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A Will tells your family who you would want
to receive your property when you die. They are usually
simple, and are well suited for a person with an estate
below $100,000.00. All Wills are subject to probate,
therefore most attorneys recommend “Living Trusts” in
California. California has one of the most complicated and
expensive Probate Codes in the United State. The Probate
Code sets forth the Fee for the Attorney and the Executor in
the Probate Code. According to the current Probate Code the
statutory fee for a $200,000.00 estate is $7,000.00 and the
attorney is entitled to request additional fees, if the
executor requests a fee his or her fee would also be
$7,000.00. The Statutory Fees are based on a percentage of
the estate so they keep climbing. A probate for an average
home with no additional fees will easily cost $10.000.00.
There are many document preparation services
that advertise that you can do it yourself, or that you do
not need a lawyer. There is an old saying “The person who
represent themselves has a fool for a lawyer”. Preparing a
Living Trust should not be a matter of getting information,
and plugging it into a computer program. A computer program
or document preparation service can give you no legal
advice. They cannot tell you and may not know what you need
in your circumstances. Frankly, like a bikini bathing suit,
one size does not fit all or even most! If you are facing
the need for long-term care, they will not have a Trust
specially designed to protect your home from State Medi-Call
Recovery, nor will their Trust be drafted with future
planning for Medi-Cal in mind. There is no training required
to be a document preparer, and even though the computer
program may be designed by a lawyer, that lawyer is not able
to help you make decisions on what your trust should
include.
A “Living Trust” is not for
everyone. Each person and family has his or her own unique
problems. In this brochure, I explain “Special Needs
Trusts”, some families need this type of Trust, and there
are other kinds of Trusts also. There are Trusts designed to
minimize Estate Taxes, Trusts designed to make gifts to
charities, Trusts designed to enable a person to use Life
Insurance to pay Estate Taxes, and Trusts designed specially
to protect homes from Medi-Cal. If you want to make plans
for your money when you die, you should consult an attorney
who has dedicated themselves to Continuing education focused
on Estate Planning and Elder Law.
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