What Did My Stepmother Do with Dad’s Estate?

One of our Oakland clients, “Dan”, stopped by our office to get information to help his family solve a puzzle. He and his two sisters had been raised by their father, who had stepped up when their mom died and been an extraordinary parent. The four of them had been very close, with wonderful memories of camping, hiking, walks around Lake Merritt and Saturday matinees at the Grand Lake.

Dad had raised his kids and put them through college. Then he fell in love and got married

In 2010, after all the kids had graduated from college and were on their own, their dad met “Elizabeth”, fell madly in love, and got married. From the beginning, the family had a strained relationship with Elizabeth, and they saw less and less of their father. “Dad died in 2016, and Elizabeth won’t talk to us; we don’t know if he had any kind of estate plan, Will or Living Trust. We called all the courthouses where we thought a Will might be filed, but found nothing. We don’t know if there was a Probate proceeding. What might have happened to our father’s estate? Where should we look? What can we do to find an answer?”

Here are some possible scenarios

• If their father had had a Will, it would have needed to go through Probate, in which case Dan and his sisters would have been notified under a court order.
• If there were neither a Will nor Living Trust, their father’s estate would have needed to go through Probate as well, and the siblings would have been contacted. Probate is only necessary if the property was in the name of the decedent—their dad.
• There would be no Probate if the father’s possessions were all titled “joint with rights of survivorship” with Elizabeth. Upon his death, she would automatically become the sole owner of their entire joint estate.
• If the father titled his property to a Living Trust, there would be no Probate. The Trust would own the property and the Trustee named in it, likely Elizabeth, would be responsible for managing the Trust. If Elizabeth is not particularly honest, she could ignore the Trust’s provisions—which well might include distributions for Dan and his sisters—and the siblings would never know if their father had actually identified assets for his children.

One final option: Opening their own Probate proceeding

The family can hire an attorney to open a Probate or other court matter if they cannot communicate with Elizabeth and if they have reason to believe their father had property titled in his name alone.

A Living Trust ensures that your family will avoid the dilemma that Dan and his sisters are now confronting. Our comprehensive Living Trust package includes a Power of Attorney and Advance Healthcare Directive. Contact us at one of our three Bay Area offices to schedule an appointment to create or update your Trust. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable.

4 Ways Unmarried Couples Can Protect Themselves

These days, it’s become the norm for couples who’ve been dating for a period of time to move in together. They generally share their bills and lives without any kind of formal agreement. Seniors are as likely to move in with each other as 20-somethings, and they’re often motivated by practical concerns and economic benefits.

Unlike marriage, however, living together provides you and your partner no legal protections when it comes to making medical, financial or legal decisions on each other’s behalf. Without the default protections of marriage, it’s necessary to take additional legal steps to protect you and your partner.

1. Cohabitation Agreements

California allows Cohabitation Agreements, in which partners agree on financial obligations to each other, both during cohabitation and after it ends. A Cohabitation Agreement might  detail how household expenses will be divided. If there are children, there might be specifics about how a couple will divide childcare responsibilities and costs. If you own property with your partner, the agreement also can outline what happens to the property if you break up–who will purchase the other’s interest, for how much, and who will move out and when. Properly drafted, a Cohabitation Agreement will be enforced by the court.

2. Wills and Beneficiary Designations

If you die without a Will, California’s intestacy laws will dictate who will inherit your property. If you’re unmarried with no children, these laws typically leave assets to your parents or siblings. If you want your partner to inherit your property, you’ll need to create a Will that identifies how you want your assets distributed.

Assets such as retirement benefits and life insurance policies pass to heirs according to each account’s beneficiary designation, which overrides the designation of a Will. If you want your partner to inherit these assets, it is extremely important to make sure your beneficiary designation forms for all retirement accounts and life insurance policies are executed properly.

3. Advance Healthcare Directive

Doctors typically look to a patient’s closest living relatives to make healthcare decisions for those who are incapacitated and can no longer make decisions for themselves. If you’re married, your spouse is generally considered your closest living relative. If you’re unmarried with no children, your closest relatives are your parents, if they’re still living; if they’re not, then it’s your siblings to whom medical teams will turn to make important care decisions.

