My therapist died. How do I get my records?

A: Start with the honest part, because it changes what you do: California law does not say who holds a private-practice therapist's client records after the therapist dies. No statute names a successor. No regulation of the Board of Behavioral Sciences or the Board of Psychology requires a custodian to be designated in advance. Neither board runs a repository. We looked for it section by section and it is not there.

That is not a reason to give up. It is a reason to write to the right person the first time.

The section people will tell you to use, and why it does not apply

You will be pointed at Health and Safety Code section 123145, which requires a provider to preserve records for seven years "if the licensee ceases operation" and creates a cause of action for "abandonment of health records."¹ It reads like it was written for exactly this.

It was not. Read the first line: it applies to "providers of health services that are licensed pursuant to Sections 1205, 1253, 1575 and 1726."¹ Those four sections license clinics, health facilities, adult day health care, and home health agencies — institutions, not people.² A solo or group-practice marriage and family therapist, clinical social worker, professional clinical counsellor or psychologist holds a professional license from a healing arts board, not a facility license. Section 123145 does not reach them, and neither does its abandonment remedy.

The contrast is deliberate: the very same chapter of the Health and Safety Code does list psychologists, marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers and professional clinical counsellors as "health care providers" for the rest of its provisions.³ The Legislature knew how to reach therapists here, and did not do it in section 123145.

The one place it can apply: if your therapist worked for a licensed clinic or facility, the duty falls on that entity, and the entity is who you write to.

What does exist

A retention clock was already running. Whichever profession your therapist held, the law required them to keep your records for seven years — from the date therapy terminated for a marriage and family therapist, clinical social worker, professional clinical counsellor or educational psychologist,⁴ and from the patient's discharge date for a psychologist.⁵ For a client who was a minor, seven years from that client's 18th birthday. The records were supposed to exist. That is a fact worth stating in a letter to an estate.

Your access right is a real right against whoever holds them. Health and Safety Code section 123110 gives you five working days to inspect after a request, and 15 days to receive copies, at a cost-based fee capped at 25 cents a page (50 cents from microfilm).⁶ Records may not be withheld over an unpaid bill.⁷ And if you need them for a public-benefit claim or appeal, one copy of the relevant portion is free, within 30 days.⁸ The full records procedure →

There is a private right of action. Anyone "aggrieved by a violation of Section 123110" may sue to enforce it, and the court may award costs and reasonable attorney's fees to the prevailing party.⁹

Say plainly what the limit is: section 123110 imposes its duty on "a health care provider," and section 123120's action runs against "the health care provider." Neither names an estate or an executor. Whether the duty is enforceable against a deceased therapist's estate is not answered anywhere in the text, and anyone who tells you confidently either way is offering analysis rather than law.

The order to try

1. The practice. If your therapist shared an office, a group practice, or a billing service, ask there first. In most cases someone practical has already taken the files, and this ends at step one.
2. The estate. Ask who is handling the estate and write to that person. Name the seven-year retention duty that was in force, ask for the file under Health and Safety Code section 123110, give an address, and set a date. Keep a copy.
3. The landlord or the storage. Where an office was closed quickly, paper files are often physically somewhere identifiable.
4. The electronic record system. If your therapist used an electronic health record or a practice-management platform, that vendor holds the data and has a process for a deceased account holder. Ask them what it is.
5. Your insurer. Your plan will not have your session notes — but it will have the dates of service, the diagnosis codes billed and the provider identifier, which is often what a new therapist actually needs. What an EOB shows →
6. The board. Neither the Board of Behavioral Sciences nor the Board of Psychology holds records, but both take consumer complaints, and a complaint creates a record of what happened. How to report a therapist →

Do not confuse this with a deceased patient

There is a well-developed body of California law about who steps into a dead patient's shoes: the personal representative becomes the holder of the psychotherapist-patient privilege,¹⁰ and a beneficiary or personal representative counts as a "patient's representative" who can request records.¹¹ None of that has anything to do with a dead provider. If someone quotes Evidence Code section 1013 at you here, they have the wrong end of it.

The other loss

The reason this is hard is rarely the paperwork. A therapist dying is a bereavement that has no ordinary social shape — the relationship was real, it was one-directional by design, and there is usually no funeral you are told about. That is a normal thing to bring to a new therapist in the first session, and a good one will know exactly what you mean.

Do this: write one letter today to whoever is most likely to be holding the file, quote Health and Safety Code section 123110, ask for copies, give a date and an address, and keep a copy of what you sent. Then start looking for someone new without waiting for the answer — the records are useful, but they are not a prerequisite. What happens at an intake →

Sources

1. Health & Safety Code §123145(a)–(c): "(a) Providers of health services that are licensed pursuant to Sections 1205, 1253, 1575 and 1726 have an obligation, if the licensee ceases operation, to preserve records for a minimum of seven years following discharge of the patient… (c) 'Abandoned' means violating subdivision (a) and leaving patients treated by the licensee without access to medical information to which they are entitled pursuant to Section 123110." Added by Stats. 1995, Ch. 415, §8; never amended — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
2. Health & Safety Code §1205 (clinic license), §1253 (health facility license), §1575 (adult day health care license), §1726 (home health agency license). See also §1200(a), which defines "clinic" as an organized outpatient facility providing "medical, surgical, dental, optometric, or podiatric" services and excludes a place that "solely provides advice, counseling, information, or referrals," and §1204, under which the primary-care clinic classes must be nonprofit corporations — "No natural person or persons shall operate a community clinic [or free clinic]."
3. Health & Safety Code §123105(a)(7), (10), (11), (14) — psychologist, marriage and family therapist, clinical social worker, professional clinical counselor — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Note that a licensed educational psychologist is not on that list.
4. Business & Professions Code §4980.49(a) (marriage and family therapist), §4993(a) (clinical social worker), §4999.75(a) (professional clinical counselor), §4989.51(a) (educational psychologist) — each: "shall retain a client's or patient's health service records for a minimum of seven years from the date therapy is terminated," and seven years from an ex-minor's 18th birthday. All added by Stats. 2014, Ch. 312 (SB 578); each applies only to therapy terminated on or after 1 January 2015 — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
5. Business & Professions Code §2919: "A licensed psychologist shall retain a patient's health service records for a minimum of seven years from the patient's discharge date." Added by Stats. 2006, Ch. 89, §1 — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
6. Health & Safety Code §123110(a), (b)(1), (j)(1)–(2) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
7. Health & Safety Code §123110(i).
8. Health & Safety Code §123110(d)(1)–(3).
9. Health & Safety Code §123120 — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
10. Evidence Code §1013(c) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
11. Health & Safety Code §123105(e)(4).
12. The negative findings on custodianship were reached by reading Business & Professions Code Division 2, Chapters 6.6, 13, 13.5, 14 and 16, and the regulations of both boards: Board of Psychology, 2026 Laws and Regulations (16 CCR Division 13.1, Articles 1–10) — psychology.ca.gov; Board of Behavioral Sciences, Statutes and Regulations, January 2026 (16 CCR Division 18) — bbs.ca.gov. Neither contains a records-custodian, practice-closure or post-death provision.

All sections read on the operative text on 18 August 2026. This page describes the statute; it is not legal advice, and what an estate owes is a probate question worth asking a lawyer if the file matters to a claim.