The California Small Estate Affidavit and the Number Almost Everyone Quotes Wrong
California lets you collect a person’s property after death with a sworn affidavit instead of a probate case — if the estate is small enough. The trouble is the number. The statute still prints $166,250 in its own text, that figure stopped governing on 31 March 2022, and for a death on or after 1 April 2025 the real ceiling is $208,850. Quote the statute and you under-count the ceiling by $42,600 — about a fifth of it — which is enough to send a qualifying estate into a full probate it never needed. This page sets out the current amounts, where they actually come from, and the one problem that stops the procedure dead even when the estate qualifies.
The Short Version
For a decedent who died on or after 1 April 2025, the gross value of California real and personal property must not exceed $208,850; for a death between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2025 the figure is $184,500. The amount is fixed by the date of death, not the date you file. Forty days must have elapsed since the death. Judicial Council form DE-300 must be attached to the affidavit, and it is the published list those amounts come from — not the number printed in Probate Code § 13100, which is the pre-2022 figure left in place by the drafters. This is general information and not legal advice. Where it goes wrong in practice is rarely the arithmetic: the affidavit is sworn under penalty of perjury and every successor has to sign, so one heir nobody can find halts it. Searching for that person is our work, on United States estates, and most searches come back within 24 hours.
Watch: California Small Estate Affidavit: The $208,850 Rule
The Figure in the Statute Is Not the Figure That Governs
This is the single most repeated error on this topic, and it is in the statute’s own words.
Read Probate Code § 13100 and it tells you the gross value must not exceed “one hundred sixty-six thousand two hundred fifty dollars ($166,250).” That sentence is still there. It is also no longer the operative limit, and the statute says so itself in the next breath: the amount is “as adjusted periodically in accordance with Section 890.”
§ 13101 removes any doubt. Its subdivision (g) splits the rule in two. For a decedent who died before 1 April 2022, the amount is $166,250. For a decedent who died on or after that date, the amount is “the adjusted dollar amount, published in accordance with subdivision (c) of Section 890, in effect on the date of the decedent’s death.” The number moved out of the statute and into a published list.
That list is Judicial Council form DE-300, a mandatory Judicial Council form, revised 28 April 2025. It carries two columns, because two different sets of amounts are live at the same time depending on when the person died. Under § 890 the Judicial Council recalculates on a consumer price index basis every three years, rounding to the nearest $25. The amounts below are next scheduled to move on 1 April 2028.
One consequence catches people who wait. Section 890 also provides that an adjustment does not apply where the death preceded the adjustment date. The date of death fixes the number permanently. An estate that was over the limit in 2024 does not come under it because the figure rose in 2025, and delaying a filing changes nothing.
The Four Small-Estate Routes and Their Current Ceilings
Amounts from Judicial Council form DE-300 [Rev. April 28, 2025]. Read the column that matches the date of death.
| Procedure | Probate Code | Death 1 Apr 2022 – 31 Mar 2025 | Death on or after 1 Apr 2025 | What it reaches |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Affidavit for personal property | §§ 13100, 13101 | $184,500 | $208,850 | Money, securities, tangible personal property. Not real estate. |
| Petition, succession to primary residence | §§ 13151–13154 | $184,500 | $750,000 | The decedent’s primary residence. Raised by AB 2016, not by inflation. |
| Affidavit, real property of small value | § 13200 | $61,500 | $69,625 | All California real property in the estate. |
| Small estate set-aside | §§ 6602, 6609 | $95,325 | $107,900 | Net value, for a surviving spouse and minor children. |
| Salary excluded from the count | § 13050(c) | $18,450 | $20,875 | Comes off the total before you compare it to any ceiling above. |
Two rules apply across every row. The date of death selects the column, and it cannot be changed by waiting. And the published list itself — form DE-300 — has to be attached to the affidavit or petition for any death on or after 1 April 2022, which is a requirement people routinely miss because it is not in the section they read.
Which Procedure Your Estate Actually Fits
The affidavit everyone means is only one of four small-estate routes, and they have different ceilings.
