Estate planning law has a series of rules and regulations that have been established and that are different in every state. To understand all of these rules is much more than filling a simple form. Most of the estate plans that we see that have been drafted without the advice of expert counsel on estate planning have pieces that haven’t been thought through because there wasn’t someone who has experience involved in drafting the document.Read More…

When we set up an estate plan, we draft pour-over wills which take your assets and put them into the revocable trust. We also draft a certificate of trust, a short form of the trust that you can share to people so that they can see who the trustees are and what their power is but not necessarily who you are giving your assets to. We also draft a general assignment that says to pourRead More…

Drafting an estate plan includes what we call a “revocable trust”.  You put your assets into the trust. The trustee (yourself) controls those assets. You can buy or sell assets. However, putting assets into a revocable trust doesn’t necessarily protect them from creditors. If you want to protect your assets from creditors, there are a whole series of asset protection ways that you can do. One of these ways is primarily forming irrevocable trusts whereRead More…

People ask me every day why they should have an estate plan. An estate plan is a revocable trust or pour-over will. Your trust will say where to put everything, it will hold your assets and other documents that surround that including a healthcare directive. If someone dies without an estate plan, they’ll have what’s called probate. Probate goes to court, takes time, costs money, and could have been easily avoided with an estate plan.Read More…

An estate plan is a revocable trust where you transfer all of your assets and surrounding documents (including a healthcare directive). If somebody dies without an estate plan, a probate will have to occur — where it goes to court, takes time, and costs money. A simple revocable trust keeps you from going through that by allowing you to confirm whoever you want to take over as the successor trustee and to decide how youRead More…

Transferring assets into a revocable trust is a relatively simple task. On real estate, bank accounts, and/or securities accounts, you provide a new deed moving the asset from your name into the trust name. But on retirement accounts, a married person should have his/her spouse be the primary beneficiary, so that they can roll over the assets without tax consequences. Your trust would be the secondary beneficiary. If not married, you should put those assetsRead More…

Current estate tax law states that you can give away up to $5 million per person. On January 1, 2013, that number was reduced to $1 million. If your estate is over $1 million, you will encounter some significant tax issues. You need to talk with a person who understands estate taxes to look at your estate and tell you what your options are. For many people who have great wealth, giving away $5 millionRead More…

Putting assets in joint tenancy enables the surviving joint tenant to inherit those assets when you pass away. You can do joint tenancy with bank accounts, real estate, ownerships, and partnerships. The problem, however, with joint tenancy is that the other joint tenant will also own the asset beginning the time you put them into joint tenancy with you. There are tax consequences (i.e. income, estate, property, etc.) that can get quite complex and significantRead More…

Joint tenancy is often used by people who wish to transfer their assets to their heirs. When you have a joint tenant asset and a joint tenant dies, the surviving joint tenant inherits their share. If you have three joint tenants and one passes away, the remaining two people each own one half of the asset. The pro that comes with joint tenancy is it helps you avoid a probate. The con is the inabilityRead More…

Transferring assets into your revocable trust is a very simple process. A lot of people will forget to do it. On your real estate, you need to make up a new deed, which transfers the asset from your name or your and your spouse’s name into the name of your trust. Everything except your day-to-day checking account should be in the name of your trust. An exception in California is your car. It is relativelyRead More…