Under California Probate Code section 15800, a Trustee of a revocable Trust only owes duties to the person who has the power to revoke, so long as that person is living and has capacity. That means if you are the beneficiary under a revocable Trust, you do not have the rights normally given to Trust […]
If you are suing to overturn a Trust or Will, or taking any other action for that matter, on the basis of capacity or undue influence, then you need an expert witness. In fact, in any case where there is information in medical records, you need an expert witness. Why? Because of a little thing […]
If you are a Trustee, you have many duties. One of them is not to act as Trustee of two adverse Trusts at the same time. What are adverse Trusts? For example, if two Trusts are fighting over the same piece of real property, then they would have adverse interests. If the Trustees of these […]
Language the English tricky can be. Many a Trust or Will has been litigated over the use of language. While the words may seem perfectly clear when written, circumstances can change, unforeseen events can occur, and misunderstandings can arise that lead to ambiguity in how a Trust or Will should be interpreted and enforced. Luckily, […]
When Trust or Will terms cannot be discerned by the way in which they were written, the court must follow the interpretation rules set out in the California Probate Code. One of those rules is found at Section 21121, which requires the Court to read the Trust or will document as a consistent whole. What […]
When a Court is asked to interpret a Trust or Will document, one of the primary rules of interpretation is Probate Code Section 21122, which requires that all words used in a Trust or Will be given their ordinary meaning. That seems like an obvious rule—shouldn’t all words be given their ordinary meaning? But funny […]
Imagine you were going to be given a specific gift of a house. You liked the house, maybe you grew up there. You could use a place to live and you look forward to having a place of your own. But then the house is sold by your parent and turned into cash, where it […]
In the world of Trust and Wills, some gifts are better than others. I don’t mean monetarily (of course $1 million is better than $1 thousand), but I mean the type of gift being given. There is a hierarchy of gifts—a pecking order if you will. Specific gifts are at the top of the heap. […]
In our last post, we described California’s creation of Transfer-on-Death Deeds (“TOD Deeds”). And while TOD Deeds could prove a useful tool when used properly in estate planning, they also can lead to additional problems and headaches. So what action must you take if you fall victim to a bad TOD Deed? TOD Deeds fall […]
In our last post we discussed the newly created Transfer-On-Death Deeds (“TOD Deeds”); now time for a few problems. There are two main problems created by California’s new TOD Deed rules. First, someone wanting to legitimately use such a deed has to understand all the technical rules that must be followed, and then follow them. […]
