The first days after a death do not feel like the days that came before. Everything continues — the mail, the bills, the calendar — but you are not the same person receiving them. The family calls come first. The funeral arrangements come next. And then, sooner than you expect, the practical questions begin to arrive. Do you have the…
If you own a home in the East Bay, you’ve raised a family here, or you’ve spent a lifetime building up savings, it’s natural to assume those assets will simply pass to the people you love. I wish it were that simple. In more than 20 years as an estate planning attorney here in Walnut Creek, I’ve sat with too…
Over the years I have seen clients struggle to get access to a parent’s safe deposit box after death. More than once, this seemingly simple task required us to open a probate proceeding in court, even though the deceased parent had set up a revocable trust to avoid probate. I’ve said this before: telling a client we have to do…
Transfer on Death (TOD) deeds gained legal recognition in 2016 as a means of transferring real property outside of probate in California. Since then, TOD deeds have emerged as a popular estate planning tool, offering a streamlined alternative to probate for transferring real estate assets. A TOD deed is a legal document that allows real property owners to designate beneficiaries…