CDP Works Remotely for Those Living Outside the Bay Area

For many people these days, working remotely is the way business gets done, and California Document Preparers is able to accommodate clients who live outside the greater Bay Area. We frequently get calls from those who are located in different parts of California or even different states who would like our assistance in creating legal documents.

Last month, “Jo” called to inquire about our Living Trust package. We provided a brief explanation of our services, detailed the pricing and suggested that she come into our office so we could show her samples, review the process, and answer her questions. As it turned out, Jo lived in Calaveras County and driving to our office represented two-plus hours each way. We further explained our process and the documents we would be preparing. She gave us her email address and we sent her our Trust overview, workbook and price list.

Barely one week later, Jo emailed us the completed workbook

She was very impressed with our customer service, paid us by credit card and scheduled a meeting to review and sign the Trust and other estate-planning documents because she had decided it was worth the long drive.
We are always happy to work remotely with our clients by answering questions, forwarding materials and transacting as much business as possible by phone and email. Most of our clients are from the greater Bay Area, so we develop a face-to-face relationship while working on their documents. We look forward to clients from the Central Valley, Southern California and northern counties coming in to complete the signing of their Trusts. It gives us the opportunity to meet them in person, walk them through the contents of the Trust and explain the funding process.

Remote clients can arrange for the Trust’s signing in a convenient location

In those cases where our remote clients cannot meet in our offices for the signing, they can arrange the signing with a local notary. We send detailed instructions for the signing process, highlighting those areas of the Trust and other estate-planning documents that require signatures, initials and dates.

Because of our personal attention and service, Jo’s brother and friends have become Living Trust clients as well. We believe our thoroughness makes a difference. We do not charge for our time and are happy to answer questions. We want our clients to be informed and comfortable about the decisions they are making. Ask any small business owner: the best compliment he/she can receive is a referral of new business from a happy client.

Creating a Living Trust is an important part of your retirement planning

Contact California Document Preparers at one of our three Bay Area offices today to schedule an appointment. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable.

Living Trusts and the Issue of Mental Capacity

These days, hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear about someone we know being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia. In some tragic cases, it comes way too early and it’s agonizing to see a life cut short.

Alzheimer’s: No hope, no cure

Alzheimer’s is one disease for which we have no cure, no revolutionary treatment. It violates every demographic, and the statistics indicate that nearly 80% of us will experience some kind of dementia before we die—it may not be the complete debilitation of Alzheimer’s, but we’ll have some degree of memory loss and inability to deal with our surroundings. For those who are in the process of creating a Living Trust, along with a Power of Attorney and Advance Healthcare Directive, this presents a potential problem. At what point is someone incapable of creating and signing a legal document such as a Living Trust?

Legally, everyone is presumed to be competent

However, the presumption that someone has legal capacity can be challenged in court. If the challenge is successful, the court will invalidate the Living Trust, making it necessary for the heirs to go through Probate to settle the estate and distribute the deceased’s assets.

Possession of a mental deficit

In California, testamentary incapacity does not refer to physical or mental disorders, but rather to one of three factors: The inability of a person to understand and sign estate-planning documents, the presence of an unsound mind or the possession of a mental deficit “so substantial that, under the circumstances, the person should be deemed to lack legal capacity.”

It’s important to note that age, illness and disease in themselves are not factors in the determination of testamentary capacity. People can be well into their 90s or suffering from debilitating disease, yet still have the capacity to be fully cognizant of what they are doing, legally able to sign a Will and Living Trust.

Under California law, deficits that may affect testamentary capacity are divided into four categories.

• Alertness and attention. The court would be looking for poor arousal or consciousness; a weak orientation to time, place, person, and situation; inability to concentrate.
• Information processing. This includes deficits in short or long-term memory; the inability to understand or communicate with others; the lack of recognition of familiar objects and people; the inability to understand and appreciate quantities; the inability to reason logically and to carry out a plan or action.
• Thought processes. Extreme examples of inability to complete thought processes would be hallucinations, delusions and uncontrollable, repetitive thoughts.
• The ability to modulate mood and effect. In this case, there would be evidence of persistent, recurrent moods inappropriate to an individual’s circumstances, including euphoria, anger, anxiety, fear, panic, depression, hopelessness, despair, apathy or indifference.

