Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

I am not sure your attorney has handled this correctly. First of all, by deeding the property half ot you and your wife, he has turned your private property into community property which I do not think has any advantage for you. Ask him why he did that. Has a formal Trust been set up for your brother? You can only be a trustee if there is an actual Trust. As trustee, I would think it is a conflict of interest to have the Trust invest in a property you own; your brother should be able to break the Trust or have you removed and he might gain control over the Trust and use it as he wants. Did your attorney advise you of that? If not, he may be liable for malpractice, as some of your acts can not be withdrawn and changed, rather you are stuck with them. I assume you have opened a probate as whenever there are gross, not net, assets of over $100,000 probe is required in California. So you would need court approval of what you have done. You need a probate attorney to examine what has been done to see whether it is legal, logical, beneficial, binding, etc.

First, you say that your mother's attorney gave you some advice and instruction. Was this while she was alive, or recently? Did you follow the advice, or are you now asking whether you should follow it? Frankly, even though you gave quite a bit of information, there is still not enough to figure out, with adequate clarity, what the situation is. Also, dealing with trusts is fairly demanding work, and I sense that you do not have the knowledge or access to a good advisor to be able to handle it. I don't practice in the areas of wills, trusts and estates, but I am near 94952 and I know of some qualified people there. Please feel free to give me a direct contact by e-mail or phone and maybe I can steer you in the right direction. By the way, I do not think it's a good idea to use trust funds or trust assets that belong to someone else to pay down or pay off your own mortgage, even if you keep perfect records; a trustee must make prudent investments of trust funds, and investing in your own property would be considered imprudent self-dealing.