You receive a copy of a newly filed will and recognize the signature, but not the beneficiaries. A relative who depended on the deceased has been excluded. A person who controlled the decedent's care now stands to receive valuable property. Grief quickly becomes suspicion, and suspicion creates pressure to act. In California, a will contest…
A family meeting about a trust can change quickly. A widowed mother in Orange County may hire the lawyer her family has trusted for years to prepare a living trust and pour-over will. After her death, the children may discover that the attorney named himself successor trustee and directed part of the inheritance to his…
You've inherited a Santa Ana duplex with two siblings, and everyone agrees the property needs to be sold except one owner. Or you bought an investment property in Lake Forest after signing a stack of electronic documents, only to discover serious defects and a contract clause requiring arbitration. Then the opposing attorney announces a motion…
You may be sitting at the kitchen table right now, staring at a will or trust that seems to leave you with very little, or nothing at all. That kind of shock is common after a spouse dies, especially in California families where the estate plan was drafted years ago and never updated after remarriage,…
Your mother's new will leaves almost everything to a caregiver. Your father stopped returning calls after a neighbor began driving him to appointments. In both situations, the family often feels the same thing first, suspicion, then confusion, then the hard question of whether the will still reflects the person who signed it. In California, that…
If you're asking about an “order of stipulation,” the practical answer is this: that phrase isn't the proper legal term in California. The correct document is usually a stipulation and order or stipulated order, meaning the parties first agree in writing, and then the judge signs it to make it enforceable. That distinction is more…
You may already be in the middle of this. A parent or grandparent has died. Someone in the family tells you that you're a beneficiary of the trust. Then nothing happens. The trustee stops returning calls, gives vague answers, or says you'll get information “when the time is right.” That situation is common in California…
A lot of people start searching for what is a constructive trust when something already feels badly off. A parent dies, and one child suddenly controls an account that was supposed to be shared. A romantic partner says a house was “always in my name,” even though both of you paid for it. A business…
You may have received a demurrer with the complaint papers, or your lawyer may be recommending one after reviewing a lawsuit involving a house, a trust dispute, a partition case, or a contract tied to California real estate. Either way, the word itself tends to sound more alarming than it is. In California law, a…
A parent dies. The family is grieving, trying to plan a service, sort through papers, and answer basic questions about the house, accounts, and personal property. Then someone finds a will that doesn’t match what everyone had heard for years. A child who was always included is suddenly left out. A new caregiver appears as…