Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Re: Finding an old will

Your copy of his will means nothing. A will is not self effecting. It has no legal effect unless and until it is proven in probate. If the will has been probated and your brother's estate distributed in probate, the court will have a copy of the will.

For future reference and for your own planning, you should probably use a living trust and other death and disability planning documents. Whether you can do this on your own or need attorney assistance has to do with the nature and extent of your assets primarily. You can go to www.yourlivinglegacy.info for more information on this. You may well decide its best to handle all of this without a lawyer, which you may well be able to do, with my Legacy Trust Package. My book explaining all this in lay terms is $19.95. The do it yourself trust package if you choose to use it is only $79.95.

Re: Finding an old will

Do you have any idea who the attorney was who drafted the will? Generally the attorney will retain an additional copy in their files. Alternatively, was there a Probate of his estate? If the total value was over $100K, then a Probate is generally required (if there was only a will and no trust). If there was a Probate, then the Court file should have a copy of the will as well.

You're a little far North for our office, but I hope I was able to point you in the right direction.

Scott