I am working on a case right now which reminds one of the importance of fully funding your trust. The decedent was owed money (i.e. a promissory note) but failed to transfer that to their trust. They died.  After death the people stopped making payments on the note. The family wants to foreclose but guess […]

2018 UPDATE: Back in 2012 I was brought in to consult on a Nevada trust litigation case. It was a hotly contested case where one side was attempting to use the California Heggstad law to move NEVADA real estate.  As an expert on the California Heggstad laws I was brought in to advise. In fact, […]

Heggstad petitions are a special petition that require great precision. They are not to try on your own or even without the counsel of a very experienced California probate lawyer.  This is simply not an area to dabble in as an inexperienced attorney has little chance of success.  There are a lot of important elements […]

I have personally filed, and successfully completed, more Heggstad petitions than any attorney I know of.  I know the nuances.  I know what Judges like to see. I know what the Heggstad case says. I also know to use California probate code 850 and not California probate code 17200 for a Heggstad petition. Ask your […]

You hopefully have read my last two posts about Heggstad petitions. Though brief I think they provide a nice overview of what a Heggstad petition is. I have many other blog posts on the topic though. Just check the box on the right and find the other ones! Today we are talking about complexities with […]

As stated in my last post a Heggstad petition is simply a petition to show the decedent’s intent for their assets to be in a trust.  Or, as some say it, to be held in trust.  The Heggstad case established the principle that an asset listed on the schedule of assets, attached to a trust, […]

A Heggstad petition is simply a petition to the probate Court to try and establish the decedent’s intent that they intended for assets to be a part of a trust.  The most common way of showing this is by looking at the schedule of assets attached to the trust. If the asset is listed there […]

It seems like it’s almost daily though I am sure it’s not that often that I talk to a client about re-financing their house. No, I am not a mortgage loan broker. Rather I am an estate and trust attorney.  My clients contact me to ask how best to re-finance their home that is in […]

There are so many reasons why a trust remains unfunded or only partially funded at death. I have talked about it before. The most common situations are: 1) re-fi or reverse mortgage taken out before death. The house is usually removed from the trust to complete the loan and the title company does not put […]

Being an expert on California Heggstad petitions, pursuant to California Probate Code section 850, I get a lot of lawyers asking me questions about Heggstads. That’s ok. I don’t mind. A lot of times the other lawyer realizes it is a complex petition that they should leave to the experts. In other cases I help […]