YOUR LIFELONG TRUSTED ADVISOR
If you have children who cause you to lay awake at night wondering how they might waste their inheritance, make sure to tell your trust attorney. Evaluating the maturity, spending habits, and bad choices of your children will help determine how you...
No! Estate planning is essential for every family. Even if you're not wealthy, you should at least have a will, a financial power of attorney, and a power of attorney for health care. A will names who will receive your belongings after your death. It...
A: Although a will is an essential piece to an estate plan, on its own, a will does absolutely nothing to help keep your family out of probate. Having said that, just because you only have a will does not automatically mean your estate will be subject to...
A: If probate is necessary, someone must come forward to start the probate process, which generally lasts six months to a year and consists of three main phases: 1) Appointment of the executor/administrator; 2) Administration of the estate; and 3)...
A: Probate is an acronym that stands for “Painful Robbery Of Bank Accounts, Time, & Energy”. OK, so maybe it’s not actually an acronym, but that’s still a very accurate description and easy way to remember why it’s so terrible! Technically, probate...
A: The law giveth, and the law taketh. Fortunately, if the original deed triggered a reassessment, we can use a “Rescission Deed” to return ownership to the previous owners (as if the previous deed had NEVER existed!). However, there are two CRITICAL...
A: One common example of a transfer that causes reassessment is when one sibling buys out another after inheriting a piece of property from their parents. Although the initial transfer from the parents to the children does not result in reassessment...
A: Under Prop 13, property taxes can only be increased a MAXIMUM of 2% annually (until the property is transferred). In practice, this law is so critical because property values in California have historically increased by far more than 2% per year,...
A: Yes, without a trust that property is destined for probate, and here’s why: The current law states that if the fair market value of the property is greater than $166,250 - and it’s hard to imagine a home in the Napa area that is worth less than...
