Wealth Planning & Family Transfers

As you build wealth for yourself and your loved ones, you want to ensure your family is well-taken care of in the future. Many of us know the risks of families having great disputes over their deceased parents’ estates.

To avoid these unfortunate and often avoidable fights from happening to your family, it is critical to work with an experienced, proven estate and probate lawyer. This is especially true within California’s very complex trust and probate laws.

It is essential to get competent advice about estate planning. Below are some common topics your attorney might discuss:

Estate Tax

The estate tax is a financial charge on a person’s net worth when the person dies. Each person has an exemption (an amount that can pass free of estate tax). Everything above the exemption is subject to tax. An experienced and trustworthy attorney will consult with their clients with all probate and trust administration aspects. We will also help fiduciaries with tax activities for estates.

Gift Tax

Gift tax is a tax on the value of property transferred by an individual who receives less than fair value in return. Gift tax applies to transfers of any type of property.

Family Businesses

For family business owners, it is crucial to prepare a business succession plan to continue the family’s income and business success. Special attention should be paid to preventing conflict that could hamper a business’ ability to continue operations after you die. A business succession plan can be drafted in various ways, and a reliable attorney will be more than happy to assist you every step of the way.

woman inserting a coin in her small piggy bank

Real Property

Real property, or real estate, can be a source of income and security. After your death, real estate can be a benefit or a burden to your family. Beneficiaries may fight to keep or liquidate a specific property. A lawyer can help to ensure your real property will be correctly directed.

How a Lawyer can Help

If you are looking for an estate planning attorney in Sunnyvale, a North San Jose Estate Planning law firm, or the sort, Contact Keyes Law Group, PC. They offer free 30-minute consultations. And with over a decade of experience in this type of law, you will be in great hands.

Strategies to protect my loved ones

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There are a lot of different strategies.

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The most important one is to realize that the law does not provide financial

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security to others. The law only provides transfers of money.

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If you’re looking at financial security,

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there are a lot of features that go into that. You have to ask what,

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are the needs of the individual involved? Not just financial needs,

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but control needs.

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I’ve had many situations where a beneficiary should not receive money because

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they will spend it no matter what. Well, in that situation,

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the financial security is appointing an appropriate fiduciary,

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an appropriate trustee, to manage the money for that person.

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Another situation might be that financial security means that you are providing

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a temporary benefit for one person, but giving the assets to someone else

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when that person dies.

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Maybe there’s a second marriage and the husband wants to give,

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wants to allow his wife to live in the home until she dies,

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and then give it to the children. There’s another tool for that.

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So the most important thing is to understand when you’re looking at financial

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security, what are the needs that you’re trying to satisfy?

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And then ask your estate planner, how do I fit that mold?

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Our firm does 18 different types of trusts. That’s a lot.

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But a trust is simply a tool.

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A trust is a tool to control assets in the future when you are no longer able to

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make decisions for yourself. At that point,

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the specific mechanisms in that trust will provide the results that the tool is

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intended to provide. So we just need to use the right tool,

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in each of those situations.

How can I protect my assets from potential creditors and legal claims?

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Unfortunately in California,

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you cannot protect your own assets from creditors and legal claims.

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in the future. You can do that in other states. In California,

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you can protect children and a younger generation.

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So a lot of the parents who we represent set up something called a dynasty

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trust. And if you were to use a specific legal parlance or, or legal definition,

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it would be called a generation skipping transfer tax trust. It’s maybe too,

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too technical, but that trust will protect a child from loss from a divorce,

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as well as lost accreditors if assets are received directly to that trust rather

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than given to the child.

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So you might imagine that a husband and a wife who have two children might give

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assets directly to their children after they pass away. Rather than doing that,

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a lot of our clients create dynasty trust for their children so that when the

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assets go into that trust, the child is the only beneficiary.

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The child is the only recipient.

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The child is the only one who can receive the assets. But if there’s a creditor,

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then the creditor cannot break into that trust easily because it protects the

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children. But to circle back to your specific question,

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how do I as an individual protect my assets from creditors? In California,

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it’s not possible. You can do that in other states. Alaska, Nevada,

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South Dakota, Delaware, Texas,

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all have specific ways that you can protect your own assets from your own

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creditors. But it’s expensive, difficult. So unless you have a lot to work with,

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it might not be financially feasible.