I recently was contacted by a potential client trying to clear up title to land in Imperial County, California. When I looked it up I realized it was at, and appears to be beach front, at the Salton Sea.  Living in California for over 50 years I have heard of this place but never actually […]

As of April 1, 2022 (and no this is not an April Fools joke) the small estate limits have been changed in California. They have been increased FOR DEATHS OCCURING ON OR AFTER APRIL 1, 2022. The limits for death prior to April 1, 2022 remain the same. The new limit for small estate affidavits […]

I received a question the other day which I modified to protect the identity of the person.  They asked: Hi.  My uncle recently passed with my dad (his brother) as his closest relative and few assets.  His estate qualifies as a “small estate” under California law.  I cannot find any resources about how to treat […]

Lately I seem to have a run of small probate matters and I can say that small probates come in different sizes.  Though the rules are fairly simple I thought you might like to hear some fact patterns so you could see probate code section 13150 and 13200 inaction in real life! Messed up Title […]

INTRODUCTION I was presented a really interesting hypothetical recently. I thought it would make for a good blog post as there are a lot of intricate turns. It gets into issues of how to hold title, how to distribute assets between husbands and wives, and how small estate options work after death. HYPOTHETICAL In this […]

INTRODUCTION It seems a day does not go by without speaking to a potential new client regarding their parent’s trust not being properly funded. There are different reasons this happened but the end result is they need to hire an attorney. This blog post focuses on the interplay of the small probate estate and funding […]

In 2022, the law in the state of California changed regarding small estates. Currently, California Probate Code §13100-§13116, the Small Estates Law, says that if the value of the decedent’s estate at the time of death is less than $184,500.00, the estate does not have to go through probate. Unless the death was before Jan […]

I met with a new client today whose husband died recently. She said she went to a local attorney, who was very nice, and told her she would have to do a full probate to get the house out of her husband’s name and into her name.  The grieving widow, luckily, decided to do a […]

In a full, or normal, California probate case the attorney fees are set by statute. It’s set in stone what one will pay and, absent extraordinary circumstances, the fee can not be more than that.  Also, the attorney fee should not be paid before the Court order.  Money for costs most certainly can be requested […]

Ethics are important to us and thus our hourly fee time is carefully noted in our time keeper program. However, some clients just do not like hourly fee arrangements. They want to know exactly how much they are going to spend.  We have heard the request many times and now we can offer FLAT FEE […]