We offer comprehensive services to secure your legacy and protect your loved ones. Our tailored estate planning packages address your unique needs, while our approach focuses on clarity and long-term benefits. We help establish trusts and draft wills to ensure your assets are distributed as intended. Additionally, we create advance health care directives and power of attorney documents to safeguard your wishes during unexpected events. With routine estate planning maintenance, we keep your plans updated and aligned with your goals.
Our Full Estate Plan package includes:
Our Partial Estate Plan Package includes:
Our Healthcare package includes:
Revocable Living Trusts are typically the simplest and safest way to transfer property upon your death to the beneficiaries of your choosing. It mostly achieves the same objective as a Will, with one major critical distinction: a Trust helps avoid going through the costly and time consuming probate court process. If you own a home or condo in California, your gross probate estate will almost always be in excess of $184,500, which will cause mandatory formal probate to trigger if you die with only a Will, with no estate plan at all, or with no other probate avoidance mechanisms in place. Probate fees often exponentially exceed the cost of setting up a Trust.
With a Revocable Living Trust, it is called “living” because they are created while you are alive. They are “revocable” because you can change them at any time before you death, and for any reason. Sometimes they are referred to as “Inter Vivos Trusts” which simply means “among the living” in Latin.
Without proper planning, your assets will be distributed according to the California intestate succession laws, and not by your wishes. Under intestate succession, who gets what property is dependent on who your closest relatives are when you die. Under intestate succession, only spouses, registered domestic partners, and blood relatives can inherit. The percentage that they each receive is designated by California law. In the rare instance that no relatives can be found, the state will inherit your assets.
In contrast, a Will grants you the opportunity to disperse your property to whom you wish, arrange care for your children or pets, and any other express wishes you may have in the event of your death. A Will provides the opportunity to leave property to your church or disinherit a child who is estranged. If you pass away without a Will or estate plan, the probate court will make decisions not predetermined by intestacy laws for you. Additionally, while your heirs may be on good terms with each other during your lifetime, it is not uncommon for large battles to ensue in probate court after the death of a loved one because things were not left clear for inheritance.
An Advance Health Care Directive allows the principal to designate an agent to make healthcare decisions on their behalf. These decisions include choices such as:
A Power of Attorney allows the principal to appoint a person to act as their agent and make decisions on their behalf. These decisions may involve real property, bank accounts, credit cards, partnership interests, and other financial and business areas.
Clients typically set up a Durable Power of Attorney so in the instance they, as the Principal, become incapacitated, whomever is appointed as their Agent can make decisions regarding assets, including financial or business decisions, on their behalf.
IF YOU HAVE AN ESTATE PLAN, THE NUMBER ONE THING TO REMEMBER IS THAT YOUR ESTATE PLANS NEED MAINTENANCE
Every 5 years many of us have a major event occur. Whether it is a marriage, a divorce, a newborn baby, medical emergencies, or the death of a loved one, all of these are reasons to update your current estate plan. Remember, estate plans are living – just like you!
At Warfield Law, we help you with these changes. Whether it is just replacing your current trustee with a new trustee, funding new property into your estate plan, or changing the entire distribution of your estate, we can help!
