Wills

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Keith A. Davidson describes in this video the basic requirements for creating a California Will and Trust. He refers to the basic creation elements as “formalities” and “intentionalities”, terms he uses in teaching California Will and Trust creation at Chapman Law School (which he borrowed from his own Trust and Will professor, Father O’brien (thank…

Back in March we offered to provide simple Wills to members of our community at no cost (you know, for free).  We decided to limit the program to 20 people per month to ensure that we were not overwhelmed by requests for free simple Wills.  And the response to our free Will program was overwhelming. …

When you practice in the area of Trusts and Wills, you are often called upon to resolve other legal problems that pertain to clients’ assets such as business law, real property law, family law, etc.  So here is a post discussing a few business issues I have dealt with recently.  This same post was published in our…

The manner in which assets are titled govern how those assets pass at death.  And this can override a disposition contained in a Will or Trust. All the effort people take to prepare a Will or Trust can be wasted if assets are not titled properly.  This is what I call the asset puzzle.

The…

Fifty years ago, most assets passed from an individual who died to his or her family by way of Probate (by Will or Intestacy both of which require Probate). Probate is a strict, expensive and time-consuming Court process that must be completed before assets can ultimately being transferred to family members.

But today, we own…

In an earlier post we described what probate is and that it only applies to assets titled in the name of the decedent at the time of her death.  Now we want to discuss how to start the probate process (it’s just a court process after all).

Handling a California probate can be summed up…

Probate is an antiquated term that simply means to prove-up a decedent’s Will.  It is a Court process where a decedent’s assets are gathered, creditors are paid, heirs are identified and located, and the assets distributed either according to the decedent’s Will or by statute if a decedent died without a Will (referred to as…