Our office remains hard at work helping our clients have the peace of mind they deserve.

If you live in California and have more than $150,000 in assets, having a living trust is usually a very good idea.  If the trust is well-drafted and properly funded, it should help you avoid probate. Probate in California is an expensive, public, time-consuming process. So, if you’ve already done your living trust, kudos to  Read more…

Sacramento magazine just published an article about some of our clients and the estate planning we do for families with special needs.  More than half of our clients have loved ones with disabilities.  It’s a great privilege to take care of these important people, giving them peace of mind and providing a place to go when parents  Read more…

I want to thank Dandelion Magazine, which is published for parents of children with disabilities, for the opportunity to discuss limited conservatorships in this fall’s issue.  Because conservatorships are such complicated undertakings, parents naturally have a lot of questions about them.  The article, which you can access by clicking here, does a good job introducing  Read more…

One of the reasons my trust and estates practice has flourished when others have floundered is that we don’t cut corners.  I take the time to help our clients make the right legal decisions.  Then I make sure that their living trusts reflect those good choices by drafting the documents myself, by putting my own  Read more…

Clients and other attorneys regularly ask me who can be the trustee of a Special Needs Trust.  The quick answer is that it cannot be the person with a disability (i.e., the beneficiary) or their spouse.  The law effectively prohibits it.  If we were to make the beneficiary or their spouse trustee, the funds held  Read more…

When you establish a trust, one of the biggest decisions you make is who will serve as trustee if you become ill or pass away. You must be able to rely on your successor trustee to follow your instructions, manage trust assets as a reasonably prudent person, make appropriate distributions and avoid even a hint of self-dealing. In my experience, most successor trustees do just fine, especially when they are represented by a competent trust administration attorney. But what if your successor trustee isn’t up to the job? What if they go rogue when you’re not there to do something about it? That’s when using a trust protector can really give you tremendous peace of mind.

Laws change, families change, and your needs and interests change. Sometimes your estate plan should change accordingly. A deal just struck in Washington, D.C., could be a good reason to make sure your estate plan still works the way you want.

Brian Wyatt appeared on Channel 10’s Sacramento & Company on September 29, 2011.  He discussed estate planning for families of people with disabilities.  To view the video, please click here.

A living trust is essential for nearly every Californian with more than $25,000 in real estate or $100,000 in other assets. That’s because, unlike a simple will, your living trust can protect you if you become too ill to manage your financial affairs. It can also save your loved ones from the expensive hassle of  Read more…