Estate planning for La Jolla families
Wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and advance health care directives, built so your family knows what to do, and does not have to guess.
Estate planning is less about taxes than most people assume and more about who decides. Who manages your affairs if you cannot. Who speaks for you in a hospital. Who raises your children. Those answers should be written down before anyone needs them.
Why it matters in California
California probate is slow and public, and it is triggered by asset value rather than by wealth. For many La Jolla households a single piece of real property is enough to put an estate into probate. A properly funded revocable living trust is the usual way to avoid that.
The word funded is doing real work in that sentence. A trust that exists on paper but never had assets transferred into it does not accomplish much. Funding is the step that gets skipped most often, including by people who paid for a plan.
The four core documents
Revocable living trust
Holds title to your assets during your life and directs their distribution after. Avoids probate for the assets actually transferred in, keeps the terms private, and lets a successor trustee step in without a court order if you become incapacitated.
Will, usually a pour-over will
Works alongside a trust, catching anything not transferred in and directing it to the trust. It is also the document that nominates a guardian for minor children, which a trust cannot do.
Durable power of attorney
Names who handles your financial and legal affairs if you cannot. Without one, the alternative is a conservatorship proceeding: expensive, public, and slow.
Advance health care directive
Names your health care agent and records your wishes about treatment. This is the document hospitals ask for, and the one families most regret not having.
When to revisit a plan
- A marriage, divorce, birth, or death in the family
- Buying or selling real property
- A significant change in assets or in where you live
- A named trustee, agent, or guardian who is no longer the right choice
- Roughly every three to five years otherwise
What it costs
Estate planning is handled on a flat-fee basis, quoted after the first meeting once the scope is clear. It is not a contingency matter. We will tell you the number before any work begins.
Bring to the first meeting
- A list of real property you own
- Account types and rough values
- Beneficiary designations you have already made
- Names of people you would trust as trustee, agent, and guardian
- Any existing plan documents
From first meeting to signed documents
Step 1: Meeting
We go through your family, your assets, and what you want to happen. Roughly an hour.
Step 2: Flat-fee quote
You get the scope and the price in writing before any drafting starts.
Step 3: Drafting
We prepare the documents and send them for your review with plain-language explanations.
Step 4: Signing
Executed with the required witnesses and notarization.
Step 5: Funding
Assets are transferred into the trust. This is the step that makes the plan work.
Start a plan
Tell us about your family and assets. We will explain what you actually need.
General information only, not legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship.
(858) 531-2019
By appointment only