Made a Will or Trust online? What happens next in California

If you made a Will online

California is exact about execution. Under Prob. Code §6110, a Will is in writing, signed by you (or by another person in your presence and at your direction), and signed by two witnesses who were present at the same time, saw you sign or acknowledge it, and understood it was your Will. A Will whose signature and material provisions are in your own handwriting is valid without witnesses (§6111). California's electronic-transactions law does not apply to creating or executing a Will (Civ. Code §1633.3), so a document you downloaded is not a valid California Will until it is executed this way. A court may treat an imperfectly witnessed Will as valid on clear and convincing evidence of your intent (§6110(c)(2)) — a proceeding your family should not have to bring.

Make the witnesses' part easy later. California has no self-proving affidavit; an uncontested Will is proved by the evidence of one subscribing witness, which may be an affidavit — including one in the original Will that incorporates the attestation clause (Prob. Code §8220). A complete attestation clause and witnesses your family can find save real friction later.

A Will does not avoid probate. It is the instruction sheet FOR probate — the court process that moves what you owned to the people you named. If avoiding probate was the goal, that is a different tool.

The original document matters. California law (Prob. Code §8200) requires whoever holds your original Will to deliver it to the superior court clerk within 30 days of learning of your death, with a copy to the executor you named. Someone you trust needs to know it exists and where it is — a PDF in an app only you can open does not meet the moment.

If you made a Trust online

The point online flows skip: California asks for no witnesses on a Trust, but a Trust of real property is valid only if evidenced by a writing signed by the trustee or by you (or an authorized agent), or by a conveyance (Prob. Code §15206), and a Trust is created only if there is trust property (§15202). A signed form with nothing transferred to it does little until property is.

Funding is the step most people never finish. A Trust only controls assets that are titled in its name (or that name it by beneficiary designation). Signing creates the container; funding fills it. Unfunded assets generally go through probate anyway — the exact outcome the Trust was bought to avoid.

You will want a certification of Trust. Under Prob. Code §18100.5, banks and brokerages can accept a short certification instead of reading the whole document — it proves the Trust exists and who the trustee is while keeping the private terms private.

California real property plays by its own rules: a transfer at death can be a change in ownership for property tax, the trustee files a change in ownership statement within 150 days of the death (Rev. & Tax. Code §480(b)), and Proposition 19 narrowed the parent–child exclusion (Cal. Const. art. XIII A, §2.1). Whether and how your home should be deeded into the Trust is genuinely a question for a California attorney.

Is it actually finished? A six-question check

If you can answer yes to all six, your online document is far more likely to do its job when it matters:

1. 1Was it executed with California's formalities — for a Will, signed with two witnesses present at the same time, or entirely in your own hand; for a Trust of real property, a writing you signed?
2. 2For a Trust: has every intended asset been retitled into it — or given a beneficiary designation that matches the plan?
3. 3Do your beneficiary designations (life insurance, retirement accounts) agree with the document instead of quietly overriding it?
4. 4Does the person you named — personal representative or successor trustee — know they were named, and where the original is?
5. 5Are the originals stored safely AND findably — not only inside a vendor's app that you alone can open?
6. 6Has the plan been re-read after major life changes — marriage, divorce, a move into or out of California, a new child?

What happens later — when someone has to use it

For a Trust, the day you die your successor trustee inherits the Trust Law's duties immediately — including the notification to each beneficiary and heir within 60 days (Prob. Code §16061.7(a)(1)) — usually while grieving. The kindest thing you can do today is make sure they will know what they are holding and where to start.

That is the job TrusteeClear was built for: the free role check shows which sections of the California Trust Law speak to your answers, and the organizer extracts what a signed California Trust says — names, dates, provisions — with a source for each. Your successor trustee will not have to figure it out alone.