California Trusts Legal Questions

As trustee, your sister has the legal authority to manage your mother's trust and all the property in it.  I believe if you enter the house, you will be trespassing though as a practical matter, the police may not be likely to make an arrest and the city attorney will probably not prosecute.  Entry involves some legal risk to you.... Read More

I am sorry for your loss. Generally a trust can not be changed, after death, without court approval. However, it sounds like the problem is the house is not titled in the trust. If that's the case they will have to go to probate court to get a court order which puts the house into the trust. I would say they should file within 60 days of death. If they have not started the process and/or sent you official trust notice (pursuant to California probate code 16061.7) then I would consider hiring an attorney of your own to make sure your interests are protected. Good luck. -John... Read More

I would contact the old attorney to see if they have a copy; they should. Either way a restatement of trust will cure the problem.  Contact an attorney and get this done ASAP.  If you were to die without a trust document it could be a mess.  As long as the old trust is revocable it won't be a problem to fix with a restatement. Good luck. -John... Read More

A revocable trust may be revoked, certainly.  If you have transferred property into that trust, then you'll need to transfer it back to yourself and then into the new trust.  That is very important.  A far easier approach would be to "restate" the old trust.  You would then keep the old trust name and date of original execution, but the entire document will have changed. I have no experience with the Suze Orman "do it yourself" trust package.  Perhaps it's just me as a laweyr speaking, but I haven't been impressed with the "canned" trust documents I've seen.  If a new client comes to me with one of those packaged documents I will always restate the entire document. I've also seen a number of issues arise following the death of the settlor of one of those trusts.  The $900 fee quote sounds quite reasonable to me (depending upon the expertise of the lawyer giving you that quote). A trust ceases to exist when all of its property has been transferred.  The trust "lacks corpus."  Be certain that if you do make your own new trust that you re-do your "pour over will" too.  (If you don't, and you die with assets held outside of your trust, that old trust may just spring back to life with new corpus provided under the terms of the old will.)... Read More

It is really difficult to comment and that portion of language in the trust without seeing the document to know its proper context. I would suggest that you have an attorney review the Trust and discuss with you what has happened up to this point to give you a clear idea of what your options are and what if any action you should take. Jon... Read More

The practical reality is you can not do a committee. The problem is that very few banks have capabilities to require dual signatures. So one person can always spend the money. Sure you could write a document that says the committee should agree but if one person wants to steal it they can. I am sorry for your situation and best of luck.... Read More

There should not be a different income tax treatment whether in the trust or not in the trust when sold. Either way the capital gains tax is based on the appreciation of the house between date of death and date of sale. Be sure you file a parent-child exclusion form, with the county assessor, BEFORE the sales close. You could get hit with a supplemental property tax if you fail to do that. Good luck with your sale.... Read More

You are certainly enetitled to the portion of the 401k that accumulated during your marriage but his child may be entitled to the portion accumulated before your marriage.  Since his child is the named beneficiary, that child can immediately claim the benefits so you ought to make sure the plan administrator knows you have a claim as well.  The administrator will hopefully hold back from distributing the proceeds to your husband's child until the conflicting claims are worked out.  You ought to retain an attorney since there are important legal issues to address with regard to your husband's naming a beneficiary.... Read More

The letter ought to be taken to an attorney you find on this website for analysis.  You left out too many facts for anyone on this site to be able to answer the question fully.  No matter what the answer, you may always decide on your own to let his wife continue to live there, either rent-free or with some rent or charge.... Read More