If you’re a homeowner in California, regardless of the amount you might owe on your property, you need to make sure your home is in a trust. By creating a trust and properly funding it, you can ensure that your home isn’t tied up in probate upon your death and that your chosen trusted agents can efficiently and cost-effectively handle your affairs. In this article, we’ll discuss the top five reasons why having a trust in place for your California home is essential. 1. Avoiding Probate and Time Delays One of the primary benefits of having a trust is to avoid the lengthy and often expensive prob ..read more

Yes, you can write your own will. Writing your own will can be a convenient and cost-effective way to ensure that your assets are distributed according to your wishes after you pass away. However, it is important to understand the legal requirements for a valid will in California and to avoid common mistakes that can lead to litigation and disputes among your heirs. In California, a valid will must meet certain requirements. It must be in writing, signed by the person making the will (the “testator”), and witnessed by at least two people who are not named as beneficiaries in the will. Addition ..read more

If you landed on this page, then you are serious about planning ahead to protect the people you love. When I talk to parents in my law practice and I ask them what they are most concerned about, nine times out of ten they say they want to make sure their kids are taken care of if something happens to them. As a parent to three little ones, I know I do, too. In California, you can nominate guardians for your children by signing a written statement naming the individuals you would want to serve as Guardian of the Person (to be in charge of their care and custody) and Guardian of the Estate (to h ..read more

You probably don’t need another reminder that your baby isn’t quite a baby anymore, but here it is. If you have a child that is going off to college soon, chances are good that they are over the age of 18 and are a legal adult. And whether you’re still paying the bills or not, as soon as they turn 18 years old, you no longer have any authority–at least legally–over any aspect of their life. Without proper planning ahead of time, this leaves them particularly vulnerable in the event of an emergency. Every kid heading to college needs an estate plan consisting of the following 4 documents: Advan ..read more

At the end of the day, estate planning just means structuring your assets, but it’s not just about money. Sure, the uber-wealthy like to use different kinds of advanced estate planning strategies to structure their property in certain ways in order to reduce or eliminate taxes, protect their estate from lawsuits or creditors, or pass on multi-generational wealth to their children and grandchildren. You might think that when you “don’t have much,” there’s no reason to plan. You’d be wrong! The truth is that people with smaller estates benefit immensely from estate planning because arguably for ..read more

Expecting and having a child changes your life in many ways. Your perspective changes, your priorities change. You start to think about your future more, and what the future will look like for your child. If you’re like me, you might also become more anxious about bad things happening. You want to make sure your kids will be taken care of if anything happens to you. Estate planning, or documenting your wishes to ensure there’s a plan in place for managing your affairs in your absence, will give you so much peace of mind in the midst of those pesky anxious thoughts. Naturally, the sooner you ge ..read more

Which is better, a Will or a Trust? Unpopular opinion: It depends on what your goals are and what you are trying to accomplish. Often, the terms Will and Trust are used interchangeably or are compared to one another when they really aren’t comparable. They are both part of a comprehensive estate plan and should be looked at as such. However, at the end of the day, other than the additional financial investment inherent in creating a living revocable trust (whether you hire an attorney or not, it will always cost more to get a Trust), there really is no downside–and a lot of upsides–to having y ..read more

Contrary to popular belief, not all of your assets (the stuff you own, like bank accounts and real property) will need to be probated at your death without a trust. You can actually avoid probate of your estate altogether if you don’t have what is called a “probate estate,” or you don’t have anything that is subject to probate at your death. It is true that a trust isn’t the only way to accomplish this. There are essentially four types of assets that don’t go through probate: (1) those that pass by operation of law because there is a surviving co-owner with a right of survivorship (like a join ..read more

If you die without establishing your beneficiaries in a will and/or trust, California law will dictate who inherits your estate. This is often a source of confusion because often married people just assume that their spouse will get everything or maybe that their children will get it all. In reality, without a will it’s usually a bit of both. In California, any community property goes to your surviving spouse, while your separate property will be divided between your surviving spouse and your children. If you don’t have children, your separate property will either all go to your surviving spou ..read more

You’ll often hear that you need a trust to avoid probate. However, if the part of your estate that would otherwise be subjected to probate is small enough, there might very well be another way! Enter the Small Estate Affidavit. Small California estates with personal property worth $166,250 or less may be settled without probate, by instead utilizing a small estate affidavit procedure under California Probate Code Section 13100. What is a Small Estate Affidavit In simple terms, a Small Estate Affidavit is basically a letter to the bank (or whoever holds the funds you are trying to distribute) i ..read more