Three words: burden of proof. You have it and the other side does not. If you put on your case in a Trust contest and fail to meet your burden of proof, you lose. Losing is your default position. Winning is the default position of your opponent. They don’t have to put on a case. They […]
Let’s start with a basic premise of Trust and Will law: children are not entitled to inherit anything. Parents have the right to disinherit a child, provided that, the decision to disinherit is their own. In other words, if someone else forces that decision on the parent, that is wrong. But if the parent freely […]
Undue influence is when a bad person exercises their power over and elderly person and gets the elderly person to give them extra assets, or to cut the other beneficiaries out. The problem that undue influence is generally difficult to prove directly. Generally, a person will not admit they coerced someone into changing a Trust […]
Is it legal to name a caregiver as a beneficiary of a Trust or Will? The answer is… maybe. Here are the things you need to know about naming a caregiver as a beneficiary of a Trust or Will in California: When a Caregiver is Named as a Beneficiary of a Trust or Will, A […]
In California, a printed Will (that is any will that comes out of a printer) must be signed by the person creating it, and by two witnesses. If the Will is not signed by two witnesses, then it is invalid. Many people think they can have the Will notarized, but notarization does nothing to validate […]
Many times clients will tell us that their mom, dad, grandmother, whomever would never have disinherited them and everybody knows that to be true. Why isn’t that enough to overturn a Trust or Will? The answer lies in the type of evidence you must provide to the court if you want the court to overturn […]
One of the benefits to hiring an attorney or law firm on a contingency fee basis is payment of the out-of-pocket costs. A contingency fee agreement is one where the attorneys agree to represent the client in return for receiving a percentage of the amount recovered for the client. For example, if the attorney recovers […]
Statutes of limitations are the deadlines by which you must file a lawsuit. We are seeing more and more people miss the filing deadline in the California Trust and Will Litigation arena. We think the reason this is occurring is because the statutes of limitations for Trust and Will issues are complicated. There is not […]
Under California financial elder abuse law, you must prove four elements to establish undue influence: (1) vulnerability of the victim, (2) apparent authority of the wrongdoer, (3) actions and tactics of the wrongdoer, and (4) an inequitable result. Two of these elements stand out over the rest: vulnerability and actions and tactics. Actions and tactics refers […]
The most difficult undue influence cases in California occurs when you want to take action while your parent is still alive. You may believe that your parent is being victimized by a wrongdoer through the use of undue influence, but taking action is complicated. We refer to these cases as the difficult, can’t miss undue influence […]
