Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California
who is the real beneficiary?
I established a trust with a financial company in 1998, and I named 3 persons as beneficiaries. The distribution of percentage of trust assets are equal (33.33%). I also have other assets that are not part of that trust.
Subsequently, in a will that I wrote in 2000, only one person is named as the sole beneficiary of my estate.
Is my will overiding the trust? In other words,upon my death, will the person named in my will get 100% of the money of the trust or will she get only the remain of the money after distribution of the trust?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: who is the real beneficiary?
The property in the Trust will go to the three named beneficiaries. What's not in the Trust will go under the Will. However, the stuff that will go under the Will goes through probate. If you estate outside of the Trust is over $100,000.00, or there's real property in it worth more than $20,000.00. Then there's no necessity for a probate. There's a better way to handle this. And that's to amend your Trust. You may change the beneficiaries in the Trust unless you made it an Irrevocable Trust. However, your Trust owns the property you put into it. And You don't own that property. You just control it. If it's a Revocable Trust you may take it all out and give it back to yourself. You may also do a second Trust for the beneficiary under the Will.
Re: who is the real beneficiary?
I can't answer for sure without reviewing both documents, but most likely the assets titled in the trust name will go to the trust beneficiaries, and the assets titled in your name alone will be distributed by the will. Any others with beneficiaries listed, like life insurance and/or retirement plans, will go to those listed beneficiaries.
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