TL;DR Incapacity planning documents California — not just your will — determine who controls your money and your medical care if you cannot speak for yourself. A durable power of attorney for finances names your agent now. Without it, a court appoints one later — a process that takes months and costs thousands. A...
TL;DR Estate plans should be reviewed regularly because life circumstances and laws change. A California estate plan review should cover eight key areas: beneficiary designations, trust funding, trustees and executors, digital assets, healthcare directives, tax considerations, guardian designations, and property titles. Even a single outdated item can send assets through probate or distribute...
Key Takeaways Your digital life—photos, emails, social media, crypto—is real, valuable, and vulnerable. Without clear instructions, heirs may be blocked by provider policies, privacy law, or lost keys. Digital assets estate planning helps you grant access, preserve your legacy, and avoid loss. This article explains what digital assets are, why access can be...
Key Takeaways A living trust is powerful — but only if you complete these steps. This checklist lays out 9 often-overlooked essentials for Californians setting up a trust: funding, real estate, financial accounts, digital assets, successor trustees, healthcare directives, minors, document coordination, and ongoing reviews. Skip these, and your trust may fail...
Introduction to Digital Assets in Estate Planning In today's digital age, estate planning goes beyond just physical assets like houses and cars; it also covers digital assets like social media accounts, email, digital photos, and cryptocurrency. California has stepped up to the new digital reality by setting up laws to manage...
While a large segment of our LivingTrust clientele tends to be older couples, we’re now seeing more Millennials and Gen-Xers creating Trusts. It starts with buying a home--scraping together a down payment and buying a Bay Area home is a sobering experience. But the big motivator is the birth of...
When a loved one dies, there are laws governing the distribution of property. If that person had a Will or Living Trust, the legal document identifies the way the estate will be distributed. If the deceased did not have a Will or Trust, the estate goes through Probate, which follows its...
End-of-life planning can be an unsettling process. No one wants to think about death, much less plan for it. Yet while the majority of our Living Trust clients are older, often retired or thinking about it, anyone who has assets and a family should have a Trust. It documents how...
