Estate Planning is NOT about YOU. 
It's about the PEOPLE you LOVE.

CMK Law Group is a boutique law firm based in Pasadena, CA. We are a 100% virtual law practice and support flexible appointment schedules over Zoom for busy families on the go. We prepare comprehensive estate plans for California residents. Follow us on Instagram @cmkLawGroup

Estate planning is simply the process of getting legal documents in place so that your chosen individuals are appointed to take care of you, your children, your assets, and your finances in the event of your death or incapacity. The process also involves naming the people you want to inherit your assets when you are gone. An “estate plan” is simply a bundle of all the documents needed to accomplish these objectives. If you don’t currently have a will or trust, you may think you don’t have an estate plan….but you do. It’s just that the state of CA has written it for you! All states have a default plan for your family and assets in the event of your incapacity or death. That’s the plan you have now. Estate planning is “opting out” of the default plan and putting your own wishes in place.

You have two options with your estate planning: a will-based plan, or a living trust-based plan. The vast majority of my clients choose a living trust. A living trust is a document where you appoint a chosen individual to manage your assets should you become incapacitated and distribute them to your family at your death. It is almost always preferable to a will because it is designed to avoid the time, expense, and publicity of probate, which a will cannot avoid. It comes as a surprise to many of my clients that wills do not avoid probate court…they guarantee it! I go over the difference between a will and a living trust in depth during the Peace of Mind Planning Session. The most common question I get at the end of this session is, “Why would anybody ever do a will?!” Ultimately, however, the decision is yours.

Probate is the court-supervised process of administering your estate upon your death. If you die without a will, your estate must go through probate before all your money can be distributed to your heirs. And if you die WITH a will…your estate still has to go through probate! The only way to avoid probate is with a revocable living trust. What’s so bad about probate? Even a simple probate can take years to complete and eats up as much as 5-7% of the estate assets in the meantime. It’s also a public proceeding that makes your will available to anybody who wants to look at it. In CA, if you die with $1 milllion in assets, your family would need to pay the probate court fees approximately $50K just to get access to those assets. That is a huge chunk of money that should go to your family, not to the courts/attorneys. Although a will is subject to the probate process, a living trust is designed to bypass it completely.

Unfortunately, even a simple will is still subject to the expense and delays of probate. It’s not the complexity of the document itself that causes the time and expense, it’s the probate process itself. For this reason, 99% of my clients choose to create a living trust instead of a will, which is designed for simplicity and to avoid the probate process completely. However, as part of an overall, comprehensive trust-based estate plan, a special “pour-over” will is used to appoint guardians for any minor children alive at the time of your death and to act as a "safety net" to "pour over" any assets you may have forgotten to transfer into the name of your trust. So every trust-based estate plan does in fact come with a pour-over will as well.

No. This is the biggest myth out there. Estate planning is in no way related to how much money you have, whether you are married, or whether or not you are a parent. Estate planning is putting legal documents in place that ensure your assets will go to the people you want, the way you want, when you are gone. It’s about making this as easy as possible on your loved ones during an otherwise difficult time. And we all care about that, no matter how much (or little) money we have. It’s also about appointing people to manage your property and make health care decisions for you if you are incapacitated, something that matters to all of us regardless of wealth status.

A power of attorney lets you appoint someone to manage your property in the event of your incapacity. You will name someone you trust implicitly as your “agent”. They will step into your shoes and pay your bills, file your taxes, manage your business, etc. if you cannot. We include a power of attorney for both spouses in every estate plan we create.

An advance health care directive (or otherwise known as a health care proxy in other states) allows you to appoint someone you trust to manage your medical decisions should you be unable to do so. This document also allows you to make certain medical decisions regarding end-of-life decisions ahead of time. We include an advance healthcare directive for both spouses in every estate plan we create.

No problem! A living trust can be changed or revoked entirely as long as the creator is alive and has the mental capacity to do so. Any guardians for minor children can also be changed through an amendment (called a “codicil”) to your pour-over will. All other estate planning documents (power of attorney, advance healthcare directive, etc.) are typically recreated as it is more cost-effective. The main point is that your documents can (and probably will be) updated as your life, your assets, and the law all change.

Yes! In some ways, you need estate planning MORE than married people. Many non-married individuals want to leave their money to charities and friends, not their closest living relatives. Unfortunately, if you die without getting this in writing, your estate could end up in the hands of that distant cousin you’ve met twice. And it’s important for everyone to have a Financial Power of Attorney and Advance Healthcare Directive regardless of whether you're married or not.

Great question! I have yet to meet a parent who actually wants their kids to inherit a big lump sum on their 18th birthday (which is the age you are legally entitled to inherit). Yet that is exactly what will happen if you don’t get an estate plan saying otherwise. The good news is that with a trust, you can choose a later age for your kids to inherit – say 25, or 30. You have lots of options. We’ll discuss them at your Peace of Mind Planning Session.

You nominate legal guardians in a Will, or a Pour-Over Will that goes along with your Revocable Living Trust. If you pass away without nominating guardians, a judge will make the decision for you. You also run the risk that family members will fight over who gets custody because you didn’t make your preference clear. Our firm goes the extra mile and helps you nominate short-term guardians to care for your children in the interim while the long-term guardians are appointed. And did you know you can “confidentially exclude” people you would never want raising your children no matter what? We can help with that!

You can. Keep in mind that LegalZoom and law firms are two different things. They provide two different services. This is why the cost is different. LegalZoom offers form documents you fill out and execute yourself. They are not a law firm and do not give legal advice. An attorney, on the other hand, counsels you and gives you legal advice based on your specific circumstances. They will customize your documents, ensure they are signed with the proper formalities, and pick up the phone when you call with questions. If these things are important to you, you should work with an attorney. If they are not, LegalZoom may be a better option. But please be aware that you don't know what you don't know- and if you're not personally advised by an attorney on your specific situation, you won't truly know if an online-generated trust actually will accomplish your desired outcomes. Sometimes it's worth paying a little more to ensure things are really done correctly.