It’s important to know that an unmarried significant other has no legal rights

The solution is to make sure you have a valid Advance Healthcare Directive. This document will let you appoint your significant other/partner to make medical decisions for you if a physician determines you are unable to make decisions for yourself.

4. Financial Power of Attorney

A Financial Power of Attorney gives someone the authority to act on another person’s behalf. For many of our clients, a Financial Power of Attorney comes into effect when parents or other family members become physically or mentally incapable of managing their own affairs, and a family member or trusted aide takes over. Someone with a Power of Attorney will typically be responsible for paying bills, preparing taxes, settling claims, taking care of business interests and hiring household help.

If you and your partner are in a long-term, committed relationship, these legal documents will protect your rights if one of you becomes incapacitated or dies.

At California Document Preparers, we include a Financial Power of Attorney and Advance Healthcare Directive in our Living Trust Package. One more thing. If your Living Trust and other legal documents are dated and no longer reflect your current relationship, we can assist in your updating them. Contact us at one of our three Bay Area officesto schedule an appointment today.

The Grown Kids of Divorce Look Back

For parents considering divorce, their already busy lives just ratcheted up a few notches. They’re now worrying about the economics, whether they’ll need to sell the family home; they’re wondering how they’ll manage being a single mom or dad. Most of all, they’re worried about how divorce will affect their kids.

The HuffPost published a Reddit thread that asked the now-grown kids of divorce to look back and think about Divorce and the impact it’s had on their lives.

1. Acted out at school; took on more responsibility at home.

   One ten-year old kid admitted to bullying tendencies. Seeing his parents’ marriage dissolve made things worse.“My parents’ divorce increased my bullying tenfold. After a couple of weeks, I started feeling depressed and became really quiet and shy. It was tough not understanding why your dad has to leave and why your mother cries herself to sleep at night. The good news: I stepped up and became a fiercely protective and loving big brother to my younger sister.”

2. Felt a sense of relief.

   This one was fairly common. Many said they spent their teen years wishing their parents would divorce. “My parents wouldn’t divorce because they’re Catholic. Once my mom finally did leave my dad, I was relieved. I remember thinking that I hated my dad and wished he would just disappear. I had to wait until my early 20s for it to happen.”

3. The financial strain of living in a single-parent household.

   Money struggles were a constant in many households. After the divorce, one kid, his mom and sister moved into a one-bedroom apartment. His mom worked two jobs to make ends meet, sometimes picking up a third. “It was all about giving us a good life, which she absolutely did. We may not have had the best clothes or everything we wanted, but she always tried to give us everything she could, and we never went hungry. My mom is incredibly heroic for raising us on her own. I don’t even care that I barely hear from my dad.”

4. The blame game.

Life as you know it changes when your parents split up. Rebellion is common. “I went off the rails. I refused to take responsibility for my own actions and blamed my parents for everything. I bought into the pity and coddling of those around me.”

5. Struggled with the divorce, even as adults.

   Those families who waited to divorce until the kids are grown/out of school don’t necessarily have it any easier.“I was 29 when my parents divorced, and I’d been living away from home for much of that time, but it still hurt because my father is a jerk who waited until my youngest brother turned 18 to officially leave my mother.”

6. They didn’t take kindly to one parent badmouthing the other.

   One kid’s mom had primary custody, and she began to dread weekends with her dad. “The hardest part was listening to all the crap he said about my mom and still does. My dad always told me that I was manipulative and playing games with him. It took me more than 18 years to figure out that I wasn’t a manipulative, game-playing control freak. I was the daughter of one!”

7. They were happy to see their parents thrive after the divorce.

   One child, whose parents’ divorce was distressing at first, became convinced it was for the best by seeing how happy they were without each other!“My dad seems to be excelling at life now. He is more outgoing and independent. He likes to tell me about all the new things he’s doing and the friends he’s making. This is the best thing they could have done for themselves.”

California Document Preparers has helped hundreds of families get divorced. Our dedicated team is responsive and available throughout the process. It starts with an office visit to review the Divorce process, responsibilities and costs. If you’re contemplating Divorce, schedule an appointment today to talk to one of our team. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable.

Immigration: Who Will Care for Our Elderly?

