We've talked a lot about holding property in Joint Tenancy and the right of survivorship that accompanies this method. However, a matter we stress with our clients and their families is that joint tenancy is not a substitute for a proper estate plan. At most, it's a band-aid - a temporary "fix" of a large, yet totally avoidable, problem.

The surefire way to invite a challenge as to the validity of your estate planning documents is to make changes, adjustments or even amendments to those documents by handwriting your wishes on the document itself. The judge will hate it. Your successor trustee will hate it. Your beneficiaries will hate it. The only one who will like it is the attorney representing the party challenging that change.

As the famous saying goes, "Nothing is certain except death and taxes," and being an estate planning firm, it seems as though our every day is helping our clients plan for both of these certainties. Biden recently released his 2023 federal budget which included tax hikes for the top marginal income earners. While this wouldn't impact most people in enacted, what about those who are set to receive large inheritances in the coming years?

As an estate planning law firm, we consider the foundation of which your entire estate plan should be built around is the Revocable Living Trust. However, we've often found that people either don't really understand exactly what a trust is, or they think it's something only rich people do to hoard money. While wealthy people do utilize living trusts, they are by no means, a tool limited to the wealthy. But that raises the question - what is a living trust? Putting it plainly, a trust is a legal entity that holds assets put into it.

When performing some, what I thought was routine, legal research as a normal part of my practice, I came across a reference to trusts holding property in joint tenancy with another party and the legal support in the California Civil Code of all places. This sent me down a small rabbit-hole because the prospect of this was strange to me. Common wisdom is that a trust cannot hold property in joint tenancy with another party, but the Civil Code seems to imply otherwise.

A question we hear from our clients upon occasion is how to name their trust or even why they need to name their trust. There actually is not much to it, but all trusts need a name for identification purposes. If a trust is holding assets, like real property, then it needs a name so everyone can see who is actually holding title to the property. Additionally, when it comes to an irrevocable trust paying taxes for example, the IRS is going to need to know the name of the trust because, in essence, the trust is treated as a person for tax filing purposes, but not determining a trust's tax rate

There is a popular misconception that Estate Planning is something that only benefits the rich. Estate Planning is something that anyone can and should do and provides various benefits to them, regardless of the size of their estate – especially to avoid probate.

Something we all have to look out for in our everyday lives are scams. These are, unfortunately, things that are very common when it comes to the financial industry or in matters concerning elderly people. The legal world is no exception here and I would like to take this time to warn you of two prevalent issues in the legal estate planning world - The "Low-Cost/Free Living Trust Seminar" and "Trust Mills."

According to a 2021-2022 National Pet Owner Survey, 70% of U.S. households own a pet. That's about 90.5 million families and is a number that has only been increasing as time has gone on. However, that raises the question of how one can provide for their pets if the pet outlives them. Here, we'll be discussing 3 ways you can provide for your pet through estate planning: using a trusted friend, a pet rescue organization or, the often asked about Pet Trust. Remember, under the law, pets are considered property and therefore must be accounted for when drawing up your estate plan.

Another common frequently asked question we hear from our clients is whether their estate planning fees are tax deductible. The simple answer is no, but that wasn't always the case. Change came recently and we could always revert back easily.