“Small estate affidavit” is used loosely to mean the personal-property affidavit under sections 13100 and 13101, but California has several informal routes and they do not share a limit. Picking the wrong one wastes a filing and, worse, can produce a sworn statement that is not accurate.
The most common mistake is real property, and the confusion is understandable because the statute does two different things with it. The value test counts the decedent’s California real and personal property — a house is included when you work out whether the estate is under $208,850. But the affidavit itself reaches only money, securities and tangible personal property. It measures the house and then cannot transfer it. Real property runs through the section 13200 affidavit for property of small value, or a petition under section 13151 for a primary residence — and that residence ceiling was raised to $750,000 by Assembly Bill 2016, a statutory change rather than an inflation adjustment, which is why it jumped so far.
Note also what comes out of the calculation before you compare it to the ceiling. § 13050 excludes several categories, including up to $20,875 of salary or other compensation owed to the decedent for personal services. Property held in joint tenancy or in a living trust, and property passing outright to a surviving spouse, are generally outside this count as well. Getting that subtraction right is often what brings a marginal estate under the line.
It is worth the effort. An estate that does not qualify goes through full administration instead, where California’s statutory probate fee schedule applies — and that schedule is payable twice, once to the attorney and once to the personal representative. On a $500,000 estate the difference between qualifying and not qualifying is roughly $26,000. Where property was held jointly, note too that it may pass outside the estate entirely by right of survivorship, which is a separate route again: see the affidavit of death of joint tenant.
Where a Qualifying Estate Still Gets Rejected
Four failures we see repeatedly, none of which is about the size of the estate.
The statute’s own number was used
$166,250 is quoted from section 13100, the estate is measured against it, and an estate worth $190,000 is written off as too large for the affidavit when it was comfortably inside the current limit. This is the most common error on the topic.
A successor could not be found, so nobody signed
The affidavit needs every successor’s signature under penalty of perjury. One unreachable heir stops it, and no amount of further reading resolves that. It is a locate problem.
Real property was put in the wrong affidavit
The 13100 affidavit does not transfer a house. Real property goes through section 13200 or a section 13151 petition, and presenting the wrong instrument to a title company wastes the filing.
The forty days had not run
Section 13100 requires that 40 days have elapsed since the death before the affidavit is used. Presented early, it is refused, and the refusal is correct.
What Stops the Affidavit When the Estate Plainly Qualifies
The arithmetic is the easy half. The signatures are the half that stalls.
The affidavit under section 13101 is signed under penalty of perjury, and it must be signed by the successor or successors of the decedent. Where more than one person inherits, that means all of them. A bank or transfer agent presented with an affidavit signed by three of four successors is entitled to refuse it, and generally will.
So the procedure fails on a person, not on a number. The bank does not care that the estate is small; it cares that the affidavit in front of it is short a signature. And the successor who is missing is rarely missing dramatically — more often they simply moved, remarried and changed their name, or stopped answering after a falling-out that nobody in the family wants to revisit. None of that is unusual, and none of it is solved by another look at the statute.
That is the point at which people call us. We identify who the successors are under the intestate rules, locate the ones nobody can reach, and give you a dated, sourced record of the search — which matters if you later need to show a court or an institution what you did. If you already know who is missing and simply need them found, send us the details and we will tell you what the records are likely to reach, before any money changes hands. If you are not yet sure who counts as a successor, our guide to searching for an estate beneficiary sets out how the ladder works.
Where the estate is large enough that a formal case is opening anyway, the same problem appears in a different costume, and a diligent search affidavit for a missing heir is what the court will expect to see. Our skip tracing work is the same either way; only the paperwork around it changes.
Getting the Signature Page Complete
Aimed at the single problem this procedure actually has — a successor who cannot sign because nobody can reach them.
Name the Successor Who Is Missing
Tell us who will not sign and which decedent they inherit through. A married surname, a town, an employer or the year they were last heard from all shorten the work. The estate is what gives us a lawful reason to look.
We Confirm They Actually Inherit
Before any search is paid for, we check the person genuinely takes under the intestate rules. Families routinely include somebody who does not inherit, and occasionally leave out somebody who does.
