California Estate Planning & Real Estate: Why Creating a Trust May Be Your Best Bet
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UPDATED: Jan 6, 2020
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How does real estate factor into estate planning in California? The answer is – in many ways. However, according to Vincent J. Russo, a California attorney whose practice consists of estate planning and probate litigation, creating a trust may be your best bet. Here’s why:
Why experience matters in creating a California trust
Russo says that, frequently you will get some lawyers who don’t know what they are doing and they won’t transfer title to the property, so when they set up a trust and the value of the trust wasn’t properly set up, that property will not pass absent probate. Then, those beneficiaries or the heirs will be forced to probate that estate if the property wasn’t transferred into the name of the trust. He explained:
So, what I would do at the time of preparing the trust is prepare a deed, either a grant deed, a quit claim deed or a deed of some form, transferring title from me to the Russo Family Trust. Then, the Russo Family Trust would own the property at which point in time when I passed away, all they really need is the death certificate to get the property transferred to whoever I wanted it to go to.
Estate planning, which includes wills, trusts, health care directives and probate issues, is a complicated area of the law. If you would like to speak with an experienced California trusts lawyer about your situation, please click here.