Estate Administration at a Death

When someone passes away, legal action is necessary. If the deceased person had a trust, we can help with trust administration. We can also determine whether a probate might be necessary.

Trust Administration

Has your spouse passed away and left you as sole trustee? Are you the successor trustee of your parents’ trust? We assist successor trustees in the administration of living trusts after a death. We will help you determine whether a federal estate tax return must be filed with the Internal Revenue Service, and we will advise you of your fiduciary duties as trustee. If you are a surviving spouse, you may have to divide the trust assets between an “A” trust and a “B” trust, and we will assist you with this process. If the trust provides for the distribution of assets to beneficiaries, we will guide you in the steps required to render accountings to the beneficiaries, if necessary, and gather and distribute assets as quickly and efficiently as possible.

We bill trustees on an hourly basis for assisting them with trust administration. Many of our trustee clients prefer to do the work necessary to gather and claim financial assets themselves and thus reduce attorney fees. We do highly recommend that our firm prepare deeds to transfer real estate to beneficiaries.

Probate

If a deceased person did not establish a revocable “living” trust, or did not properly fund the living trust, a court supervised probate may be necessary to transfer the assets to the beneficiaries. Our office is very experienced in handling court probates and we take pride in finishing probates as quickly as possible. We can evaluate your situation and advise you whether or not a probate is needed to distribute assets to beneficiaries.

We can handle probates in any county in California.