When Marie walked into her local CDP office she was seeking assistance in creating a trust. She and her husband have three grown children and two properties. Marie wanted to make sure that if something should happen to her and her husband, the kids could take care of the properties...
Every day thousands of families confront difficult end-of-life decisions with no clear direction on the needs and wishes of their loved one who is dying. We Americans plan and prepare diligently for births and weddings, knowing the importance. But the other major life event—inexorable...
Real estate titles can be tricky indeed, as Stan learned after waiting for 16 years after his divorce to remove his ex-wife from the ownership records of his home and then adding his new wife to the deed 14 years after his re-marriage. Oh...
Divorce is a scary proposition, bursting with unknowns and steeped in horror stories of lives traumatized and bank accounts annihilated. With three children, a home, and eight years of marriage at stake, Joe knew that the risks in the divorce he and his wife were contemplating were substantial. Deep down though, Joe knew that...
PLUS: Read a sure-fire way to save 5% on CA Document Preparers’ products and services. It seems that few taxes are more galling to Americans than so-called “death taxes,” which are taxes due on a person’s estate upon death. Why, at this time of grief, must the government bust in and confiscate hard-earned...
A few weeks ago I wrote about a family that terribly botched the transfer of their family home by doing a mixture of bad planning and no planning. They didn't plan for the unlikely possibility that a daughter may predecease her parent. They held title to the family...
There were so many estate planning mistakes made in the scenario I wrote about in my last posting. First of all, it’s probably not wise to make an integral part of your planning the expectation that a child will always survive his or her parent. Sure, it’s a likely expectation,...
The most interesting customer of the day today was a mother and her adult daughter who came in and asked for Probate assistance. We’ll call them Mother and Daughter. Mother’s mother (Grandmother) and Mother’s grandmother (Great-Grandmother) owned a home together as “joint tenants”. Their situation raised a number of thorny...
Coming to the realization that it's time to end your marriage and going through the divorce process is emotionally and mentally stressful. The relief of signing final documents or receiving the judgment can be immense, but it's important to note that resolution may not be 100 percent complete. Financial and...
We had a very busy day today in our Walnut Creek location. With two appointments and three walk-in notary appointments, it was “standing room only” by 11:00am. Our divorce newspaper ads and NPR radio ads are yielding more divorce inquiries. We are a very reasonable place for helping people with divorce...
Legal documents can be extremely complicated, especially if you are unfamiliar with all the legal terms included in these documents. When you need to make changes to your home title for any reason, it is important to hire a document specialist from California Document Preparers, or CDP, to help you...
You do not always need an attorney to complete a will or a trust. Professional document preparation can save you a considerable amount of money over having an attorney draw up all of your paperwork. Take a look at this information overview on wills and trusts to determine if a...