A recent New York Times article describes a disturbing scenario that is likely touching many families nationwide. In the article, a 93-year-old woman, “Joan”, lives in Texas and has depended on “Anna”, for more than a decade. Anna comes to her home four days a week to help with shopping, laundry, housecleaning and driving Joan to appointments. “Anna is a wonderful person whom I trust completely.”

Anna is also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico

Both women fear that Anna will be detained and deported. Joan’s daughter lives in Oakland and is concerned about what would happen if Anna gets pulled over; her mother can neither drive nor care for herself. She knows that finding another caretaker like Anna will be nearly impossible, and she’s now researching alternative solutions for her mother.

The Trump administration’s immigration policies are taking a toll

In Brooklyn, an HR director asked local employment agencies to find 20-25 new nursing assistants and practical nurses. It’s a typical request, and usually, “I’m flooded with applications the next day.” Not anymore; she received five applications in a 30-day period.

She thinks the Trump administration’s immigration policies and rhetoric have discouraged potential workers. The organization typically drew from immigrant communities. Contributing to her employment problems:

• A loss of 25 Haitian-American nursing assistants and practical nurses whose temporary protected status (TPS; temporary status given to eligible nationals of designated countries who are present in the U.S.) was terminated in November, and they must leave by July 2019.
• Those healthcare workers with DACA status remain in limbo.
• One in four of the direct-care workers in the nation’s nursing homes,
•  and homecare agencies are foreign-born, according to an analysis of census data by Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI), a New York research organization.
• In the gray market, where consumers hire home-care workers directly and pay them under the table, the proportion is likely far higher.

A growing workforce shortage in direct care

There is a growing work force shortage in direct care that affects the entire industry; it may be most visible as it impacts older and disabled people and their families.

• Long-term demographic changes drive labor shortages. The good news is that people are living longer, but they’re developing chronic diseases and disabilities along the way.
• The sheer size of the baby-boom generation ratchets up demand.
• The population of working-age women, who typically provide care both paid and unpaid, has shrunk, and has more career options.

Caring for old people dependent on a large number of immigrants

Caring for old people is a job that native-born Americans prefer not to take for a variety of reasons, including poor pay and benefits and the physical demands. As a result, nursing homes are frequently staffed by immigrant caretakers. With fewer immigrants available to fill these jobs, expect more system chaos. There are reports of nursing homes shutting down or stopping admissions altogether. The majority of aides and nursing assistants are American citizens, but nearly 35,000 come from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, whose immigrants have had TPS status in the U.S.—now terminated under the Trump administration.

11,000 care workers from Muslim countries won’t be available

Immigrants from Sudan, whose TPS status was also terminated, will have to leave the United States as early as this fall. Nearly 11,000 care workers come from Muslim countries but will no longer be able to immigrate because of the Supreme Court’s new ruling on Trump’s travel ban.

Sociological side effects of this immigrant deportation

• Even when workers are legal residents, they may consider moving when relatives and friends are deported.
• Whole neighborhoods begin to feel targeted. When friends, colleagues and family are deported, it shatters communities, leaving families feeling vulnerable.
• Short-staffed nursing and care facilities mean that those already working there are putting in longer shifts, increasing pressure on the workforce.

Many families and healthcare workers fear that the Trump administration’s massive deportations will further undermine a system that is already poorly managed and regulated. Many believe it will get much worse over the coming months as we begin to feel the effects of these deportations.

The other side of the matter: The immigrants

There is, of course, the other side of this matter–that of the immigrants who have come to this country seeking better lives and a safe place to raise their families—just as our own ancestors did. Many have fled persecution, death threats, violence and gang wars. We’ve always found ways to integrate these immigrants into our communities, enriching our culture along the way.

Sadly, the current leadership is turning its back on them, holding them in detention, putting their children in cages and splitting up families that may never be reunited. These hardworking immigrants took the jobs that no one else wanted, and many of those jobs may now go unfilled. The consequences will be felt in nursing homes and homecare, agriculture and myriad other industries. We will all pay the price on many levels.

