The California statutory will PDF is a free fill-in-the-blank form written into Probate Code Section 6240. You can download it from the State Bar of California’s website or from a county law library site such as the Sacramento County Public Law Library, print it, complete it by hand, and sign it in front of two witnesses.1California Legislative Information. California Probate Code 6240 California does not recognize electronic wills, so the finished document has to exist on paper with handwritten signatures.
Who Can Use the Form
You need to be at least 18 and of sound mind.2California Legislative Information. California Probate Code 6220 Sound mind, in this context, means you understand what you own, who your close family members are, and what it means to leave property to specific people. California residency is not required, but the will is governed by California law and built around California probate.
What the PDF Asks You to Decide
The form walks you through a fixed menu of choices. You fill in the blanks and sign a box next to each choice you want to activate. If you skip the signature next to a particular gift or designation, that choice doesn’t take effect. You cannot add language, cross out words, or write in the margins. Changes beyond the pre-set blanks can cause the court to ignore the alteration or invalidate the whole will.1California Legislative Information. California Probate Code 6240
Personal Property
Cars, furniture, clothing, jewelry, and other tangible belongings are grouped together. You pick one option for where all of it goes, usually a spouse, domestic partner, or named individual. Splitting personal property among several people is not an option on this form.
Specific Cash Gifts
You can leave specific dollar amounts to named people or charities. Each gift has its own line and signature box. Write the name, write the amount, sign. Unsigned gifts don’t happen.
The Balance of Your Assets
Everything not covered by the personal property or cash gift sections falls into the residuary: bank accounts, investments, real estate, and anything else. Pick one option and sign the matching box. Signing more than one, or none, means the court distributes those assets as if you died without a will.
Guardian and Custodian for Minor Children
If you have children under 18, name up to three guardian choices in order of preference. Only individuals can serve as guardian, not a bank or trust company. A separate section lets you name a custodian to hold any inheritance for a young beneficiary and spend it on their health, education, and support until an age you choose between 18 and 25. If you leave this blank, assets going to a minor are handed to a parent or guardian and the court will require a bond.
Executor
The executor collects your assets, pays debts and taxes, and distributes what’s left. Name up to three in ranked order. A bank or trust company can serve here. Someone organized, trustworthy, and reasonably close to you is easiest on everyone.
What the Statutory Will Cannot Do
The form is built for simple estates, and its own instructions tell you to see a lawyer in several situations:
- Estates large enough to face federal estate tax. The form has no tax-planning tools, and the federal exemption is $15 million per person in 2026.3Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax
- Trusts. The form cannot create one. If you want to control how and when a beneficiary receives money, you need a different document.
- Business interests, which need their own succession planning.
- Real estate or assets located in other states.
- Disinheriting a spouse, domestic partner, or descendant below what California law gives them by default.
- Pension and profit-sharing plans, which pass through beneficiary designations outside the will.
The form also cannot carry conditional gifts, like leaving a house to a child only if they finish college. If your plan needs any wording beyond names and dollar amounts, the statutory will is the wrong tool.
Assets the Will Won’t Control
Before you fill anything in, understand that a will does not control everything you own. Life insurance and retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs pass to whoever is on the beneficiary form. Bank and brokerage accounts with a payable-on-death or transfer-on-death designation work the same way. Property held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship goes to the surviving owner the moment you die. Assets in a living trust skip probate because the trust owns them. The statutory will reaches only the property that doesn’t already have one of these transfer mechanisms attached, and that is often less than people assume.
Signing the Form So It’s Legally Valid
A completed PDF is not a will until it is signed correctly. California requires three things to happen in one sitting: you sign the document (or acknowledge your signature), two witnesses watch you do it while both are present at the same time, and each witness then signs the will understanding that it is yours.4California Legislative Information. California Probate Code 6110-6113 The form has a witness statement at the end with lines for printed names and addresses.
Everyone has to be in the same room at the same time. A witness who signs later, or who wasn’t actually watching, can sink the whole document. If the signing requirements aren’t met, your assets are distributed under California’s intestacy rules as if you had no will at all.
Notarization is not required for a California will to be valid. It can help later by confirming identity and voluntariness, but it is not part of the statutory execution rules.
Choosing Witnesses: Avoid Beneficiaries
Your witnesses should be people who do not inherit under the will. Having a beneficiary serve as a witness does not automatically void the will, but it creates a legal presumption that the witness-beneficiary obtained their gift through fraud or undue influence.5California Legislative Information. California Probate Code 6112
The presumption applies only when there aren’t at least two other disinterested witnesses. If a beneficiary cannot overcome it, they don’t lose everything. They receive whatever they would have inherited had you died without a will, capped at the amount the will gave them.5California Legislative Information. California Probate Code 6112 The clean approach is to pick two witnesses who aren’t named anywhere in the document.
Storing the Signed Original
Keep the signed original somewhere safe, like a fireproof safe or locked cabinet, and make sure your executor knows where it is. If the original cannot be found after your death, the court may presume you destroyed it to revoke it. California also lets you deposit a will with the clerk of the superior court in your county for safekeeping during your lifetime. A copy clearly marked as a copy can live with your other important papers.
Changing or Revoking the Will Later
You can revoke a California will two ways: execute a new will that expressly revokes the old one or that is so inconsistent with it that the old one can’t stand, or physically destroy the original with the intent to revoke it.6California Legislative Information. California Probate Code 6120 Destruction means burning, tearing, or otherwise making the document unreadable, and you have to mean it. A coffee spill isn’t revocation. Someone else can destroy the will for you, but only in your presence and at your direction.
Smaller changes can go in a codicil, a separate document that amends specific parts of the will. A codicil must be signed and witnessed under the same rules as the original. On the statutory will itself, you still cannot cross out or write over the existing entries. If you want to change what the form says, write a codicil or start a new will from a fresh copy of the PDF.