An $800,000 house with $500,000 still owed on it fails the test.
Primary residence only, but read that carefully. AB 2016 narrowed the petition to the decedent’s primary residence, so rentals, second homes, and bare land are out. At the same time, the bill’s own text says the primary residence is not limited to where the decedent was living at the moment of death. A parent who spent their last two years in a memory-care facility did not necessarily forfeit the procedure for the house they lived in before. Whether a particular home qualifies is exactly the kind of question that belongs to a probate attorney.
The debts follow the house. A successor who takes property this way takes it with personal liability for the decedent’s unsecured debts, up to the value of what they receive. A full probate cuts creditor claims off on a schedule; this procedure does not. For an estate with meaningful debt, the slower path is sometimes the safer one.
It is unavailable once a probate is running. If a personal representative has already been appointed, the petition generally needs that representative’s written consent, attached to the DE-310 itself.
Why a fiduciary writes posts like this one
The pattern from the small-estate post repeats here: a real, family-friendly change in the law, wrapped in secondhand summaries that flatten a court petition into a magic form. The gap between those two things is measured in rejected filings, double-paid appraisals, and title companies that will not insure a transfer.
Choosing between the affidavit, the petition, a trust administration, or a full probate is a legal judgment about a specific estate, and the right person to make it with you is a California probate attorney. What a professional fiduciary does is administer the path once it is chosen: serving as personal representative when probate is the answer, marshaling and valuing the assets, and keeping the paperwork moving in the right order. If you are trying to work out which situation your family is in, the guides on how long probate takes and trusts versus wills are a calm place to start, and a conversation with the practice is always available.