California Document Preparers’ assists our clients with the preparation of legal documents

Our servicesinclude Deed Transfers, Business Formation Packages, Uncontested Divorce and Probate. Our comprehensive Living Trust package includes a Power of Attorney and Advance Healthcare Directive. We also encourage our clients to update their Trusts for major life events. Contact us at one of our three Bay Area offices to schedule an appointment to create or update your Trust or find out how we work with our clients. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable.

5 Things You Need to Know about Beneficiary Designations

When creating Living Trusts, most of us know that we need to identify our beneficiaries and the way in which we distribute our assets among them. But something that not infrequently happens is that someone will name a beneficiary in a Will or Living Trust without regard to the beneficiary designation for the individual accounts. When creating Trusts, we remind our clients to make sure their beneficiary designations have been updated to reflect their preferred beneficiary.

Transfer on death assets

Assets that are registered as “transfer on death” or “payable on death”–retirement plans, life insurance policies, IRAs and annuities–automatically pass to beneficiaries when you die, avoiding a legal proceeding.

Here are 5 things you may not know about your assets and beneficiary designations

1. Your beneficiary designation takes precedent over your Will. 

This is especially important if you remarry and forget to change old beneficiary designations. In the case of one recent client, he remarried and updated his Trust so that if anything happened to him his new wife would inherit his assets. What he didn’t realize, however, was that if he died, it would be his ex-wife who would inherit his life insurance policy and brokerage accounts because he hadn’t changed the beneficiary designations.

2. Consider the tax consequences for your beneficiary

If you designate someone other than your spouse as a beneficiary, the amount will be counted as your taxable estate and may push you above the estate-tax limit. Inherited assets will be included in their estates as well, which could push them over the tax exclusion limit.

If you leave company retirement plan funds to someone other than your spouse, they may have to take distributions and pay tax on those distributions. A spouse could roll over those assets into an IRA.

3. The custodian (bank, insurance company, etc.) must have your beneficiary form on file. 

If the custodian of your account does not have your beneficiary on file, legally there is no beneficiary at all.

4. Some assets/accounts can cost your beneficiaries a lot of money if they pass through the estate

An IRA with a designated beneficiary, for example, is protected from creditors when the owner dies. If it passes through the estate, it can be used to pay the decedent’s debts.

5. Consider beneficiaries with special needs

Those who have dependents with special needs may be taking advantage of  government benefits to provide for their wellbeing. Their eligibility for these benefits may be adversely affected if assets are bequested to them directly.

Creating a Special Needs Trust can ensure that these dependents keep their government benefits, remaining eligible to receive additional support from an inheritance.

We encourage our clients to update their Living Trusts with major life changes—those things that might affect an inheritance—birth, death, marriage or divorce. This is a good time to make sure account designations are up to date as well.

Contact California Document Preparersat one of our three Bay Area offices today to create a Living Trust. Our dedicated team is helpful, compassionate and affordable.

Routine Deed Transfer Turns into Probate for Oakland Homeowner

“Jason” came in to our Oakland office to change the title on a deed–a routine procedure that sometimes can be completed in a single day. Jason co-owned a home in the Oakland hills, and his name was on the deed along with those of his father and uncle, both deceased. Jason was considering selling the property, and he knew he would need a deed showing that he was the sole owner.

The status of Jason’s deed would be determined by the kind of ownership that had been set up in the original deed. We needed to pull the deed to find out whether they were joint tenants with rights of survivorship or tenants in common.

• Joint tenants with rights of survivorship. If the names of the three owners are followed by the words “joint with rights of survivorship”, Jason would have to obtain certified death certificates on his deceased co-owners by going to the deeds office and filing an affidavit to remove their names from the deed.
• Tenants in common. If their names are followed by the words “tenants in common”, Jason's deed change suddenly got a whole lot harder. In order to change the deed, both his father’s and uncle’s property needed to go through Probate.

What happens to the property when one of the owners dies?

A key difference between these two types of shared ownership is what happens to the property when one of the owners dies. When a property is owned by joint tenants with survivorship, the interest of a deceased owner automatically gets transferred to the surviving owners. For example, if four joint tenants own a house and one of them dies, each of the three remaining joint tenants ends up with a one-third share of the property. This is called the right of survivorship.

If, on the other hand, the owners were tenants in common, the deceased person’s shares pass to their heirs through a Will or Probate.

