Estate Planning

Last Chance to Prevent Property Tax Reassessment for the Kids

Effective February 16, 2021, most parent-child gifts of real estate will be subject to reassessment thanks to Proposition 19. Subject to limitations, only the parent’s principal residence or farm will be excluded from reassessment if (and that’s a big if!)…

Trust Revocation Wordplay

There’s an old saying that remodeling a home is like pulling a loose string on a sweater—go too far, and it all unravels. Robert Cundall, John Martin, and Frances Diaz were neighbors and friends before things fell apart. In 2008,…

Timothy Disregards Dad’s Magic Words

Before he died in 1992, Norbert Eimer set up a family trust. Upon his and his wife’s death, everything was to go to their kids. A Power of Appointment allowed each child to pass on their inheritance to others through…

Chess black stands on chess board against the light source with shadow reflected on chess board.

Dad’s Last Wishes Survive Tammy’s Last Stand

Frank and Louise Gomez’s love story sounds like something out of Hollywood. He proposed, she accepted. Yet before they could marry, Frank gets called up to go to war. Fearing that he may not return from Korea, Frank calls off…

Listen to Dolly: Get Your Empire in Order

We may always love her—but Dolly Parton is preparing for a world without her in it. At 74, the seemingly immortal country icon may be more popular than at any time in her 50-plus-year career, appearing everywhere from inspiring pandemic…

Trustee Has Consumer Credit Protections

After her sister Lou died, it fell to Maxine Gilliam to take care of her niece. Maxine became the successor trustee and took on the most rigorous fiduciary duties known to the law. The vast responsibilities of the job included…

Greedy Nephew Loses With Last Minute Power of Attorney for Life Insurance

A routine doctor’s appointment started it all for the family. During an exam, Ray Razo was told he had a serious condition and sent directly to a hospital for emergency tests. They learned he had the unthinkable: stage 4 pancreatic…

Protect Your Assets from Untrustworthy Trustees

The five children whose fathers died in a 2008 explosion at the Imperial Sugar Refinery in Port Wentworth, Pennsylvania suffered the grief of losing a parent. Sacked Chatham County Probate Court clerk Kim Birge added financial salt to their emotional…

Grandson Had a Right to Notice That He Got the Heave-Ho

McKie Roth died in 1988 with a will that established a trust for his wife, Yvonne. Upon her death, the trustee was to distribute twenty-five percent of the trust assets to her son from a prior marriage and twenty-five percent…

Utah Sister Has No Standing in Sibling Rivalry

Grethe Jensen had two daughters, Kari in California and Trine in Utah. Kari urged her 89-year-old mother to sell her house and buy a place jointly with Kari in Ventura so that Kari could care for her. Things soon went…

Court Refused to Buy Estate’s Dirty Art Valuation

The Estate of Eva Franzen Kohlman included two Old Master paintings, Village Kermesse with Dance Around the Maypole (“Maypole”) and Orpheus Charming the Animals. Both were filthy on the day of death. The Estate’s expert appraiser, George Wachter, claimed that the dirt…

Kids Prevail Over Christian School, Church, Ole Miss, and Boykin Spaniels

Barry Blackburn was fighting late-stage cancer when he asked his aide for a will to preserve his “family legacy”: hundreds of acres of farmland and lakefront properties in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee that had been in the Blackburn family since…

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