The core of every estate plan in California is a revocable trust. A revocable trust is the only mechanism to avoid probate: an expensive, time-consuming process that is open to the public.
Properly designed, drafted, and funded, a revocable trust fully mitigates estate and gift taxes, income taxes, and property taxes.
We don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Every estate planning engagement is designed to uniquely fit your family, your timing, and your goals.
How We Design Your Plan
Designing an estate plan involves a detailed analysis of your family, the assets you own, and a review of any documentation such as real estate titling and any business or marital agreements. Our process also encompasses funding of all real estate into the trust.
What the Estate Planning and Planning for Incapacity Process Involves
Preparation of essential documents
Review and revision of grant deeds for your primary residence and rental properties
Many real properties are incorrectly titled by default into joint tenancies during the purchase, because title companies cannot (and do not) provide legal advice as to the proper titling of such properties. In California, a community property state, correct titling is essential to preserve the double step-up in basis.
Drafting and recording grant deeds
We draft and record the grant deeds re-titling your primary residence and other real property into your living trust.
Detailed funding instructions
You receive detailed instructions on how to fund the remaining assets into the living trust, so the plan works the way it was designed to.
Why funding matters: an unfunded trust does not avoid probate. Our engagement is not complete until your real estate is re-titled and you know exactly how to move the rest of your assets into the trust.
Planning for Incapacity
An equally critical component of every plan is what happens if you are alive but unable to make financial or medical decisions for yourself because of illness, injury, or age-related cognitive decline.
- Financial Power of Attorney: lets a person you trust manage your financial and legal affairs without a court-supervised conservatorship.
- Advance Health Care Directive: names your health care agent and records your wishes about medical treatment and end-of-life care.
- HIPAA Authorization: ensures your agents and family can actually obtain your medical information when they need it.
- Successor trustee provisions: your revocable living trust lets a successor trustee step in immediately to manage trust assets, keep bills paid, and keep your financial life running without court involvement.