Who Wins My Estate? What Happens When A California Will Doesn’t Reflect Someone’s Wishes?

[Music] Hi this is Keith Davidson with Albertson and Davidson in this video I want to talk about a decedent's intent so let's say you have a friend and you help that friend out throughout the last stages of their life or maybe throughout their entire life and that friend tells you I want to leave you my estate because you've done so much for me and maybe that friend doesn't have any children doesn't have any close family maybe I have some long-lost cousins that they haven't seen in years but then when that friend dies you find out that the friend never created a will or never created a new will leaving the estate to you what do you do can you go into court and tell the judge what the decedent's true intent was and the answer is no you can't because in California there's no such thing as an oral will all wills must be in writing that's one of the basic requirements of valid will in California and so that means if your friend never wrote anything down never created a will never did their own handwritten what we call a holographic will then you're not going to receive anything most likely from that estate now I'm excluding from this video any claims for contract to make a will and promises and that sort of thing we have a lot of videos on that topic which will link below so you can take a look at them but for purposes of this video we're really just focusing on can you go into court and tell the court this is what the decedent wanted and the answer that is no now if your friend had written down on a piece of paper even in there in their own handwriting and said I want my estate to pass to my friend and sign that and gave it to you that would be a valid will or if your friend made a proper typewritten will that was signed and witnessed by two witnesses that would also be a valid will and you'd have rights to that but if there's no writing then there's no will and if there's no will then your friend's estate is either going to go to his or her heirs of law meaning the long-lost cousins or if there are no relatives eventually it'll just go to the state of California and you're going to be out in the cold so that's some information about the harsh realities of what happened in California will law when somebody doesn't actually write down their intentions in the New World. [Music] [Applause] [Music]