What are the Responsibilities of a Trustee?
A trustee is a manager of assets in a trust. The grantor creates the trust and appoints the trustee. A trustee has a ‘fiduciary duty’ to serve the grantor and not benefit personally.
How Important Is Avoiding Probate?
Probate is a process to transfer the assets after someone dies. For example, when a homeowner passes, probate allows for the home to be sold or transferred, if necessary, even though the owner is no longer alive to sign a deed.
Estate Planning and Probate Planning
Probate is the court process to distribute someone’s estate after their death, even if there is a will and is notoriously slow in California.
Creating a Trust is Not Enough – That Last Step: Trust Funding
If you have updated your estate plan during the Covid crisis and even found a way to sign your documents while maintaining social distance, do not overlook the last step of trust funding.
Common Myths about Your Estate When You Die
Regardless of whether the law makes sense to us, we are all required to abide by it.
Do You Need a Revocable Trust?
Probate can be a long, arduous, and costly process—especially in states that aren’t considered probate-friendly. Enter a workaround that is being used by an increasing number of people: revocable living trusts.
If You’re Going to Die, You Need an Estate Plan
Estate planning sounds like you need to be of nobility and own country estates before it applies to you. However, estate planning only means that you are making a plan for when you pass away or are no longer able to make good decisions for yourself.
Five Estate Planning Mistakes to Avoid
Five of the most common mistakes are easy to avoid with the right information and support, as well as a little creativity.
Making Inheritance Talks Easier
Wealth coaches and financial advisers talk about how to avoid some uncomfortable situations.
Your Spouse Just Died … Now What?
In many relationships, it’s common for one spouse to play money manager and the other to take a more passive role. This, however, can lead to major complications, when the financially dominant partner dies first.