Keeping Your Assets in Your Trust
A major purpose of a revocable living trust is to hold title to your property so that it will pass to your beneficiaries without having to go through an expensive probate proceeding. “Funding” a trust is the term used for putting assets in your name as trustee, after you’ve signed the trust. When I do a trust-based estate plan, I make sure to prepare deeds for any real property that will go into the trust. This is part of “funding.” What about a client’s bank accounts and assets he or she may acquire once she or he has left my office? I provide instructions to...
Read MoreThree Types of Property Under the Law
In estate planning, we ask the question of who will inherit one’s property. What is property? In common usage, people sometimes think it just means real estate. Under the law, though, there are three categories of property. Most people have two types and some have all three. Real property is land and buildings. Anyone who owns a house or a condo owns real property. (A mobile home is not real property because one does not own the land the vehicle sits on.) Personal property is divided into two categories. Intangible personal property is cash and its...
Read MoreLegal Insurance Plans
Legal insurance plans are an excellent way for clients to be able to afford an estate plan. I work with two of the major legal insurance plans and welcome clients with these plans. ARAG is a plan available to UC employees, state of California employees, and employees of a number of corporations. Coverage varies depending on the employer group. For UC employees, ARAG generally covers the lion’s share of cost of having me do a trust-based estate plan. With employer groups that have lesser coverage, ARAG’s and my policy is to bill ARAG for the portion of the work that ARAG covers and...
Read MoreCan I Bring My Mother to Your Office?
On a regular basis, I get a phone call that goes like this. “Hello. My mother needs a Will. Can I come to your office?” My usual response is to ask the caller if his or her mother can call me directly. Often the adult child hems and haws and says something about how his or her parent may not be able to tell me what he or she wants or needs. We then get into a conversation that is central to the fields of estate planning and elder law: Who is the client? It’s fine if an adult child scouts around for an attorney, calls the attorney to arrange an appointment and even...
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