I am often asked by probate clients and estate planning clients why two individuals have to watch the signing of a will. I have had clients ask me if a notary acknowledgement alone is sufficient. The answer is that wills executed in California must follow strict guidelines. A notarization alone will not make a will [...]
I have been getting this question over and over again about requiring residential tenants to get and maintain renter’s insurance. We go back and forth on this topic at the Board of Realtors. Here’s a case that could dampen the mood on this insurance issue, at least concerning whether you will be able to evict [...]
More and more trust documents are being created due to an aging population. I’m seeing increasing problems administering trusts with provisions that allow family and loved ones to reside in a property included in the trust. Problems that commonly occur are payment of home expenses, exclusive possession of the premises, and downright disagreements among the [...]
I see these stories time and time again—adult children acting like spoiled brats and misbehaving in their own parents’ home. Whether it’s not wanting to clean up after themselves or, even worse, a drug addiction that’s going downhill and the child refusing help, the parents are living day in and day out with an unhealthy [...]
There is generally only one conversation that children never want to have with their parents, and that is long-term planning. You may see the signs already—an aging parent is having a hard time handling the basics of independent living such as getting dressed or keeping food in the house. Or it might be that dad [...]
I see this a lot lately. With the high values of real estate, more unmarried couples are purchasing property together. There are countless reasons why couples purchase real estate together. It’s a great investment both for income and appreciation, and it offers an affordable place to live so money is not just being thrown away. [...]
I think some people believe that if someone can’t sign their name or read due to a physical disability, they can’t create an estate plan. That is simply not the case. The law allows a person to execute documents by making a mark. The legal capacity to sign with a mark instead of a signature [...]
I never would have thought I would be talking about this problem, but I have come across it recently. Some mortuaries and funeral homes are holding a loved one’s remains—not for safekeeping because no one claimed the remains, but because the family isn’t able to pay the balance due on the mortuary bill. For many [...]
I have been running into situations where residential landlords and tenants have been sending emails to one another to give notice to terminate their month-to-month tenancies. For some landlord-tenant relationships, the tenancy ends without any issues. However, in many situations, there are usually problems. There might be a tenant who has allowed other persons to [...]
I was reading yet another sad story about a family that set up a sloppy estate plan. The plan involved a mother and four children. The mother had a bank account with roughly $400,000 in it, and she was going to split the cash into four equal shares. However, for lack of better judgment, the [...]
