The base is a revocable living trust, properly funded, built around your actual family rather than filled in from a template. Alongside it: power of attorney, healthcare directive, and HIPAA authorizations, which are what keep an incapacity from becoming a conservatorship. The uncomfortable questions in the consultation are the reason the plan works later.
Transcript
What I said in this clip, lightly edited for readability.
To avoid all of that, we will have to have a proactive revocable living trust as a base of your planning, properly funded, that fits your particular family, because we don't do fill-in-the-blanks documents, right? I ask a lot of uncomfortable questions during the consultation, because your plan must work for your family. And also, to avoid conservatorship: power of attorney, healthcare directive, and HIPAA authorizations.
Audience member: When someone dies outside of California, does that make a difference, or is it where the person lives, residence-wise?
Maria: It's residence. Yes. So wherever their residence is. If they're out of the country visiting and they pass away, it goes based on their residence address, residency. But if you have real property in other states, and you reside in California, for example, or wherever, and there is no plan, then probate will be opened in each and every state. Just imagine that. Flying around, hiring attorneys everywhere locally. It is expensive.
So funding the trust is fundamental. Most families miss this part. People go around the corner to a paralegal or to a CPA. They draft trusts sometimes.
More on this topic: Living Trusts
More From the Seminar
- An Unfunded Trust Is an Expensive Piece of Paper
- If You Don’t Write a Plan, California Has One For You
- Keeping an Inheritance Out of Your Child’s Divorce
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