Santa Clara Estate Planning Attorney

A condominium is real property like any other, so if it is the main thing you own it is also the thing that would otherwise drive a probate. Buying recently does not change that; if anything it makes the deed question sharper, because how title was set up at escrow is still exactly how it reads. The homeowners association and the mortgage do not complicate the transfer into a trust the way people expect them to.

Not automatically. Property owned before marriage generally stays separate property, and marriage alone does not convert it. Under Family Code section 852 a change of character requires an express written declaration — not an assumption, and not simply adding a name at a refinance without understanding what that did. This is worth establishing on paper early, because it is one of the hardest things for a family to reconstruct later.

This is the single most argued-about situation we see in Santa Clara, and it is planned for rather than left to goodwill. A trust can give the person living there a defined right to remain for a set period or on set conditions, say who pays the taxes, insurance and upkeep during that time, and equalise the other children with other assets. What causes the litigation is a plan that divides the house equally and says nothing about the person already in it.

The deed decides, and the two common forms behave in opposite ways. If it is held in joint tenancy, your half passes automatically to the surviving co-owner and never reaches your children. If it is held as tenants in common, your half passes under your plan. Families are frequently surprised by which one they actually have, so this is read rather than recalled.

You nominate a guardian in your will, and the court makes the appointment. A parent’s nomination carries real weight, so making one is far better than leaving the choice open. The other half of the question is money: a guardian raises the children, but a trust decides how funds are released for them and at what ages, and those are usually better as two separate decisions.

Normally neither. Federal law bars a lender from calling a loan due when a residence is transferred into a revocable trust where the borrower remains a beneficiary and continues to occupy it, and a transfer into your own revocable trust is not a change in ownership for property-tax purposes, so it does not trigger reassessment. Both are routine — the mistake is not doing it at all rather than doing it wrong.

Often, but the mechanism depends on the entity. A membership interest in an LLC or shares in a corporation are personal property that can be assigned to a trust, while a sole proprietorship is really its assets. What controls is the operating agreement or shareholder agreement, which may restrict transfers or give other owners rights on death. That document is read before anything is signed.

The trust remains valid; a trust properly created in one state is generally recognised in another. What does not travel as cleanly are the powers of attorney and the health care directive, which follow state-specific statutory forms and are best re-executed locally. The deed to any California property you keep also needs attention, since it stays governed by California law after you leave.

Yes. Santa Clara is the closest city to our office at 100 Century Center Ct. in San Jose, roughly ten minutes away, and we also meet by secure video. Santa Clara is in Santa Clara County, so any filing goes to the same court we already appear in.

California probates commonly run twelve to eighteen months, and a contested claim or a property that has to be sold can extend that. Santa Clara County matters are heard in the probate department in downtown San Jose. The point of a funded living trust is to keep the assets it holds out of that timeline altogether.

Yes. If there is a trust, that is trust administration; if there is none, or if assets were left outside the trust, it may be a probate. Either way the first step is the same: we look at how each asset was titled and what documents exist before telling you which process applies.

Joint tenancy moves the property to the surviving owner without probate, so it handles the first death. It does not handle the second one: once there is no surviving joint tenant, the home passes under whatever plan exists, or through probate if there is none. How title is held can also affect the tax basis your children receive. It is worth having the deed reviewed rather than assumed.