Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

A trust is a way to avoid probate and to govern assets in the case of incapacity. A will does not do either. Trusts are involved because the trustee powers must be set forth. A trustee has only the powers the trust instrument ( or otherwise applicable law) provide.

You ceratinly can use a will, but expect the costs and complexity of administration to be high. A trust is a far superior tool. Lawyers make far more money from a probate. If your goal is to avoid legal fees, use the trust.

To avoid Probate the best option is a revocable or Living Trust. This does not need to be overly lengthy or overly filled with legalese. What makes a trust a lengthier document is when you consider various scenarios: What if your wife is the first to die? IF you both die now, are your children too young to receive that much of an inheritance outright? It is called planning for a reason. Even with a trust, you would still have a Will just in case you have assets that are not in the trust atr the time of death for whatever reason. I would be happy to meet with you to discuss various options and the costs.

If you really have a $4 million estate and you want to do an estate plan on the cheap, you will almost certainly wind up with a plan that costs your heirs far more than you save, after you die.

A trust is a device used to avoid probate. An estate plan includes a Will and a Trust and will allow you to dictate to who and how your estate will be distributed. If you have only a Will, your estate will be probated in the county where you die. Given the complexity of your estate, an attorney will most certainly be retained to move the estate through probate. Probate will take a minimum of 18 months and will cost at least $70,000 in attorney's fees. A Trust, on the other hand, will cost much less than that and the administration can be complete within 12 months, assuming everyone gets along. Also, most Trusts are not 200 pages of legalese.