People throughout California create revocable living trusts to avoid probate Court after death. It’s smart. It’s simple economics. If you have a $500,000 gross estate probate will be over $15,000 after your death.  Having a living trust, which may cost $2,500, will avoid probate. That doesn’t even factor in the emotional cost of probate. Just […]

Disclaimers are an incredible tool to be used in California estate planning, trust and probate law. Typically they are used after death in probate and trust administration settings. In some cases people call it “after death estate planning.” In any event it is a very powerful tool that not enough California attorneys know about. Below are […]

A lot of people come home from a vacation with a souvenir they did not intend to ever buy… a shiny new TIMESHARE or ”vacation club” or even a fancy “fractional ownership!”   It seemed like a great idea after a couple of Mai Tais I am sure!  One of the sales benefits often gushed by the […]

I met with some clients today who came in to sign their California revocable living trust, wills, powers of attorney for financial affairs, advanced medical directives (“Living will”), HIPPA releases, deeds, etc….  What was unusual is they did what I advise people to do but so few take advantage of the offer.  I tell clients […]

I have told you before that the California probate code has most of the answers that we need. Knowing where those laws are is another thing and takes many years to figure out. However, this is a great resource if you are the beneficiary of a trust, the trust is now irrevocable (typically after death) […]

My wife and I are going on a vacation for the long weekend and I, being a human, thought about my will and trust.  Mostly my will as that is where the guardian of our kids is named. I know, I know it’s not too likely that the plane is going to go down but […]

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 […]

In our office we do a lot of trust administration and probate. This means sorting things out after death typically. Although in some cases it can also be inventorying assets in a conservatorship. One of the major steps is inventorying the assets. This means making a list of assets. Unfortunately a lot of times the […]

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 […]

Did you know lawyers sometimes sit around and just think about the law!? Ok, well this lawyer does anyway. Probate Code 850 (in full below) is one of my favorites. It’s one of the most used tools we have in the trust administration world. Just look at the words of who can file a petition […]