Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Re: Wills

Of course you can choose to leave nothing of your property to your wife. That does not apply to community property, however, since you don't have the power to will away her 1/2 interest; but, after 15 yrs, there probably is none.

Re: Wills

The items you obtained while living in CA, and married, are actually community property and she has a 1/2 interest in them.

Your best means of protecting your assets is to place them in a family trust where she is not named as a beneficiary.

This will avoid the Probate problem and essentially control your assets "from the grave". This is how the wealthy control their estates after they have passed away.

Please feel free to learn a little more about trusts and how to avoid probate on our firm's site: No-Probate.com.

If you would like assistance with drafting a trust, we can be contacted through the website or at the phone/email provided by LawGuru. We offer free consultations so we can assess what form of trust and/or combination of trust & will will best serve your particular needs.

Scott

Re: Wills

Yes. But, 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.