 My name is Rod Niorosco, and we're in the studio. And I'm talking with Raquel Silva, family, law, and estate planning. I get that right? You did. So there's lots of questions. The first one I want to ask is, is it true I can write a napkin? I'm sorry, I can write a will on a napkin. It is absolutely true. So in the state of California, you can create what's called a holographic will. It used to be called a poor person's will or a poor man's will before we went a little gender politically correct. And basically, you can write your own will as long as the entire document is in your own handwriting. You don't need it notarized. You don't need it witnessed. You do need to sign it. And that is a valid will in the state of California. So what the key is, it has to be my handwriting, right? That's correct. So if I were to print one out, go online and print one out, and then sign it, that wouldn't be valid. That is not valid. It has to be entirely in your handwriting. And the reason why is that if anyone disputes that this is your will, it can be verified by a handwriting expert. So I can go right now on a piece of paper and envelope and say, will and testimony, and that's going to fly? Absolutely. All right, so then you mentioned that if I were to print it out and then do it, that wouldn't work. That wouldn't work. And what I find in my practice is lots of people will get a statutory will form or another sort of self-help will format. They'll type it up on their computer or print it out. And they think that it's valid once it's notarized. And actually that's wrong. In the state of California, wills have to be witnessed. And it's pretty complicated if you don't really understand the process. So in order for it to be properly witnessed, you print out your will, you filled it in with all of your terms and conditions, who you want to be your executor, who you want to get your property. And this is the printed out form. This is the printed out form. And then you need two witnesses who are over the age of 18 and not named in your will to witness it with you. And everybody has to be in the same room. So as I'm signing my will, my witnesses are both watching me sign it. And then the witnesses are also signing it with their name and their address where they're living, current address. And they're watching each other sign it. So this is why it gets most complicated. And many times people think they have done a valid will with a notary, or maybe that they've had it witnessed, but they didn't have both people in the room watching each other sign. And a will can fail for validity in the eyes of the court. So if I did that will from a print out on the internet and I had those two people sign it, does it still need to be notarized? For some reason notary is like magic to me. Right, it does not. Wills actually are not notarized, which is really bizarre and confusing to most people, but they're not. The documents that need to be notarized would be things like if you were to create a revocable trust, that document is notarized. If you were to create a power of attorney either for financial or for healthcare decisions, those have to be notarized. So then why would I want a revocable trust? You know, the difference between a will and a trust, besides being notarized, I know one is probate and one's not. Right, so most people that come into my office that own a home or have a substantial estate, that would be in a state over $150,000 growth. So in the state of California, if you own property, including real estate and money, cars, your furniture and furnishings with a gross value of under $150,000, you can avoid probate. You can have your estate distributed with your will without a probate matter. If it is above that limit, it requires probate action, which is very expensive and very time consuming. So you take the will, you take it to court and you ask the court to probate it, which is basically giving the court's blessing to distribute your estate. Most folks create a revocable trust. And a revocable trust is a document. You're creating this fictitious entity, this trust, and you're putting your assets in it. So upon your death, this fictitious entity, your trust, can be distributed by your successor trustee. I think of it kind of like a corporation. So you have a corporation and you've created it. It's a fictitious entity. It has a CEO. It has a bunch of assets in the corporation. If the CEO dies, the corporation still continues on. A new CEO pops up to continue to run the business. Similarly, with a revocable trust, your successor trustee will step in and distribute your estate the way you want without court intervention. So I can go out, create a revocable trust and say, I want Daisy to be my trustee. Yes. And then everything will go to her upon my death. Well, if she's your trustee and your beneficiary, so you can have multiple people. So you have a successor trustee, which is the person that you've designated to handle all of your affairs, to make sure at the end of your life that the trust is administered correctly, that any tax returns are done that need to be done, those kind of things. And then Daisy can also be a beneficiary. But she has to be named the trust as beneficiary. Correct, correct. Or you can name a group of people that are your relatives for lack of a better word. So people can say, I give my entire estate to my issue, which is just another legal term for my children. And if one of my children... Give it to the Lord, like an issue. Issue, right. My children, or if one of my children has died but they have children, it could be your grandchildren. So it's kind of a succession line. But most people name specific people in their trust to receive their estate. They give charitable donations. They make provisions for people to be able to stay in a house for their lifetime, those kind of things. So again, the obvious question. So a trust, I'm not, I don't have to go to court. So if I have a trust, I'm listed as my parents, trustee and beneficiary. They die, I don't have to go to court. You don't have to go to court. The only time you would have to go to court, it's very rare, is if one of the beneficiaries or siblings or somebody can test the trust. Okay, so let's say, let's go down that road. So my parents have written the trust. I'm the only one to get a beneficiary and the trustee. And my siblings are out of it. Okay. My parents die. I go in and whatever. So I get a phone call from a teacher, say, hey, your brother wants to contest the trust. Okay. Okay. And it's on your brother to file a petition with the probate court. Right. And allege what is wrong with the estate. So some of the things, the most common things that we see are the estate planning documents. So the trust or the will was created when the person who signed it, who created it. In this instance, your parents didn't have capacity, meaning they were demented, they were senile, they had Alzheimer's, they fell and had a traumatic brain injury. Basically we're saying they didn't have a real understanding of what they were doing. Right. That's probably the most common cause of action or reason that people can test estate planning documents. The other reason is undue influence. So we see this where you've got someone who's pretty fragile and they're in a caregiver situation. So they're being cared for in their home by a caregiver or maybe some other place, a retirement community or assisted living place. And they become very close and connected with a caregiver and that person uses their influence to get them to sign