The $750K Fast Pass: How California Made It Easier to Inherit the Family Home

Losing a parent or loved one is hard enough. Then comes the paperwork. If that person owned a house, their family often had to go through "probate" — a long, expensive court process — just to put the house in someone else's name. Starting April 1, 2025, California made that easier for many families. Here's what changed, explained in plain English.

First, What Is Probate?

When someone dies owning property, that property usually can't just be handed over to their kids or other heirs. A court has to confirm who the rightful new owner is. This court process is called probate. It can take a year or more and cost thousands of dollars in fees, even for a small, simple estate.

California has always had shortcuts for very small estates. But for years, those shortcuts only applied if the property was worth less than about $166,250, and later $184,500. In expensive parts of California, almost no house qualified. A modest starter home could easily be worth three or four times that amount. So most families with a house still had to go through full probate.

What AB 2016 Changed

In 2024, California passed a new law called Assembly Bill 2016, or AB 2016 for short. It rewrote a section of the Probate Code — specifically sections 13150 through 13154 — to raise that threshold in a big way.

Now, if someone dies on or after April 1, 2025, and their primary residence (the home they actually lived in) is worth $750,000 or less, their heirs can use a shortcut court process instead of full probate. That number will also be adjusted upward every few years to keep up with inflation, the same way some other legal dollar limits in California are.

$750,000 sounds like a lot of money, and for most of the country, it is. But in much of California, it's close to an average home price. This change means a lot more families now qualify for the faster, cheaper process.

What This Shortcut Actually Looks Like

Instead of full probate, an heir files something called a "Petition to Determine Succession to Real Property." Think of it as asking a judge to sign off on a much shorter form that says: "This person should get the house."

There's also a short waiting period built in. An heir cannot file this petition right away — the law requires that at least 40 days pass after the date of death before the petition can be filed. That's much shorter than the six-month wait required for some other small-estate procedures, since this process was designed to move faster.

Here's how the value gets decided. A neutral, court-approved expert called a probate referee inspects the property and appraises it. That appraisal gets attached to the petition. If nobody objects, the judge can rely on that appraisal to decide the case. If someone disagrees with the value — say, they think the house is actually worth more than $750,000 — they can bring in their own evidence to challenge it.

Once the petition is filed, the successor also has to notify every heir and beneficiary named in the petition — in writing, within five business days of filing. Skipping or botching this notice step can hold up or even invalidate the whole process, so it isn't optional paperwork.

It's still a real court process. There's still a hearing. It still takes some time and some legal know-how to do correctly. But it is faster, cheaper, and far less complicated than a full probate case, which can involve months of extra paperwork, court dates, and legal fees tied to the size of the entire estate.

The Big Catch: It's Only for the House You Actually Lived In

This is the part people get wrong most often. AB 2016 does not apply to just any piece of real estate. It only applies to the decedent's primary residence — the home they actually lived in.

That means:

• A vacation home does not qualify.

• A rental property does not qualify.

• An empty lot or piece of land does not qualify.

• A timeshare does not qualify.

If the estate includes any of those things in addition to the primary residence, that other property still has to go through the older, much stricter rules — which usually still means full probate for anything beyond a small dollar amount.

The Date of Death Matters

This new $750,000 rule only kicks in for people who died on or after April 1, 2025. If your loved one died before that date, even a few months earlier, the old and much lower limit still applies. For deaths between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2025, the threshold was $184,500. Before that, it was even lower. So the date of death is the very first thing to check before assuming this shortcut is available.

Why This Matters

California has some of the highest home prices in the country. For decades, that meant even ordinary, middle-class families with nothing more than a paid-off or nearly paid-off house had to hire a probate attorney and go through the full court process, simply because their home's value crossed an outdated legal line drawn back when houses cost far less.

AB 2016 tries to fix that mismatch. It doesn't eliminate probate. It doesn't replace the benefits of setting up a living trust, which still offers more privacy, more flexibility, and fewer court steps. But for a lot of California families whose biggest asset is the house they grew up in, this new law is the difference between a fast, affordable process and a long, expensive one.

The Bottom Line

If a loved one passed away on or after April 1, 2025, and the only real estate they owned was the home they lived in, and that home is worth $750,000 or less, their family may be able to skip full probate entirely and use this faster petition process instead. If the estate includes other property, or the death happened before April 1, 2025, the rules are different — and it's worth talking to a probate attorney to sort out exactly which path applies.

This post explains the general framework of Probate Code sections 13150 through 13154, as amended by Assembly Bill 2016, and is provided for general informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Because dollar thresholds and procedural details can change, anyone considering this process should confirm the current statutory requirements with a licensed California attorney before proceeding.