If you were to die without a will or trust, your assets may or may not be subject to a probate administration. And it really depends on how you have the assets titled. All assets are potentially subject to a probate but oftentimes the assets will have ways in which a probate can be avoided. For example,…

A will goes into effect when the testator, the person who created the will passes away. And the will basically says where your property goes when you pass away. You name your executor, the person who will carry out the terms of the will in probate court and you will name most importantly your beneficiaries. An important…

Your estate basically means all of your assets and that could be personal property, that could be real property (i.e. real estate), intellectual property. So your estate is generally all your assets whereas your trust estate are assets that are subject to your trust. And you will have non-probate assets, for example, retirement accounts, those…

If you are single, don’t have children or don’t have significant assets, an estate plan is still very important for you. When we do an estate plan, we’re not only doing death planning but we are also planning for potential incapacity. And if you were to become incapacitated, whether temporarily or permanently, that is one…

Probate is the administration of your assets through the probate court. And in a probate, your executor (the person you named in your will) or the administrator (the close relative to you) or other individual who has elected to administer your estate, that person (also called the the personal representative). The personal representative will marshall…

A trust is a relationship with respect to property and how I explain it to my clients is: I ask them to think about what it means to own your property. And I want you to think of it in two respects, the right to control your property and the right to your enjoy your…

A trust offers a lot of benefits and I’ll compare it to a will in terms of. A will only says where your property goes when you pass away, whereas a trust says where your property goes if you were to become incapacitated and when you pass away. What a trust also allows you to do is have…

If you have a living trust, you don’t necessarily still need a will. However, it’s good practice to have what’s called a pour-over will. And that is just a will that names your trust as the beneficiary of the will. So, when you have a trust, you want everything to go according to the terms…

If your child is married and you’re concerned that they may become divorced, there are ways to protect the inheritance. The first thing you should understand is that any property acquired via gift or inheritance is separate property. So, if your child were to receive their inheritance, if they would receive it outright, it would…

A durable power of attorney is a document in which the principal names an agent is called the attorney in fact. And the attorney-in-fact has a fiduciary duty to the principal and can only act for their benefit. The power of attorney can name a number of powers that the attorney-in-fact can do for the…