Estate Planning

It is important that your Living Trust or Will is drafted by a Certified Legal Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate law under the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Your Living Trust protects the people most important to you and all of your assets, so most clients will never be made aware of a latent deficiency or defect in improperly constructed documents. Since our firm also specializes in trust and probate litigation, our fully customized estate planning documents reflect the issues which have been tested and tried in courts in order to help avoid potential complications in the future. Therefore, we can review your current documents and prepare amendments when necessary.

The legal process by which an estate’s assets are distributed to the decedents or heirs under the supervision of the probate court. Many people have misunderstandings about probate, but generally speaking, probate should be avoided, as it is expensive, complicated and time-consuming.

Upon the passing of the person(s) creating the Living Trust, this now irrevocable trust document needs to undergo a mandatory trust administrative process in order to wind down the decedent’s affairs. This is accomplished by first satisfying all legal obligations, creditors, taxes, and funeral expenses, before ultimately transferring all remaining assets to the intended beneficiaries. Simply having a trust does not mean assets somehow “magically” transfer themselves to the beneficiaries. A Successor Trustee has a fiduciary duty to perform this role after the passing of the trust creator in a diligent, objective and impartial manner, which is in the best interests of the beneficiaries. Even sole beneficiaries who are also the Successor Trustee have many legal requirements that must be performed before actually inheriting assets. Our attorneys can provide you with the highest level of services and advice you need to successfully navigate through this complicated process. We can handle all aspects of the trust administrative procedure and help insulate the Successor Trustee from personal civil or financial liability, which may by imposed upon them for not following the rules in their entirety. Unfortunately, we spend a lot of our professional time trying to assist people who did not follow the rules and as a result, there were adverse tax and legal consequences which could have been avoided.

Revocable Living Trusts and related ancillary estate planning documents are designed to avoid costly and complicated probate and conservatorship proceedings. However, all Revocable Living Trusts are not created with the same level of professionalism, competency and diligence. We fully customize every Revocable Living Trust for each client, based on their individual interests, family dynamic, assets, business entities, and so forth. There is never a “one size fits all” approach to planning properly, plus tax rules and laws are constantly changing, so please allow us to review your existing trust for latent deficiencies and defects before they become problematic.

Irrevocable trusts are typically reserved for advanced tax planning, asset protection, and insulating assets against Medi-Cal liens. Irrevocable trusts have advantages and disadvantages compared to revocable trusts, so we recommend that you contact us today to learn what type of trust would be most appropriate for your situation.

In California, there are many different ways to protect your assets. Additionally, your beneficiaries can receive protection from creditors, spousal claims in the event of divorce, lawsuits, and Special Needs protection in the event any beneficiary becomes disabled due to an accident, illness, or advancing age and we need to preserve SSI and/or Medi-Cal benefits.  While we hope none of your beneficiaries are forced to address any these hardships now or in the future, our attorneys can provide you with expert recommendations and important considerations on how best to protect them. We also prepare Medi-Cal Asset Protection Trusts to avoid future Medi-Cal liens and preserve personal assets as well.