A lot of people come into my office and ask me if they should transfer their real estate into their kid's name while they are still living. Here is the typical reason they give for wanting to do that: If my child goes on the title to the property, (1) I save money by not [...]
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 [...]
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 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 [...]
I was just reading a legal question-and-answer website about a couple who was dating and wanted to know when they needed to update their wills. The couple has a basic will plan, but they plan on getting married and having kids within the next few years. It sounds like this couple is on the ball [...]
I was just reading a legal question-and-answer site about a family who could not find their estate planning documents. They wanted to know what to do. Apparently, the family had done their estate planning quite a while ago, and the relative in question had just passed away. Now the family is furiously tearing up the [...]
I was recently reviewing a living trust estate plan for an individual. The plan had been outdated for quite some time. As I was reviewing this individual’s plan, I noticed that most of the plan was from the 1990s. But the pages were not all the same color or format, which indicated that pages had [...]
You may be wondering, Do I need to put my cars in my living trust? Here’s the short answer: if you are talking about the cars you use every day to go to and from work, you probably do not need to bother going down to the DMV and changing your ownership records. After all, [...]
I remember a few years ago when I was a third-year law student, I put together a very basic estate plan for myself. I went over to a relative’s house to have my will witnessed, and the relative asked why I was preparing a will and estate documents. It was a good question, as I [...]
