What most Kern County families need
For the great majority of people I meet, a complete plan is four documents. Not twenty. Four.
A revocable living trust
The centerpiece if you own a home. It holds title to your property during your life, and passes it to your family afterward without a court ever being involved. You stay in complete control and can change it any time.
A pour-over will
The safety net. It catches anything you never got around to putting in the trust, and it is where you name a guardian if you have minor children.
A durable power of attorney
Lets someone you choose handle money and property if you become unable to. Without it, your family may need a conservatorship — which is a court case, and an expensive one.
An advance health care directive
Names who speaks to your doctors, and says what you would want. It spares your children the worst conversation they will ever have to have with each other.
How it goes
-
A free ten-minute call
You tell me roughly what you own and who you’d want it to go to. I tell you whether you need a trust, a will, or nothing at all right now.
-
A planning meeting, usually within the week
We go through your property, your family, and the decisions only you can make. You leave with a written flat fee for the whole plan.
-
I draft; you read it in plain English
I walk you through every document before you sign anything. If a paragraph doesn’t make sense to you, it isn’t finished.
-
Signing — and funding
We sign and notarize, then I prepare the deed and the paperwork that actually moves your assets into the trust. A trust that owns nothing does nothing, and this is the step other offices leave to you.
What it costs
A flat fee, quoted in writing before I start, covering the drafting, the signing appointment, and the funding. No hourly billing, no surprise invoice, no charge for the phone calls in between. If your situation turns out to be more complicated than a standard plan, I tell you that at the first meeting — not after the work is done.
Questions I get every week
I don’t have much. Do I need any of this?
If you own a home, yes — in California a house alone is enough to send your family into probate. If you rent and your accounts are modest, sometimes beneficiary designations and a simple will are genuinely all you need. I will tell you when that’s the case.
Can I just use an online form?
You can, and I’ve probated a number of estates where somebody did. The documents are usually fine; the funding never happens, and that is what sends the family to court anyway.
Does a trust save taxes?
For most families, no — and anyone who tells you otherwise should be asked to explain. What it saves is probate: time, court costs, statutory attorney fees, and a public file with your family’s business in it.
I already have a trust from years ago.
Bring it in. Often it just needs the successor trustee updated and a property or two moved in. That is a much smaller job than starting over, and I will say so.