We’re going to talk about whether you need a trust if you own a home, right? So, you own one piece of property. Let’s just say, you own one home, and that’s where you live. And you have a modest account in the bank, and you have to ask yourself, do you need a trust?  These living trusts, you’ve heard about them. Is it necessary for you? If the house is here in California, the answer is absolutely. There are rarely any houses out here in California that are less than $150,000, and therefore, it will go through probate if.

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Will there be property tax consequences to making a living trust? So I keep telling people that they probably need a living trust, especially if you own property here in California, but many people are worried that if they touch the title that it will create a property tax reassessment.  I’m here to tell you that there is an exclusion for that, that you don’t have to worry about that. You could transfer property you own into a living trust without a reassessment. Now the only caveat to that is if it’s jointly held with another person that’s not your.

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Why do I need a power of attorney if I have a trust? How do they play together? Well, this is very important. So again, this all starts with a trust.  A trust is a bucket. You fill it up with things. Now if you become incapacitated or go into the hospital and can’t make decisions, the trust turns on and when it turns on the powers of the trust control, another person could come into place and manage those assets. But what happens if those assets are not part of a trust, right?  Let’s say they are left outside.

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According to Probate Code section 15402, it is possible to amend a trust according to the terms of the trust. If the terms of the trust are silent on the issue of an amendment, then the procedure set out in the  Probate Code section 15402 should be used. Probate Code section 15402 stipulates that writing signed by a settlor and delivered to a trustee is required to amend a trust.    What is settlor?  A settlor is a person who makes or signs the trust. A settlor is also referred to as a trustor or grantor. However, in most cases, the.

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When you pass away, your children or inheritors will usually have complete control of the assets.  They can get divorced in the future, and have to split half your assets with the soon ex-wife or ex-husband.  They can spend it on extravagant shopping sprees.  They can buy unnecessary sports cars and forget to buy insurance. Oops! They can have significant creditors just waiting for the big pay day.  Well, when you pass away with a proper living trust, the trust usually divides into as many sub trusts as you have children or people inheriting. So, if you have four children,.

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When you create a living trust, you are making a choice to not use the public system put in place by the government. What is this public system?  It is a probate or a conservatorship. In previous videos we’ve produced, we warn against both of those public system services. They are incredibly costly. The average person pays $40-50,000 in probate fees. Yuck!  A living trust takes you out of the probate system and instead gives you the full flexibility of the private system.  When someone passes away without a living trust, his or her assets need to go through a.

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