Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Re: Trusts

Most likely, it depends on a number of factors. First of all, you have to realize that estate plans are generally customized to peoples wishes and property. Most likely, your Grandmother's trust includes various clauses and language which are specific to her desires/situation, and which do not apply to you. Often, these clauses never take effect, only doing so when a certain situation comes up. Meaning that your Grandmother probably had issues built into the trust that never took effect at her death, that you are not aware of, and could cause all sorts of problems with your estate.

Second, the rules and laws governing estate planning change frequently. Meaning that the trust your Grandmother created, might not have the correct language you need to set up a trust in your name. This could actually invalidate your whole estate plan.

Third, you probably have issues that your Grandmother did not have to deal with... Such as minor children or special assets. If this is the case, then the trust probably is not equipped to deal with your situation. For example: if you do have minor children, you probably need to direct the trust to create subtrusts at your death (for the protection and care of your minor children), something your Grandmother was not likely to have dealt with. Not properly setting this up could cause your children's inheritance to be improperly administered and force a probate court to set up something completely contrary to your wishes.

Fourth, a good estate plan is much more then just a trust. It should include pour over wills, durable powers of attorney, medical power of attorney, advanced health care directives, as well as a variety of other issues. Just copying and using a trust will not take care of any of these other topics.

Fifth, while you might are able to fund the trust yourself (most of our clients opt to do this with the majority of their assets with our assistance), there are a lot of procedures you need to follow to 1) make sure your trust, will, etc is properly executed and witnesses; 2) not funded in such a way to invalidate your estate plan.

So where does this leave you... I would strongly advise you not to "copy" your grandmother's trust. If you estate is small and you cannot afford to hire an attorney, I would recommend looking into purchasing some software that can assist you (such as Nolo.com's Willmaker Plus). If you do have a decent sized or mildly complicated estate, meaning that you own assets over 100,000, own real property, or have minor children... hire an estate planner. The couple of thousand you spend now will save you and your heirs a lot of money and time in the future.

If you are interested, since I see you are in my area, we do free estate planning seminars 1-2 times a month. These are designed as an informational service to the community (not as a sales tactic). If you are interested, you can sign up on our website: www.lawburton.com

Re: Trusts

it is unlikely that your grandmother's trust will accomplish your estate planning goals and objectives. you should retain an attorney to prepare a revocable trust based on your situation, as well as a pour-over will, durable power of attorney for asset management and advance health care directive.

Re: Trusts

I would also add, that if you attempt to "change the particulars", i.e. writing in your own desires.... you will likely invalidate at the minimum the section you are changing and possibly the complete trust. Attorneys drafting trusts have a very specific set of rules and guidelines we have to follow. It is not unheard of for estate planning attorneys, who have decades of experience, to draft a clause whose wording or legal ramifications causes immense amount of problems. That is why even the very competent should carry malpractice insurance. Drafting it yourself, with no experience or education in the area, and without the tools we have at our disposal, is likely to be a disaster.