over all their estate after their death to this person or even give them a power of attorney. Yeah. Right. Elder abuse is pretty, it can be pretty rampant. So I don't wanna go to probate, is that the bottom line? Maybe I do, maybe I don't, but in general, will you tell people, hey, you wanna avoid probate because so much can happen? Right. So I say for the most part, you absolutely wanna avoid probate. It's really time consuming and it costs a lot of money and it's very cumbersome. The times that you wouldn't avoid probate are if you have a situation where you actually want the court to oversee the distribution of your estate because maybe you don't have relatives or friends that you trust to really do the right thing or to follow through. Right. So sometimes we see that. Most people though have friends and relatives that they trust to do the right thing, to act financially appropriate, to make sure all the tax returns are filed, to make sure the proper legal notices are given. And by creating a trust, they can allow that person to distribute their estate privately without court intervention. And a pretty low cost. I mean, most of the time when I have a pretty basic trust administration, you know, the attorney fees are in the few thousand dollars. When you have a probate case, it's tens of thousands of dollars. Really? Just because of time involved, you're in court so often. And California has a statutory fee schedule for both the attorney and the executor based on the gross value of the estate. Really? So right now I have an estate that's worth a little over a million dollars gross. The woman who died did not finish her estate plan. And between my fee and the executor fee, that will eat in to about $50,000 of the estate. And that doesn't include the fees for the court or publication or the probate appraiser. It's very expensive. So even though a trust may cost you, you know, 1500 to $5,000 at the front end, depending on where you go and the level of expertise, front loading that cost really can save you, your family, a lot of money. I know we talked earlier about who she get a trust. So I mean, you think my parents, they're old as you get a trust. You also mentioned that someone who's 18 or 19 should get a trust or something that would allow someone other than the court to charge them. Can you explain that? So when your kids turn 18, in the eyes of the law, they're adults. And so if something happens to one of your kids and they have no estate planning documents in place, and when I say that, I'm talking about basic estate planning. So I'm talking about a basic will, a basic power of attorney for financial matters, and a basic, what we call advanced healthcare directive or financial, excuse me, power of attorney to make healthcare decisions. And you really want those documents in place. So imagine you send your child off to college, something terrible happens, they get very sick, they're in a coma. You need to have the legal authority to be able to manage their bills, contact, you know, maybe they need to leave their dorm, maybe you need to negotiate with the university about their tuition, maybe you need to pay their bills or deal with health insurance issues. So just me walking and saying, listen, I'm her dad, that's not gonna fly? Doesn't fly. Once they're over 18 doesn't fly. So. You want to make sure that any kid over the age of 18 has some basic estate planning documents in place. And really. So it's not about money, it's not that they're gonna have lots of money, it's just the fact that if you get sick or hurt or I need to take care of, like you said, the dorm room, I have to have the legal authority to do that. Right, so always a great idea. I have parents who come in and the gift to their kid on their 18th birthday is coming in to see me to get three documents prepared. And like I said, that is a basic will, a basic power of attorney for finances and an advanced health care directive. We're gonna go see an attorney. That's true love. I love this thing. And the kids are thrilled as you can imagine. No, it's just smart. It's just smart. It's just something you wouldn't think about. You said you can go to college, say, oh, have a good time. Right, exactly. Most parents don't. But when that unforeseen thing happens, something unfortunate happens, it's really vital to have those documents in place so that you can help out. You can step in. So we talked about kids. So what happens if your parents really old and can't function for themselves? I'm thinking of the word conservatorship because it pops into my head. Right, so we try to use the state planning documents to avoid conservatorship. So conservatorship is where the person who wants to be the conservator has to petition the court to say that an adult person no longer has the ability to take care of themselves. So it's really a cumbersome process. It's similar to a guardianship. You're coming in and saying this adult person can no longer take care of themselves. You have to provide proof that they've lost their capacity. And if you are gonna be in charge of taking care of their money or finances, you have to do yearly accountings. You can put that in a trust document though, right? Like if so-and-so becomes a capacitated. So actually you put it in your power of attorney for finances and you put it in your advanced healthcare directive. And both of those documents, you can nominate someone to be a conservator for you should you need that. If the documents that you've created with your lawyer or through us self-help, no low-press or something like that are valid and comprehensive, you don't need a conservatorship because you have nominated somebody who can pay all your bills. Sure, you've taken care of that. Who can make decisions for you with your doctor. So if you can give two or three words of wisdom besides hire an attorney about someone in a state plan, what would they be? And then hang on so I can interrupt you. And then there's a website we're gonna put up on screen right now that'll help. It's a state bar website and you need to look for legal help there. There it is. You're on. So the California state bar website has a ton of information. And it's free, right? It's free for the public. Including they have lots of pamphlets about everything with regard to trust, wills, estate planning. There's lots of other areas of law as well. You can email them. They will send you these pamphlets for free or all of these pamphlets are PDFs on the website. I highly recommend it. It's a very valuable tool for the public. And then also you can contact your local county bar association if you need a referral for an attorney to help you. I have many people who prepare all the documents themselves. They use, you know, willmaker or something like that. And then they will spend, you know, a half hour of my time or an hour of my time to review it and look over it and make sure it's okay. So you don't have to spend thousands on a lawyer to do this. There are resources out there. You can do it yourself. I didn't say that again. That's a great note to end on. You don't have to spend $1,000 on a lawyer. You can do it yourself. And it's fancy words, but really ultimately it's about information and empowering yourself to make the right decision. Does that sound good? It does sound good. Yeah. And everyone should have some basic estate planning in place, everybody. Thank you. And that's it. I want to thank Raquel Silva for being here and letting me bugger. And to you, go get information. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.