Estate Planning & Living Trusts · Ventura County, California
Everything you own should go to the people you love. Not the court. Not the lawyers. Not a stranger.
Probate pays lawyers a percentage of everything you own and puts your family’s inheritance in a public court file for 12 to 18 months. A flat-fee living trust, built and funded in four weeks, ends that conversation before it starts.
Most trusts end at the signing table. Yours starts there.
(Not ready to talk? See if your current plan would actually work.)
Three steps. That’s the whole plan.
A free thirty-minute call.
We design the plan and move your home and accounts into it — our five-meeting process.
When you’re gone, your family’s whole job is one phone call.
A will does not
keep your family out of court.
Most people find that out too late. You’ve done everything else right — and this is the one thing still undone. In California, when there is no working plan, families do not sort it out at the kitchen table — they go to probate. It is slow, the fees are set by statute, and it all happens in a public courtroom. The statutory fees on a $1,000,000 estate come to about $46,000 — and around here, the house alone gets you most of the way to a million. The 401(k) and the brokerage account stack on top. Add a year or more before your family can touch any of it. Probate is also a public record. Anyone — a neighbor, a salesman, a distant relative — can pull the file and read what you owned and who received it. A trust settles in private.
The truly wealthy already have lawyers for this. The families who get hurt are the ones in between — a paid-off house in Camarillo or Westlake Village, a 401(k), a brokerage account, maybe a rental. Enough to trigger a full probate. Not enough that anyone was watching.
And probate is only the half that comes after you die. The other half comes while you are still here — a stroke, a fall, a long illness — and without a plan that names who steps in, a court decides who runs your money and your care.
If you’ve been meaning to handle this for years, and you’re not sure the documents in the drawer would even work, you’re exactly who I built this practice for.
A family shouldn’t need a judge’s permission to keep its own house. The only part you control is whether the plan exists before you need it.
Keep your family out of probate court.
A plan that works moves assets the moment they need to move — without permission from a judge, without a public docket, without statutory fees.
Name who steps in if you cannot.
Incapacity is the half of the conversation no one wants. Your plan should name, in advance, who manages the accounts, the property, and your care.
Keep a hand on the wheel after you’re gone.
A plan decides not just who inherits, but how and when. A share can be held for the child who isn’t ready, or shielded from a divorce or a creditor, so the money lands where you meant it to.
Why does a plan like this hold? Because it was built to be tested — a plan that survives contact with grief, family conflict, and the courthouse, not just the day you sign it.
Out of court, someone you chose in charge, the money landing where you meant it — that is the whole job. I will tell you what you need, what you do not, and why — then build it so it actually works. — Eric Ridley, on his practice
My father died thinking he had it handled — a will, a trust, and thirty years of work behind them. It didn’t protect anyone. Thirty years of his work walked out the door with a stranger. That is why I build plans that hold when your family needs them, instead of a binder that only looks like one.
An honest
number.
$4,100 for a married couple. $3,700 for one person. That covers the trust, the will, the incapacity documents, the deed that moves your California home into the trust, and the funding work tracked to completion — the part most attorneys hand back to you. That fee also buys you lifetime access to me — call anytime, no hourly meter. If you have a CPA or financial advisor, I work with them directly — account retitling and beneficiary changes get done in one pass, not handed back to you as homework.
That number fits a family with one California home. A second property, a business or a rental held in an LLC, a child with special needs, or children from a prior marriage takes more drafting. That describes a lot of the families I work with. If that’s you, nothing changes about the process: you’ll have the full number in writing before any work starts. Every fee is published in writing.
For comparison, probate — the court process a funded trust prevents — costs your family about $46,000 in statutory fees on a $1,000,000 estate, calculated on the gross value. On a $2,000,000 estate, the statutory fees come to about $66,000. A mortgage does not reduce it. Run your own number with the probate calculator.
(Federal estate tax doesn’t reach most families under $15 million. What actually costs families like yours is probate, Prop 19, and a trust nobody funded.)
I’m not the cheapest way to get a trust. An online form is cheaper, right up until nobody moves the house into it.
A focused practice.
Four things, done well.
The questions
families ask first.
Not ready to talk?See if your current plan would actually work
Five meetings, then
a plan that keeps working.
- I.The ConversationWhere you tell me about your family and what you’re planning for. No documents drafted.
- II.Asset ReviewA full inventory of what there actually is to plan around.
- III.The DesignA written plan in plain language, before any legal documents are drawn.
- IV.Final ReviewThe documents read line by line, with you.
- V.The SigningExecuted, witnessed, notary provided — where most attorneys stop.
Then the part most plans skip: I move the assets into the trust — deeds re-titled, the Schwab and Fidelity accounts re-registered, beneficiaries aligned — and we sit again every three years to keep it current. A plan that is not funded is just a binder.
What done
feels like.
Every account has a destination. The deed is recorded, the house is in the trust, and the person you chose — not a judge — takes the wheel if you can’t drive. If the day comes, your children’s entire job is one phone call, to a lawyer who already knows them. Your CPA and your advisor each have the trust certificate on file, so nothing stalls at tax time or at the brokerage.
If you have ever had to settle an estate yourself, you know exactly what that is worth. If you haven’t, take my word for it: it is everything.
You become the parent who finished it.
Get it off your list.
In their
own words.
After meeting with several firms, I felt that Eric was the most forthright and upfront about the whole process. He and his team are patient, informative, and helpful. A great experience all around.
“Eric came highly-referred from a trusted CPA. I chose Eric for his comprehensive approach to estate planning… the tax implications, how to protect assets and deciding how to proceed in different scenarios of illness and/or incapacitation.”
“Eric and Spencer took my hand and walked me through the process of building my trust, and to the finish line. They were always available to answer all my questions. I’m happy I picked Ridley Law, and you will too.”
“Unlike other attorneys I’ve encountered, Eric genuinely puts people before paperwork. His personalized approach made us feel confident and at ease throughout the entire process.”
Begin the
conversation.
The first call is unhurried, and there is no fee for it. I’ll tell you whether you need me, what a working plan looks like for your family, and what it would cost — before you decide anything.
I’d rather be useful to someone who doesn’t hire me than sell a plan to someone who wasn’t sure they needed it.
(Not ready to talk? See if your current plan would actually work.)