The presence of one or more of these factors does not necessarily mean someone is incapable of making decisions regarding his/her estate or signing related legal documents–an illness or prescribed medications may temporarily influence testamentary capacity, for instance. Once the prescribed drug treatment is finished or the illness has passed, the person may be fine once again.

With a diagnosis comes some immediacy

But evidence of any one or all of these factors in at least some degree raises the need to take extra precautions if you or someone in your family is creating estate-planning documents. Once people have been diagnosed with dementia, there is, of course, the need to create end-of-life documents as quickly as possible. In addition to the issue of testamentary capacity, there are very practical considerations–they may soon need these documents to be in place if they are no longer able to take care of their own affairs and make decisions about their own care. They will need to identify a Power of Attorney and an Agent for their Advance Healthcare Directive.

Tom Clancy’s Estate Battle: Wording Trumps Intentions

Tom Clancy died in August of heart failure. Just 66, he left behind a huge body of work, and most of us remember him for his books and the movies they spawned, including The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games. He left behind a family, a fortune and an estate battle, but the struggle between his widow and four adult children over his $86M estate is now over. Maryland’s highest court ruled about a key clause in the codicil to Clancy’s Will, and the ruling was a decisive victory for Clancy’s widow.

Legal documents written in an unclear manner

One of the best-selling authors of all time, it’s ironic that the fight boiled down to an interpretation of a clause in his estate-planning documents that was written in an unclear manner.

The dispute centered around a provision in Clancy’s second codicil (amendment) to his Will. The Will, signed in 2007, divided Clancy’s assets into three Trusts:

• One-third for his wife
• Another third for his wife to use while she was alive and then onto his daughter from that marriage
• The last third was to be split among his four adult children from a prior marriage.

Just weeks before he died, Clancy signed the codicil, which included this key sentence: “No asset or proceeds of any assets shall be included in the Marital Share of the Nonexempt Family Residuary Trust as to which a marital deduction would not be allowed if included.”

Four justices sided with the widow 

Maryland’s court was closely divided about what this language meant. The four who ruled in favor of Clancy’s widow believed that this clause meant that all estate taxes from Clancy’s Estate would have to be paid by the children’s Trust, not the Trusts containing her money, because that was the only way to fully protect the marital deduction to federal estate-tax laws.

Three justices sided with the four adult children

These justices felt that the children should only pay one-half the tax bill, not all of it, and this clause did not alter the outcome. They felt that Clancy wanted to protect the marital deduction but not to increase it at the expense of what his children would inherit.

Interestingly, the lawyer who drafted the codicil initially acted as executor of Tom Clancy’s estate, and he sided with the children. This suggests that the language was intended to apply as the children contended, yet the law isn’t about intentions, but what the documents actually say.

What does this mean for Tom Clancy’s heirs?

The four children now have to pay the IRS estate tax bill of almost $12M. If they’d won, the total tax bill would have been closer to $16M, but they would have been able to split it with one of the Trusts set up for Clancy’s widow. The results: they lost $8M, and the IRS lost out on $4M.

A strange irony for a writer

A loss of $8M for Clancy’s adult children, two years’ worth of litigation and who knows how much money in legal fees. And it all would have been avoided if the language had been more clear.

Take a lesson from Tom Clancy: wording trumps intentions

The wording of your estate-planning documents is what matters, not your intentions. While most of us, unfortunately, don’t have $86M estates over which our heirs will haggle, battles like this occur on a regular basis across the country. Make sure all of your assets are accounted for; read your documents carefully; understand what everything means before signing.

Still putting off your Living Trust? We prepare the legal documents and notarize them–most of our clients tell us they’re surprised at just how easy it was! Make an appointment today to get started on your Trust.  

Executor Creates Process for Distributing Mother’s Assets

Clients who prepare their Living Trusts identify their assets and how they will be distributed among their heirs when they die. Assets include the obvious things such as real property, brokerage accounts, life insurance policies and other financial resources, but they also include other high-ticket items such as cars, jewelry, artwork, antiques, valuable collections, etc. Many people carefully allocate the large items but fail to identify how the smaller items will be distributed among their surviving family members. These are often items that may not have great financial value but are rich in sentiment, and their distribution can become highly contentious.

