If you have been disinherited, or your inheritance has been stolen from you in some way, you have just one chance to fight for your legacy. But not fighting is also an option, it all depends on what you want to do. A few years ago, a client told me that he wanted to fight […]
Trust and will cases are heard in Probate court and there are some strange rules that apply. The rules can be hard to master because some rules for filing and pleadings are contained in the Probate Code while others are taken from the Code of Civil Procedure. This hybrid of rules makes for a lot […]
You know what your parents wanted, but why does the law of Wills and Trusts make it so hard to obtain the right result? There’s a notion in the law that whatever a person creates, whether it be a Will, Trust, joint tenancy accounts, or joint tenancy titling of real property, it is what that […]
If you were to review every Trust or Will lawsuit filed in California, I would bet that 99% of those lawsuits plead a claims for lack of capacity to overturn a Trust or Will. Lack of capacity is, by far, the most pleaded claim in Trust and Will lawsuits. More accurately, it is the most […]
The single most pleaded claim to overturn a Bay Area Trust or Will is lack of capacity. And while you and I may believe the decedent clearly lacked capacity, proving that claim in court is another matter altogether. It takes an expert Proving lack of capacity starts with obtaining all of the decedent’s medical records. […]
So you have a problem with your inheritance, what are you going to do about it? That’s a tricky question because every case is a little (or a lot) different. Mainly it depends on the type of estate planning device you need to overturn, challenge, or validate. For example, if you are dealing with a […]
Ask most lawyers in California how hard it is to prove up an undue influence claim in a Trust Contest or Will Contest. The answer is likely to be that it is difficult to prove undue influence in these types of cases. But that’s most likely due to these lawyers thinking about proving an undue […]
Let’s face it, lawyers have bad reputations, including being greedy opportunists, lazy, driving sports cars, and not really caring about their clients’ needs. I think part of that has to do with the surrounding circumstances—almost always bad—when it comes to hiring a lawyer. But our not so good reputations also come from not properly setting […]
I get calls every week from Bay Area Trust, Last Will, and Estate beneficiaries complaining that they can’t get their brother or sister, who is the Trustee and Executor of their parents’ estate plan, to provide copies of the parents’ estate plan after the parents have died. In response to these calls, I usually suggest […]
Trust and Will Contests in Probate Court Traditionally Trust and Will beneficiaries who have been written out of their parents’, family members’, or friends’ Trust or Will were limited to filing a Trust Contest or a Will Contest in a Bay Area Probate Court of the county where the parent, family member, or friend died. […]
