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The professional will, printed: who holds the records, who tells the clients, and where everything is.
The retention statutes say a client’s file must survive seven years past the last session — and say nothing about who holds it if the therapist dies. That silence is what a professional will answers. The CAMFT Code of Ethics names the document; no statute requires it or prescribes its form. This page produces one in seven sections from what you type, with the duties it is written around quoted underneath.
Your details →Your details
Six fields do most of the work; the rest sharpen it.
Nothing here is stored or sent: the document is assembled in your browser and printed from it. Leave a field blank and the printed document shows a rule for it, so a half-finished will is still a usable draft. Credentials are deliberately not a field — the document says where the sealed copy is, not what it says.
What it rests on
Five duties, one ethics code, and one silence.
“A marriage and family therapist shall retain a client’s or patient’s health service records for a minimum of seven years from the date therapy is terminated”, and for a minor, seven years from the client’s 18th birthday. The identical rule sits in §4993, §4999.75 and §4989.51. The duty attaches to the records, not to the practice.
“Failure to keep records consistent with sound clinical judgment, the standards of the profession, and the nature of the services being rendered.” A custodian who cannot find the files cannot answer for them.
Inspection within five working days of a written request; copies within 15 days; the 25-cent page cap. Whoever holds the file answers on those days.
The estimate is part of the record and a copy must be available for six years from the date it was provided. It travels with the file.
“Each person or professional corporation regulated by the board shall maintain a current mailing address with the board and shall notify the board within thirty (30) days concerning any change of address giving both the old and new addresses.”
1.3 lists “providing for a professional will” among the practices that keep care undisrupted; 1.7 requires a therapist who cannot continue to help each client arrange continuation; 2.3 requires records to be stored and transferred “in ways that protect confidentiality” — which is why credentials travel sealed and not in the document’s body.
The silence this document answers
No California section fixes who may hold a deceased therapist’s records, requires a professional will, or prescribes its form. The records page reaches that finding from the statutes; the closing checklist collects the duties that outlive a practice. What makes this document work is not a statute but an agreement: somebody licensed has said yes, in writing, and knows where the files are.
Then what
The pages this document sits between.
The whole list
Closing a practice: the checklist
Twelve items, four of them the ones to do while nothing is wrong.
The clocks
The records-request deadline calculator
Five working days, fifteen days, and the seven-year retention date.
The policy
Liability insurance, compared
Occurrence or claims-made, and what each carrier publishes about death, disability and retirement.
Court paper
Subpoenaed as a California therapist
The custodian may be the one who receives it; the privilege is still the client’s.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The duties the document is written around
- B&P §4980.49, client records: retention (with §4993, §4999.75, §4989.51)
- B&P §4982(v), failure to keep records as unprofessional conduct
- Health and Safety Code §123110, a patient’s access to records
- 45 CFR §149.610(f)(1), good faith estimates kept six years (eCFR)
- Board of Behavioral Sciences, Statutes and Regulations: 16 CCR §1804 and the sections above; read 7 September 2026
The ethics code
Nothing typed on this page is stored, sent or added to the address bar; the document is built and printed in the browser. No California statute requires a professional will or prescribes its form, and this page does not say otherwise: what formalities make it enforceable is a question for your own attorney. Not legal advice.
