Common Mistakes When Drafting Your Will - Essential Tips for Protecting Your Assets and Loved Ones Picture this: you've worked hard your entire life to accumulate your assets and want to ensure they're distributed according to your wishes after you're gone. So, you decide to draft a will - great decision!...
The year is nearly half over and it’s been a rollercoaster. A fluctuating market, rising interest rates, chaos and scandal in Washington. Here on the homefront, it’s summer, and that means baseball. But for loyal A’s and Giants fans, it seems like our favorite teams just can’t catch a break....
It was October 2015 when California voters elected to become the fifth state to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with prescriptions from their doctors. This was not an easy decision; many remember months of contentious debate; religious groups and disability rights activists heatedly opposed the law and...
California Document Preparers’ comprehensive Living Trust package includes a section for listing contact information for key service providers--your doctors, financial advisors, CPA, pharmacy, etc. We want you to be thinking about those people your spouse or children would need to contact in an emergency or if something happened to you. We...
When our Living Trusts clients get to the part about naming a Successor Trustee, it means they’re nearly finished. They’ll quickly write down the name of their brilliant scientist daughter who lives in Boston whom they rarely see or their dreamy artist son who lives right here in the Bay...
When gay, lesbian, and other proponents of same-sex marriages celebrated the US Supreme Court‘s landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, millions of Americans became eligible for dramatically different legal rights upon the death or disability of a life partner than were previously possible. These rights extend to estate planning. Gay...
Husband and wife Paul and Sue have a sizable estate. At the same time, they are concerned that although they took the time to prepare a will, it will be subject to probate after they’re gone. Probate is the process of proving a will is valid. Once proven, the will guides an...
Intestate is a legal term that means “not having made a will before one dies.” It often leaves heirs with expenses, headaches, and heartaches. 55% of American adults die without a Will According to LexisNexis, an estimated 55% of American adults die without having prepared a will. Those who die intestate are leaving the...
Many of us have seen the commercials touting the benefits of setting up a dynasty trust: “Let your fortune go on for generations to come, protect your kids from divorce, and protect your kids from creditors.” It sounds compelling, but what is a dynasty trust, and do you really need or even want...
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...
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...
