California Next of Kin Laws: Inheritance, Medical, and Funeral Decisions

Under California next of kin laws, the state ranks surviving relatives by closeness of family relationship to decide who inherits when there is no will, who makes medical decisions when someone is incapacitated, and who controls funeral arrangements after death. A surviving spouse or registered domestic partner sits at the top of each list, followed by children, parents, siblings, and more distant relatives. The exact authority and the exact share depend on which category you are asking about and which other relatives are still alive.

Who Counts as Next of Kin in California

California uses the same general hierarchy across inheritance, healthcare, and funeral decisions, with small variations in each context. The order runs:

Surviving spouse or registered domestic partner. Registered domestic partners have the same legal standing as spouses for inheritance, healthcare, and funeral authority.¹
Children. Biological and legally adopted children are treated equally.
Parents.
Siblings. Half-siblings inherit the same share as full siblings.²
More distant relatives, in this order: nieces and nephews, grandparents, aunts and uncles, first cousins.

Proving kinship becomes harder the farther out you go. A probate court will ask for birth certificates, marriage records, and sometimes DNA evidence before recognizing a distant claimant.

Stepchildren and Foster Children

A stepchild or foster child is not automatically next of kin. California recognizes the relationship for intestate inheritance only if two conditions are met: the parent-child relationship began while the child was a minor and continued through both of their lifetimes, and clear and convincing evidence shows the stepparent or foster parent would have adopted the child but was blocked by a legal barrier. A biological parent’s refusal to consent to adoption does not count as a legal barrier. Divorce from the biological parent does not cut off this inheritance right, as long as the parent-child relationship continued.

Unmarried Partners

California does not allow couples to form a common-law marriage within the state. If you and your partner never formally married or registered as domestic partners, you have no next-of-kin rights, no matter how long you lived together. The one exception is a common-law marriage that was validly created in another state that allows them; California recognizes those under the Full Faith and Credit Clause. For everyone else, unmarried and unregistered partners are legal strangers under this framework.

Children Conceived After Death

A child conceived using a deceased parent’s genetic material can inherit, but only if the parent left signed, dated written instructions authorizing posthumous use of the material and designating someone to control it. The designated person must notify the estate within four months of the death certificate being issued, and the child must be conceived within two years of that date.³ Without that documentation trail, the child has no inheritance rights from the deceased parent’s estate.

What Next of Kin Inherit Without a Will

When someone dies without a will, California’s intestate succession rules decide who gets what.⁴ The outcome turns on whether the asset is community property or separate property, and on which relatives survive.

Community Property

California is a community-property state, so most assets acquired during a marriage belong equally to both spouses. The surviving spouse already owns half. Under intestate succession, the decedent’s half passes entirely to the surviving spouse, leaving the survivor with all of the community property.⁵ Children, parents, and siblings receive nothing from community property when a spouse survives.

Separate Property

Separate property includes assets owned before the marriage along with gifts and inheritances received by one spouse individually. The surviving spouse’s share of separate property depends on who else is still alive:⁵

No surviving children, parents, or siblings: the spouse inherits all of the separate property.
One surviving child, or the descendants of one deceased child: the spouse inherits one-half, and the child or descendants take the other half.
Two or more surviving children or their descendants: the spouse inherits one-third, and the children split the remaining two-thirds equally.
No children, but surviving parents or siblings: the spouse inherits one-half, and the parents or siblings share the rest.

These fractions catch people off guard. A surviving spouse with three children does not automatically get the house if it was separate property. One-third of that asset’s value goes to the spouse, and the children split two-thirds among themselves.

When There Is No Surviving Spouse

Without a surviving spouse or domestic partner, the entire estate passes down the ladder:⁴

Children in equal shares. If a child died before the parent, that child’s own descendants step in and split the deceased child’s share.⁶
Parents, if no children or grandchildren survive.
Siblings and their descendants, if no parents survive. Half-siblings share equally with full siblings.²
Grandparents and their descendants, which covers aunts, uncles, and first cousins.

If the court works through every branch of the family tree and finds no living heir, the estate escheats to the State of California.⁷ This is rare, but it is one reason even people without obvious heirs should have a will.

Assets That Skip the Hierarchy Entirely

Not everything a person owns follows these rules. Several categories of asset transfer automatically at death and bypass the next-of-kin framework completely:

Joint tenancy property. Real estate or bank accounts held in joint tenancy pass automatically to the surviving co-owner.
Beneficiary-designated accounts. Life insurance policies, retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs, and annuities go to the named beneficiary regardless of what a will says or what intestacy law provides.
Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts. Bank and brokerage accounts with a designated beneficiary pass outside probate.
Living trust assets. Property held in a revocable living trust is distributed under the trust terms.

Families sometimes spend months in probate court fighting over an estate without realizing the largest assets already passed to someone else the day the person died. An outdated beneficiary form on a retirement account overrides both a will and the intestate succession rules.

The Slayer Rule

A person who feloniously and intentionally kills the decedent forfeits all rights to inherit from the estate, receive life insurance proceeds, or benefit from the death in any way.⁸ This applies even if the killer is acquitted in a criminal trial, because the standard of proof for disinheritance is lower than for a criminal conviction. The estate passes as if the killer had died before the decedent.