We Search for Somewhere They Can Be Reached
An address the affidavit could be sent to for signature, with a telephone number where the record carries one. Where the records do not reach them, you are told that plainly. United States subjects only.
You Can Show What Was Searched
Each result carries its date and the record behind it, and a search that ends without a person still ends with an account of the ground covered — which is what an institution asks for when a signature cannot be obtained.
Who This Is For
The people who hit the successor problem, usually at the bank counter.
Executors and Successors
You are trying to close a modest estate without a probate case and one signature is missing. This is the ordinary version of this problem.
Probate and Estate Attorneys
A client qualifies for the affidavit on paper and the file still cannot move, because one signature is unobtainable. Either the successor becomes reachable or the file needs a defensible record of why they are not.
Banks and Transfer Agents
An affidavit arrives short a signature, or names a successor whose whereabouts nobody can state. Confirming the person exists and can be reached resolves it.
Trustees and Fiduciaries
Distribution is blocked on a beneficiary nobody has heard from. Same search, different instrument.
Our Commitment
We search for the successors who have to sign a California small estate affidavit, and we show our working. Executors, attorneys and fiduciaries have used us on United States estates since 2004, under a stated permissible purpose. Where the records cannot deliver a person, you get a dated and sourced account of what was examined rather than a guess. Most searches come back within 24 hours. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and the figures should be confirmed against the current Judicial Council form before a document is signed. One limit is absolute: where a successor holds a restraining order or an order of protection, sits in an address confidentiality or Safe at Home program, or left a household to escape abuse, we do not trace them. Getting a signature from someone in that position is a matter for the court or for counsel, and we will decline it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the small estate affidavit limit in California right now?
For a decedent who died on or after 1 April 2025, the gross value of California real and personal property must not exceed $208,850. For a death between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2025 the figure is $184,500. Both come from Judicial Council form DE-300, and both differ from the $166,250 still printed in Probate Code section 13100, which applies only to deaths before 1 April 2022.
Why does the statute say $166,250 if that is not the limit?
Because the legislature moved the number out of the statute and into a published list rather than rewriting the section each cycle. Section 13100 keeps the original figure and adds the words “as adjusted periodically in accordance with Section 890.” Section 13101(g) then states plainly that for a death on or after 1 April 2022 the governing amount is the adjusted one published by the Judicial Council.
Which date decides the amount, the death or the filing?
The date of death. Probate Code section 890 provides that an adjustment does not apply where the decedent’s death preceded the adjustment date, so the ceiling is fixed permanently at death. Waiting to file does not move an estate into a higher band.
How long do I have to wait before using the affidavit?
Forty days must have elapsed since the death. That requirement is in the operative text of section 13100 itself, and an affidavit presented before the forty days are up should be refused.
Can I use this affidavit to transfer the house?
No. The section 13100 affidavit reaches money, securities and tangible personal property. Real property runs through a separate affidavit under section 13200 for property of small value, or a petition under sections 13151 to 13154 for a primary residence, which has its own and much higher ceiling.
Does every heir have to sign it?
The affidavit is executed by the successor or successors of the decedent under penalty of perjury, so where several people inherit, all of them sign. An institution presented with an incomplete set of signatures is entitled to refuse the affidavit, which is why an unlocated heir stops the procedure even when the estate is plainly small enough.
What do I attach to the affidavit?
For any death on or after 1 April 2022, the list of adjusted dollar amounts published by the Judicial Council — form DE-300 — must be attached. That obligation is set out in section 13101 and is regularly missed, because it does not appear in the section most people read first.
What do you need from us to find a missing successor?
Enough to tell one person from another and to show the estate is real: the decedent’s full name and date of death, the successor’s name and how they inherit, and any surname they may have married into. Anything else is a bonus rather than a requirement. We take United States subjects only, under a stated permissible purpose, and most searches come back within 24 hours.
An Estate That Qualifies, and One Heir Nobody Can Find
Send the decedent’s details and what the family knows about the missing successor. We confirm who genuinely has to sign, search for them, and hand back a dated and sourced record of the search. Most come back within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
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