My post the other day with the totally destroyed house here in Sacramento reminded me of another probate house from a few years ago. This one involved an incredible mystery which I will try to get to in the coming days. However, for today I’ll just give you the basic overview and some pictures of […]

We have been dealing with a dying family member in my family recently.  Dealing with death every day I know the importance of organizing your affairs. However, seeing it up close reminds me of so many things you can do, before dying, to help your family. Here are a list of things. Thankfully in our […]

In many of my California probate cases there are lost assets… or at least my client thinks there are lost assets. How do you track them down?  There are different ways but I am going to tell you about a real case I am working on right now. When a person dies I advise my […]

I am sitting at my desk on this lovely Saturday morning which is not my norm. With nobody else here I have Pandora playing in the background. It got me thinking have these artists connected their royalties to their living trusts? Hey, when you do estate planning for a living everything gets back to probate […]

I was contacted today by a client whose father just died. It was a painful death and, even more sad, he is probably now rolling over in his grave to learn what I am typing. He never changed the beneficiary on his life insurance policy and it goes to… his ex-wife. Ughhhh. I am happy […]

Last week I had a professional fiduciary named as Administrator in one of my probate cases here at the Sacramento county probate Court.  Professional fiduciaries are a great choice to serve as administrator when there is fighting, or potential fighting, between family members. They are licensed by the state and can be bonded. In fact, there is […]

I have two clients coming in this afternoon… hopefully I might add… to sign their estate plans. In both instances it has been over a year since we first met. Life is busy we all know but, in the end, there is no good excuse for not getting your estate plan done. In both cases […]

“I am not quite ready to sign my estate plan becuase… [insert excuse here].” I hear this almost every day. The problem is there is NEVER a perfect time to do your estate plan nor is there ever a perfect estate plan. There are good times and bad times but there is NO perfect time! Likewise […]

Talk about a loaded question!  Just the other day I was talking to a client, in a probate case, and she asked this question of me. It really is a loaded question though.  YES, you “can” just give it back BUT…. Let me start by saying there is simply no one size fits all answer […]

I wasn’t sure what to write about today.  To come up with an inspiration I just looked at my calendar to see what clients I have met with this week. Just yesterday’s clients gave me 3 good ideas. I am going to tell you about my meeting with a man we will call Tom.  Of […]