Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Re: Is a quick deed required when my name is on trust?

Your concern is very valid. I have handled cases where elderly people are married for reasons that appear less than noble.

I would strongly advice against preparing a quit claim deed. There are numerous problems associated with such a property transfer. If you mother still has competency, she should create a living trust and power of attorney giving you the power to protect her. If she does not have competency, you should consider placing her under a conservatorship.

Re: Is a quick deed required when my name is on trust?

I think you are looking at several issues here, I'll try to break them out as I see them. Remember, this is based on the information you provided and is not a complete legal analysis of your situation, additional information would be needed for that.

First, you seem to be worried about your mother's mental state, very understandably so. I agree with Atty. Schomer that you may want some form of conservatorship to protect her from injuring herself, both financially and morrally. This is certainly something you should at least look into as you will see from the further review, below.

Second, where you say that your name is on her trust for the house, do you mean that you are named as the inheritor of the home? If this is the case, then she can transfer the home at any time during her life, barring provisions in the trust stating otherwise (very unlikely) so, unfortunately, the value of that is nil while she is considered competent. If you have a conservatorship over her, this answer would vary, naturally, because she then lacks the competency to complete the sales contract.

Third, the "quick claim", actully a "quit claim" is probably not the best solution for many reasons; the most basic of which is your mother's questionable lack of competency to know that she is signing ownership to you, this makes the transfer voidable by the Court.

There is a type of transfer called a qualified personal residence trust wherein your mother retains a life estate and the remainder is transferred to another person, namely you. We have more information about this type of trust and the many tax benefits on our firm's site www.No-Probate.com. (Click on the word "Trust" that is a link on the front page and at the bottom of the trust page is the connection to the QPRT information page. Actual web address of the page is http://www.corporateprotectionservices.com/No-Probate/QPRT.htm)

I think you may benefit from reading over some of the basic trust information I provided on the site in addition to the QPRT page.

Please take a moment to look over the information and if you decide that you would like to explore the idea further, then feel free to contact me directly either through the site or at my office at 626-578-0708.

I hope this helped you out and gave you a little better insight on your possible directions.

Scott Linden