Estate Planning

Everyone has an "estate." Your estate is everything you own: from your clothes, your car, your house, your checking account, your retirement accounts, all the stuff we accumulate during life.

And everyone has a plan designed by the government. It is the California Probate Code: what the government says will happens to you if you get sick or disabled or pass away. However, the law can be confusing, and people often think they know what the law says but are incorrect. The government plan for you has no privacy, costs more, takes a long time, has government oversight over the entire process, and the government decides who will inherit based on the intestacy laws.

Preparing an estate plan is saying we want to choose. We don't want the government to decide, we don't want to spend more than we have to, we don't want to burden our families by having to go through the overbearing probate process.

Estate planning

Estate planning is making a plan in advance, where you say what happens to your estate or stuff when you pass away. However, good estate planning is much more than that. A good estate plan should also:

• provide for your family when you pass away
• make sure you are taken care of if you become incapacitated or sick before you die
• name a guardian for your minor children’s care and inheritance (Read more about our Kids Protection Plan)
• ensure family members with special needs inherit without disqualifying them from government benefits
• protect loved ones who might be irresponsible with money or who may need protection from creditors or in the event of divorce
• ensure your business can continue when you retire, get sick, or pass away
• minimize taxes, court costs, and unnecessary legal fees

Estate planning is for everyone

Everyone needs an estate plan. Yes, even the 18-year-old with more student debt than assets. Everyone can get sick due to an unforeseeable accident or have a change in their health. We can't predict the future or know when we will pass.

Estate planning is not just for retirees or the wealthy. Now, not everyone needs a trust but at a minimum, everyone should have some basic estate planning done to address potential incapacity. There are estate plans suited for everyone.

Plan now before you need it

Often, people delay planning. "I'm healthy and a long ways away from dying." "I'll do that when I retire." We don't like to think about death or dying. 

Estate planning needs to be done before you need it. Sometimes I get phone calls from adult children wanting to make sure their parents are taken care of. Mom has dementia and she never did her estate plan. Can we do it now? The answer, unfortunately, is no. It's too late. When you don't plan ahead, we are left with the government's plan which is probate. 

Other times, a widow comes to me after their spouse passes away. They did not have an estate plan previously and they thought their house would automatically go to their spouse when they passed. It didn't. Now we have to go to court to fix the title to the house, spending thousands of dollars more. If they came to me before their spouse passed away, we could have easily fixed the title to their house and put in place an estate plan that would avoided all that.

It breaks my heart that these people will have to now spend thousands of dollars to take care of their family when it was so easily avoided with some planning. I truly hate the words "I didn't know that." My mission is to educate people so they can avoid these costly mistakes.

When is the best time to plan? Now, while you are healthy enough to take care of yourself and make decisions for yourself. We can create a plan that's for people of all ages, of all financial circumstances. And you can update your plan as your circumstances changes.

Life planning 

I like to refer to estate planning as life planning. Because estate planning is not about death. As some cynical people say, "I'll be gone. I won't care." At the end of the day, our stuff is just stuff.

We plan to protect our loved ones who are still living. Estate planning is about life. Our families' lives, our life. 

Estate planning is a gift

We plan so our loved ones will be taken care of. We plan so others won't be burdened with dealing with the overwhelming probate process. We plan to keep our families out of court. We plan to keep our families out of conflict - we are the glue holding our families together and planning ahead reduces family conflict about who is entitled to what, who is responsible for what, etc. 

Estate planning is a gift. It gives peace of mind to you and to your family, knowing that they don't have to deal with the mess that is Probate. They can focus on being family and enjoying time with each other instead of spending that precious time in Court hearings.