Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Re: Mom left a house but no will.

You could go on as is. There is no penalty for not immediately clearing title to a decedent's real property. The mortgage company will send you a reconveyance after the mortgage is paid in full (which you will need to record with the local county recorder's office). If my recollection is correct there is no document that would require your mother's signature. However if you have any problems with the house (i.e. need to evict a tenant, etc.) you will need to show ownership of the house.

Since you did not mention anything about a trust, I assume that your mother did not have one of those either. You also didn't mention your father, so I am assuming that he predeceased your mother or she was divorced. Without some type of testamentary plan, the house would go in equal shares to all of your mother's children (if you have any brothers or sisters who predeceased her, leaving children, their children would be entitled to the predeceased sibling's share).

If you ever want to sell the house, refinance it, or lease it to a new tenant, you should start the procedure for probating the house. Probate is the court supervised distribution of your mother's estate. Unless you can provide me with more facts, its the only way to clean up title.

I seriously doubt that that the mortgage company would call the loan, if it is only a few months from being paid in full, moreover most residential mortgages specifically exclude death of the owner as grounds for calling the mortgage due. There would also not be any problems with property tax. Children who inherit property get the same tax basis as their parents had. The only drawback to moving forward is the cost of the probate. However, you will have to do it sooner or later. Probate costs for a modest estate should be less than $750. The attorney's fees are computed as a percent of the estate. 3% on the first $100,000, 2% after that up to a million.