An Oakland client distributes mother’s assets

An Oakland client, the executor for his mother’s estate, shared this story of how he successfully distributed his mother’s assets among his siblings. His mother had created a Living Trust and had divided her estate equally among her three children. But she had not identified how the many small, sentimental items were to be divided among her three children. His brother and his wife were aggressive and greedy, and he wanted to avoid their taking the most valuable items, leaving his sister and him with the leftovers. He wanted to prevent potentially hard feelings and conflict, making sure that each of them was the recipient of household items and mementoes that would comfort them and keep their mother’s memory alive.

He knew, for instance, that his sister loved a beautiful Wedgewood plate that his mother always used for their birthday cakes, and she had a lovely gold bracelet that he would like to give his daughter. A wicker rocker in her study was where his mother used to sit and read, and he would love to have that chair in his own study. None of these things was worth a lot of money, but each was rich in memories.

As executor, he devised a plan that included only the three siblings, not their spouses

• Each would create and prioritize a written list of the items he/she wanted from their mother’s belongings, without saying one word to each other.
• They would flip a coin to see who would choose first.
• The sibling who won the coin toss would select the first item, segregating it physically into a pile.
• The person who came second would do the same, then the third, continuing until all of their mother’s belongings were taken.
• If somebody’s choice was already taken, they would take the next item on their list, if that item was still available.
• After all items were chosen, conversation was allowed and trading could begin. “You really wanted that item bracelet, and I really wanted that ring; would you be willing to trade?” Etc.

Siblings satisfied with the process

There was only one case where two siblings really wanted one item and a settlement/deal couldn’t be reached. Our client’s sister wanted something that he had chosen, but he wasn’t willing to part with it–their mother’s favorite pasta bowl that she had bought in Italy. There was no dispute, no loud discussion, and everyone was very satisfied with the process and the results—including his brother.

Have you created your Living Trust and named your executor? Contact the California Document Preparers team today to schedule an appointment. We help you through every step of the process.

What We Can Learn About Estate Planning from Yogi Berra

It’s baseball season. In the Bay Area, that means the Giants are running true to form–the best record heading into the All-Star break and now they’re playing like the worst team in baseball. Sadly, if you’re an A’s fan, you’re faring much, much worse. We love our Giants for their ability to play killer ball when it really matters, but no one expects the A’s to rally.

But let’s take a look at Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra, who made an extraordinary contribution to baseball, died last fall at the age of 90. Every baseball fan has his or her heroes, but Yogi Berra was extraordinary, a little guy who earned a big spot in the pantheon of stars. Yogi was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972 on the first ballot and had a historic baseball career: a .285 lifetime batting average, 358 home runs and 1,430 runs batted in. Not only was he a catcher for both the New York Yankees and the Mets, but he also managed and coached both teams. Yogi appeared in 21 World Series as player, coach or manager–and won 13 of them. No other player can touch this kind of record.

Another contribution: Yogi was a financial planner and adviser

But Yogi was also insightful, thoughtful and a savvy financial planner. We’re left with many of Yogi’s pearls of wisdom which we can apply to investing, managing money and planning for the future.

• It ain’t over till it’s over. You’re investing for the long term, so stay focused on your long-term goal—college planning for your kids or retirement.
• It’s déjà vu all over again. The fact that stock prices have been down much of this year isn’t unusual. We’ve seen declines before, and we’ll see them again. We’re enjoying a robust economy right now, but we all remember the recession. Economic cycles repeat themselves, so we should never get too comfortable.
• When you come to a fork in the road, take it. You don’t need to choose between owning stocks or bonds; your portfolio should be diverse and should probably include both.
• I usually take a two-hour nap from 1 till 4. If you’re wondering about investing in the latest hot stock, sleep on it. Do some research and talk to a financial advisor.
• Pair up in threes. You should rely on a financial planner, a tax advisor and create a Living Trust.
• It gets late early out here. If you haven’t started preparing for retirement, start today. If you’re waiting until you get old to create a Living Trust, “old” may have arrived. Yogi knew that you don’t have to be old or have an estate to need an estate plan, and that a Living Trust is an important component of this.
• If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be. It’s impossible to be completely correct with every financial decision or preparation for end-of-life care. We live in a world of constant change, and there are too many variables over which we have no control. In the words of Warren Buffet, another sage who can afford to build his very own pantheon, “It’s better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.” This is the time to get started.

Our comprehensive Living Trust package includes a Power of Attorney and Advanced Healthcare Directive. Call the California Document Preparers team today to make an appointment to get started on your Trust.