California Spousal Property Petition Form DE-221

In this video, Albertson & Davidson attorney Keith Davidson takes you through how to fill out California Estate planning form DE-221. This form is used to when a decedent dies holding property that belongs, in whole or in part, to a surviving spouse. The surviving spouse does not have to do a full-blown probate administration. Instead, they can file a spousal property petition, which is a much shorter and straight forward procedure. The petition will allow the surviving spouse to ask the court for two things: (1) confirmation of his or her own ownership over community property, and/or (2) transfer of the decedent's share of any community property or separate property due to the surviving spouse. Time Stamps 0:00 Start 0:12 Introduction 0:53 Judicial Council Website 1:36 Form DE-221 1:38 Overall Purpose for Form DE-221 2:22 Caption Page 3:20 Filling in Court Information 3:45 Estate of and Hearing Date Information 4:20 Item 1, Property Passing to Spouse and Property Owned by Spouse 5:23 Item 2, What Relation is the Petitioner to the Decedent? 5:53 Item 3, Decedent date of death 6:05 Item 4, Residency of Decedent 7:10 Item 4, Intestate or Testate (Will or no Will) 8:45 Item 5, Family Members Who Survived Decedent 9:27 Item 6, Complete only if decedent had no issue (meaning children/grandchildren) 9:56 Item 7, the MOST IMPORTANT part of Form DE-221 10:10 Item 7a, List of Property belonging to decedent that passes to surviving spouse 10:44 Item 7b, List of Property belonging to surviving spouse 11:07 Item 8, Written Agreement between spouses 11:41 Item 9, List of All interested parties (for notice purposes) 12:24 Item 10, Other Interested parties from decedent's Will 12:51 Item 11, Property Passing to Decedent's Trust 13:51 Item 12, Petition for Probate (filed or not?) 14:35 Item 13, Attachments 14:49 Signing Form and Verification 15:45 Order for Spousal Property Petition 16:05 Form DE-226 16:16 Hearing Date and Time 16:35 Court Findings 16:56 Property Description 17:06 Undertaking (bond to secure creditors of the estate) 17:38 Order of property belonging to spouse and transferring to spouse 17:57 Property NOT passing to spouse remains part of the estate 18:30 Other Orders 18:50 Completed Spousal Property Petition