Who Makes Medical Decisions

If a patient already signed an advance healthcare directive naming an agent, that agent has clear legal authority and the hospital does not have to work through family relationships.⁹ Most planning failures happen when people assume a spouse or adult child will automatically be allowed to make decisions. In practice that is often true, but it is not guaranteed.

When no advance directive exists, California’s Health Care Decisions Law lets a surrogate step in. A patient who is still able to communicate can verbally designate a surrogate while in the hospital, and that designation lasts for the course of treatment, the hospital stay, or 60 days, whichever is shorter.¹⁰ If the patient cannot designate anyone, the healthcare provider identifies a surrogate from the family hierarchy: spouses and domestic partners first, then adult children, then parents, then siblings.

Conflict among family members at the same priority level is a real problem. If two adult children disagree about a parent’s treatment, the hospital cannot simply pick the one it prefers. In non-emergency settings, a single family member’s dissent at the same priority level can block surrogate consent. When consensus fails, the dispute typically goes to a hospital ethics committee first, and if that does not resolve it, to the probate court through a conservatorship. A court-appointed conservator has sole authority to make healthcare decisions for the incapacitated person.

Who Controls Funeral and Burial Arrangements

The right to control what happens to a person’s remains follows its own priority list under California law. The person with authority chooses between burial and cremation, selects the funeral home, and decides on the final resting place. That same person also bears financial responsibility for the reasonable cost of disposition, shared jointly with other relatives at the same level and the decedent’s estate.¹¹

The order is:

An agent under a healthcare power of attorney who has been given authority over disposition. The agent is personally liable for costs only if they agreed to pay or made decisions that incurred costs beyond what the estate could cover.
The surviving spouse or domestic partner.
Surviving adult children. If there are several, a majority controls.
Surviving parents.
Surviving siblings.

A person can head off family disagreements by writing a declaration specifying their wishes for disposition, funeral goods, and services before death. The declaration must be detailed enough to avoid ambiguity, and payment arrangements must already be in place so the person with authority is not forced to pay out of pocket.¹² Unless the decedent left a signed statement allowing changes, the declaration cannot be materially altered after death. When a valid declaration exists, the person with authority under the priority list must follow it.

When multiple people at the same priority level disagree, funeral homes often refuse to proceed without either unanimous agreement or a court order. Siblings fighting over burial versus cremation can bring the process to a halt. Courts can rule on contested claims over disposition under the Health and Safety Code.¹³

Debts a Surviving Spouse May Owe

Inheriting a spouse’s assets through intestate succession does not mean the debts disappear. A surviving spouse in California is personally liable for the deceased spouse’s debts, but only up to the fair market value of certain property received or retained outside of probate.¹⁴ The property that counts toward this cap includes the surviving spouse’s share of community property that was not administered through the estate, the decedent’s share of community property that passed to the spouse without administration, and any separate property of the decedent that passed to the spouse without administration.

In practice, creditors can reach community property and inherited separate property to satisfy the deceased spouse’s debts, but they cannot pursue the surviving spouse’s own separate assets beyond the value of what was received.

When Family Members Disagree

Disagreements over inheritance, medical treatment, and funeral arrangements each run through different legal channels, but they share a pattern: the earlier you act, the cheaper and less painful the resolution.

Inheritance Disputes

Anyone who believes estate property is being wrongfully withheld, or that a claimed heir is not actually entitled to a share, can file a petition with the probate court.¹⁵ These petitions cover a wide range of situations: a sibling who transferred the decedent’s bank account to themselves before death, a claim that a purported heir is not actually related to the decedent, or a dispute over whether property was community or separate. The court can appoint a neutral administrator if the family members responsible for the estate cannot cooperate.

Healthcare Disputes

When family members cannot agree on medical treatment for an incapacitated person, the usual path is a conservatorship petition. A court-appointed conservator has authority to make all healthcare decisions, overriding disagreements among family members. Conservatorship is a serious step that removes decision-making power from the family collectively and places it in one person’s hands, subject to court oversight. Hospitals may involve their ethics committees as an informal step first.

Mediation

For any category of dispute, mediation is worth considering before litigation. A neutral mediator helps the parties negotiate a resolution without the cost and adversarial nature of court. Mediation is not binding unless the parties agree to a settlement, but it resolves many family conflicts, particularly when the real issue is grief and miscommunication rather than a genuine legal disagreement. Courts handling funeral and burial disputes frequently encourage mediation as a first step.

1
Justia Law. California Family Code Sections 297-297.5
2
California Legislative Information. California Probate Code Section 6406
3
California Legislative Information. California Probate Code Section 249.5
4
Justia Law. California Probate Code Sections 6400-6414
5
California Legislative Information. California Probate Code Section 6401
6
California Legislative Information. California Probate Code Section 240
7
California Legislative Information. California Probate Code Section 6404
8
California Legislative Information. California Probate Code Section 250
9
Justia Law. California Probate Code Sections 4650-4660
10
California Legislative Information. California Probate Code Section 4711
11
California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code Section 7100
12
California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code Section 7100.1
13
California Legislative Information. California Health and Safety Code Section 7105
14
Justia Law. California Probate Code Sections 13550-13554
15
California Legislative Information. California Probate Code Section 850