Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

The answers to all the questions in your posting is "maybe and maybe not." Other than a valid deed, delivered to the recipient and properly recorded, nothing is required by law to complete a gift of real property. Even it the preliminary change of ownership form isn't absolutely required. If it is omitted, the county clerk will send out a demand for the information later. If there were conditions to the gift, then there should be a document, but if the donor gave the donee a deed, presumably the conditions were met, otherwise why would the donor have given the deed? Does an attorney keep copies? Depends on the transaction and the wishes of the client. They are not required to keep a copy at all, absent an agreement or duty imposed by the client. So there is no specified time to keep it absent the agreement or instructions of the client.

"Has to be?" No. A deed is all that is necessary to transfer record ownership of real property. In rare cases, an attempted transfer by deed mail fail due to some external cause (fraud, the buyer's check doesn't clear, etc.). In general, however, a properly-executed deed, delivered to and accepted by the grantee closes the deal. Recording isn't even essential for the deed to be effective between the parties and others with knowledge of it.

Nevertheless, there may be additional papers, and in a lot of gift situations, there should be. In trying to think of a similar situation to use as an example, I come up with getting married. All it takes to get married is a simple ceremony, somewhat analogous to a simple deed being all that's necessary to transfer ownership of land. (I guess you also need a license to marry). However, when two people marry, they presumably have a lot of mutual understandings about their future life together, some of which may be in one or more written agreements or other informal papers such as their choices in a wedding registry.

The possibility of forgery is one reason the grantor's signature needs to be notarized on a deed that is to be recorded.

Law offices and attorneys are not required to keep copies, but many do. I have had pretty good luck at obtaining copies of client documents that are around ten or more years old from the attorneys that prepared them.