Estate Planning

Intestate succession is the legal process through which a person’s end-of-life estate passes if they die without a will or other applicable estate plan. It focuses on creating beneficiaries out of closely related individuals and moves out to more distant relatives of...

Broadly speaking, there are two goals of estate planning.  The first goal is to distribute assets at your death efficiently.  Efficiently means with a minimal amount of effort, delay, taxes, fees, and other expenses.  This first goal is what most estate planning...

You might breathe a sigh of relief after you create your estate plan. After all, it’s not easy to think about your own mortality and how your loved ones might struggle without you around. But as life changes, so too, can your estate planning needs. That’s why it’s...

A financial power of attorney may be a useful estate planning tool. In California, a person called the principal can designate financial decision-making authority to another person, called an agent. The document gives the agent the power to manage, dispose of and sell...

When this blog writes about estate planning, we often talk about trusts and various estate planning instruments. However, part of solid estate plan includes what to do with one’s home, and here in California, our state’s new generous homestead exemption must be...

Looking into the future is difficult for many who live in California and elsewhere who have put off estate planning or have not updated existing estate documents. But overseeing present and future financial responsibilities in family matters can get much more...

Estate planning has been a hot topic over the last year or two, which is not that surprising considering the pervasive uncertainty within the economy. But, as our readers have seen in our posts on the subject, estate planning can become complicated, quickly. This is...

It is not unusual for a person in Torrance to remarry later in life after a divorce or the death of a spouse. These unions can be emotionally fulfilling but they do present issues when it comes to estate planning, specifically if one or both spouses has adult children...

Estate planning often focuses on the creation of wills and the execution of trusts. However, most California residents can benefit from executing another form of important estate planning device: a durable power of attorney. This informational post will introduce...

If one has watched the news at any point for the last year, they have likely heard about the importance of estate planning. Indeed, with all the craziness that pervaded every second of the past 12 to 16 months, one of the few things we had control over is planning,...