1. Validity of the will
California Probate Code section 6113 recognizes a written will validly executed under California law or qualifying law of the execution location or the testator’s domicile and related connections. These are alternative validation routes. Failure to satisfy State X’s three-witness rule therefore does not alone make the instrument invalid in California probate.
California section 6110 ordinarily requires a signed writing and two witnesses who, present at the same time, observe the signing or acknowledgment and understand that it is a will. Hank signed the form will in the presence of two disinterested witnesses. Assuming their attesting signatures and understanding are established, that satisfies California’s two-witness rule. If the phrasing leaves their own signatures uncertain, the proponent must establish the execution foundation or the statutory clear-and-convincing testamentary-intent alternative. A downloaded form is not invalid solely because it is a form.
Hank’s mistake about State X law does not negate his evident intent to dispose of his estate at death. No incapacity, coercion, or revocation is stated. The will therefore is likely valid in California, even though ineffective under State X’s stated execution rule. The requested analysis concerns California probate; any separate situs-law question about out-of-state real property would require facts and law not supplied.
Character of the property
Land inherited from Hank’s mother is his separate property, regardless of sole-name title or the timing of the inheritance during marriage. There is no transmutation or community-funded improvement described. Let its net distributable value be L, because no value is given.
The $100,000 account contains wages earned during marriage while domiciled in non-community-property State X. Such earnings and traceable funds would have been community property if earned while domiciled in California, making them quasi-community property for the applicable California death rules once Hank dies domiciled here. Keeping them in his sole name does not defeat Wendy’s statutory rights. On death, Wendy ordinarily owns one-half of the quasi-community property, or $50,000, and Hank’s half is the other $50,000.
The facts do not identify a separate California wage payment from his first day of work or an actual wrongful-death recovery. Such unquantified potential assets should not be invented or automatically added to the account. The analysis uses the given $100,000 and land.
2. Wendy as an omitted spouse
Hank executed his only testamentary instrument while single in 2016, then married Wendy in 2017 without providing for her in a later instrument. Section 21610 generally gives an omitted later spouse the decedent’s half of community and quasi-community property and a separate-property share equal to intestacy, capped at half the separate estate.
Exceptions can apply for intentional omission shown in the instruments, a qualifying outside provision intended in lieu, or an effective waiver. None is stated. Leaving property to Sis because Hank then believed he had no children is not an expressed intentional exclusion of a future spouse.
Wendy therefore receives Hank’s $50,000 quasi-community half in addition to her own $50,000, taking the entire $100,000 account. Because Hank leaves two surviving children, her intestate separate-property fraction under section 6401 is one-third, within the statutory half-estate cap. She receives one-third of L. The will remains valid, but is subject to these omitted-spouse rights.
Daughter as an omitted after-born child
Daughter was born after execution of all Hank’s testamentary instruments. Section 21620 ordinarily gives an omitted after-born child the value of the share she would receive in intestacy, subject to exceptions in section 21621. Nothing shows an intentional exclusion of future children, an in-lieu transfer, or a devise of substantially all the estate to her other parent. The actual devise is to Sis, so the parent-devisee exception does not apply.
The recital “Because I have no children” describes Hank’s belief in 2016. It does not show a deliberate decision to exclude an eventual daughter irrespective of her birth. Daughter therefore has a strong omitted-child claim. Her intestate share is one-half of the separate estate remaining after Wendy’s one-third, or one-third of L. She does not receive an additional fraction of the wage account that passes entirely to Wendy under the spouse and quasi-community rules.
Son as an unknown living child
Son is ten in 2021 and thus existed when Hank wrote the will in 2016. He is not an after-born child under section 21620. Section 21622 separately protects a child omitted solely because the decedent believed the child dead or was unaware of the child’s birth. Hank never knew of Son and explicitly justified the devise by his belief that he had no children, strongly supporting the required causal connection between ignorance and omission.
The question states that Son proved paternity by DNA. For this hypothetical, that establishes the stated filial relationship; a real probate proceeding also must satisfy the applicable parentage and evidence requirements. Son’s nonmarital status is not an automatic reason to exclude him from inheritance once the relevant parent-child relationship is established.
Under section 21622, he receives the same intestacy-equivalent value as a known child: one-third of L, and no additional share of the wage account that belongs and passes to Wendy. He cannot be rejected merely because Hank did not have a chance to acknowledge a child he did not know existed.
Sis and the final allocation
Sis is the named sole devisee under a likely valid will, but the statutory protections for the omitted spouse and both qualifying omitted children take priority. On the stated assets and assumptions, Wendy takes all $100,000 in the account plus one-third of the land’s distributable value, Daughter takes one-third of that value, and Son takes one-third. Those shares exhaust the estate’s described distributable property, leaving Sis no net gift after the statutory allocations.
If a statutory exception were proved or Son’s required parentage or ignorance showing failed, the allocation would need revision and Sis could retain property not absorbed by valid protective shares. If the will were invalid altogether, ordinary intestacy with Wendy and two qualifying children would reach the same baseline distribution on the assets given, but that coincidence is not a reason to skip execution and the distinct omitted-person statutes. All figures are before ordinary administration expenses, enforceable debts, and any other legally required adjustments not specified.