The confusing world of Trust and Will lawsuits, it can be quite a quagmire. Especially if you are looking on the internet for information because every state does things differently when it comes to the trust and will arena. Even the term “Probate Court” can mean vastly different things in different states.
Let me see
News outlets reported over the weekend that Mickey Rooney’s widow is contesting his Will in Court. According to this news story by Alan Duke on CNN.com; Mr. Rooney’s estate has an estimated value of $18,000, and his Will leaving his entire estate to his step-son (and excluding is ex-spouse and natural-born children) is being contested.
Have you ever had someone promise to leave you something at their death in return for you taking care of that person? You may have a contract to make a Will, which is enforceable in California. In this video, Stewart Albertson discusses the way in which you can enforce a contract to make a Will
You may be surprised to learn that your Will could be revoked without you even knowing it. Under Probate Code section 6124, if your original Will was in your possession at the time of death and if the original Will cannot be found, the law presumes that you destroyed the Will with the intent
Wills are statutory creatures. What does that mean? They are created, and governed, almost exclusively by the black letter law in our California Probate Code. In other words, there is no fundamental constitutional right to create a Will in a certain manner. You have to follow the rules set down by law, and if you
I have heard it a million times before: “I don’t need a Trust because ____________” you fill in the blank: I don’t have enough money, I won’t care when I’m dead, California probate is easy, my wife and I own everything in joint tenancy…there’s many, many excuses and misinformation regarding Trusts in California.
In California
Lawyers have rules that we must follow (no, seriously we do), and one of them is that any engagement where we estimate the fees to the client will exceed $1,000 must be documented by a written fee agreement—sometimes called retainer agreement or engagement agreement. See Bus. & Prof. Code Section 6148. The California Court
To be honest I have lost track of how we refer to different generations. I know baby-boomers and generation X, I’ve heard tell of generation Y, but I’m lost after that. So let’s just call everyone under age 21 as of now “generation X-Box.” How do you deal with the transfer of wealth to generation
When do you need to probate the assets of a decedent? First of all, let’s make sure we know what “probate” means–it sounds like a medical condition. But in fact it is simply a court process where a decedent’s assets are taken over by an appointed “personal representative”, the last debts and bills of the
The probate process is probably one of the most archaic procedures we still have in our legal system. Probate simply means to prove-up a Will—it’s the process where a Will is determined to be valid by the Court, it is then “admitted” to probate (as we say), an Executor is appointed and the administration of