The three owners were tenants in common

Unfortunately for Jason, the deed showed that the three property owners were tenants in common. Rather than executing a relatively simple deed transfer, Jason now needed to Probate both his father’s and uncle’s share of the property. Unfortunately, we see a fair number of these kinds of situations. If the family had changed their ownership from tenants in common to right of survivorship while his uncle and father were still alive, the deed change would have been a routine process.

A few more details about deeds

• Deeds always contain the names of the old and new owners, a legal description of the property and the signature of the person transferring the property.
• Having an updated title is a critical to buying or selling real property.

Understanding joint ownership is especially important for married couples

If you’re married and have other heirs besides your spouse, such as children from a former marriage, then your spouse may not automatically inherit the property you want him/her to have. On the other hand, your spouse may become the beneficiary of property that you intended to go to your children. Updating accounts and deeds is a relatively simple process that will ensure your beneficiary designations reflect your current preferences.

A final note on Probate

Probate is a growing service for California Document Preparers. If it’s uncontested, we assist you through the entire process—all for one flat fee of $4,500.

California Document Preparers assists our clients with deed transfers by filling out all the necessary forms, notarizing them and filing them with the county. Our website has more information about specific types of deeds. Contact us at one of our three Bay Area officesto schedule an appointment to change or transfer your deed. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable.

New Healthcare Directive: Facing Dementia with a Plan

Dr. Barak Gaster is a Seattle internist who spent three years working with specialists in geriatrics, neurology, palliative care and psychiatry to create a dementia-specific advance directive. The document maps out the stages of dementia: mild, moderate and severe; it asks patients to specify which medical interventions they would want at each phase of the illness.

Identifying end-of-life care while still able to make decisions

“Patients stumble into the advanced stage of dementia before anyone identifies it and talks to them about what’s happening,” said Dr. Gaster. “At what point would they not want medical interventions to keep them alive longer?” Dr. Gaster wants his patients to respond to his directive before the disease has left them unable to make choices.

Ann Vandervelde, 71, is an abstract painter who was familiar with dementia. Her father had died of dementia and, as a hospice volunteer, she had spent time with dementia patients. She also was well aware of the family conflicts that can accompany critical medical decisions.

Not all experts are convinced that another directive is needed

But as Dr. Gaster and his co-authors argue in the JAMA, the current directive doesn’t address dementia and the disease’s progressive nature. Dementia progresses slowly, and in the early stages, patients can still enjoy a high quality of life and are able to make decisions about their care.

An estimated 20%-30% of us will at some point develop dementia

Last year, the journal Demography estimated that for someone born in 1940, the lifetime risk of having some form of dementia at age 70 was 30.8% for men and 37% percent for women. Dr. Gaster has offered his directive to patients qualifying for Medicare. Not surprisingly, those families who have experienced dementia are most responsive to the more comprehensive directive.

Highlights of Dr. Gaster’s directive include the following:

• For each stage of dementia, the patient can choose among four options, from full efforts to prolong life to comfort care only.
• Patients can opt for lifesaving treatments.
• They can opt to receive care where they live but avoid hospitalization, which can be frightening for a dementia patient.

Doctors and nurses are concerned that these end-of-life documents get filed away—it’s not uncommon for documents to be unavailable when it’s time to make critical decisions.

Healthcare professionals are trained to save lives—not allow patients to die

One of the problems with directives is that healthcare professionals are trained to save lives, not necessarily to administer palliative care that will allow their patients to die. It’s not uncommon for family members to ignore the wishes of their loved ones and keep someone alive against their documented wishes.

The takeaway: Families need to get involved

We need to be discussing quality of life issues with our families and healthcare teams–identifying what we find acceptable or unacceptable, what interventions we agree to. The decisions should be documented and shared with family, friends and doctors. For Ann Vandervelde, knowing that she had carefully detailed her end-of-life wishes and shared them with her family gave her a sense of calm. She trusted that the people she loved and trusted would carry out her final wishes.

A Power of Attorney and an Advanced Healthcare Directive are included in our Living Trust package. Contact California Document Preparers at one of our three Bay Area offices today to schedule an appointment to create or update your Trust. Our dedicated team is helpful, compassionate and affordable.