Last Friday, after nine months of court filings and procedures, our office completed a probate. What makes this case especially unfortunate is that the person who died actually had an appointment with us to establish a living trust a couple months prior to his death. The week before his appointment he called to postpone. His reason? He didn't feel well. Despite our best efforts, he was never able to reschedule. He died leaving a big and expensive mess for his family.
For those who don't know, probate is what ordinarily happens to an estate whenever someone dies with real estate or more than $100,000 in probatable assets (e.g., a brokerage account), provided they don't own those assets in an up-to-date living trust. It's basically a lawsuit that your estate files against itself, with your money, for the benefit of your creditors. On average, it takes about 12 to 15 months in California to probate an estate. The cost is roughly 5% of the gross value of the estate.
Probates are fun and lucrative for attorneys. They are nothing of the sort for families. My hope is that no one reading this post will ever put their family through a probate.
A well-designed living trust protects you if you become incapacitated and your family if you pass away. If the trust is kept current, you can have meaningful peace of mind knowing you did the right thing for those you love. If you spend the money to put a quality trust in place, it will keep them from having to go to court. It can even protect them from losing their inheritance to divorce, lawsuits, creditors, immaturity, and unnecessary estate taxes.
None of those protections are available if you wait too long.
Please don't put off this critical planning. If you did your planning a while ago and haven't heard from your attorney in the last five years, it's time for a review. There have been significant changes in the law that may have invalidated some of your planning. A bad trust is sometimes worse than no trust.
We'd be glad to meet with you without charge, as a reader of this blog, to start a plan or review an old one.
