Imagine this scenario: your cousin, David, dies without an estate plan here in California. He had no children or further descendants. He has no living siblings, parents, grandparents, or aunts or uncles, but he does have you, his first cousin on his dad’s side. His only first cousin that you are aware of. You petition the court to open a…
When completing any estate planning, including a trust, will, power of attorney, or health care directive, the person signing the documents must have what is called “capacity” in order to sign the documents. There are two kinds of capacity in estate planning: testamentary capacity and contractual capacity. Testamentary capacity is a lower form of capacity and is required by a…
Effective January 1, 2022, California Probate Code Sections 15800 and 16069 are amended by Assembly Bill 1079. The law changes affect trustees who assume their role when the settlor or trustor (the trust’s creator) becomes incapacitated. Typically, the person or persons who create a revocable living trust hold power to revoke the trust. However, when a person dies, their revocable…
In California, owning assets in a revocable trust enables your family to avoid probate, a court process used to transfer assets to beneficiaries of a will or the decedent’s heirs. One of the main reasons to create a trust is to avoid probate. Unfortunately, more often than we would like, when we assist clients with trust administration after the death…
