Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

You don't 'remove a name' from a deed. If the parents had a marital trust with the property included in it, the trust will now take effect and deal with the property. If he had only a will, or even if he didn't, you file a probate action, administer the estate, and obtain a court order for transfer of the property to heirs. It depends upon what property and value is in the estate, how it will be handled. If serious about hiring counsel to help in this, feel free to contact me.

The death of either spouse terminates the community, and one-half of the former community property belongs to the surviving spouse and the other half belongs to the decedent (yes, that's what the Probate Code says!). The decedent's share is distributed according to his will, if he left one, and otherwise, to the surviving spouse. (Probate Code sections 100, 6101 and 6401).

Here are two useful links:

http://www.ca-trusts.com/spousalproperty.html

http://www.scselfservice.org/probate/prop/substitutes.htm#z5

I would review these, follow the procedure to petition for and get a spousal property order as described in the links (you may also look up the statutes behind this process, Probate Code sections 13650-13657), get a certified copy of the order from the court clerk after the judge signs it, then record the order with the county recorder.