We all want our divorced or widowed parents to find love again, particularly as they get into their later years. However, when they decide to remarry, as more and more seniors are, adult children often become concerned about what that will mean for their inheritance. Sadly, older couples often decide not to marry because their […]

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One advantage of having a carefully-considered, detailed estate plan is that you minimize the chance of fighting among heirs after you’re gone. Even close family members can turn on each other if they believe that they were unfairly or mistakenly denied the inheritance they expected. There are myriad family dynamics that can be predictors of […]

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Creating an estate plan that truly protects your assets and makes your intentions known regarding the dispersal those assets is often far more complicated than one might expect here in California, especially when it comes to real estate. Without a properly prepared estate plan and will, your wishes for your estate may not align with […]

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Increasingly, Californians doing their estate planning have to deal with the reality that they have a child with a substance abuse problem. Even when children are in recovery, parents may be understandably concerned about what could happen if they inherited a large sum of money or considerable assets. Even a few thousand dollars given in […]

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The majority of Americans don’t have a will. Even many of those who realize that they should put something in place to lay out how their assets will be distributed and, more importantly, who will take care of their kids, use do-it-yourself (DIY) methods. There is no end to software options for people who want […]

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Dying intestate, or without a will, is a bad idea for many reasons. It’s important for people of all ages to create wills, even if they cover only the most basic things. Wills dictate what happens to your assets, and they can make it simpler for your beneficiaries and family members to handle your estate. Dying […]

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Your loved one passed away, and you had to immediately clean out his home. It wasn’t more than a few months later when you realized that while the home sat empty and you worked out the arrangements for it, someone else moved in. You don’t know who it is, but now you want to get […]

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One of the reasons that many Californians put an estate plan in place is so that their heirs can avoid probate. Probate is basically the legal process of settling an estate. The probate process in California can be costly in time and money. It can take as long as two years before heirs and beneficiaries […]

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The Swedes have a word –“dostadning” — that literally means “death cleaning.” This unpleasant term refers to something that many people do as they get older and downsize to a smaller home or assisted living facility. It’s getting rid of things you don’t use, need or have room for. There’s even a book called The […]

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For many of us, our companion animals are an integral part of the family. However, too many of them end up in animal shelters after their guardians become unable to care for them or pass away because those guardians didn’t plan for their future. Sometimes, people assume that family members will care for their animals […]

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