A Plan That’s Actually Finished

If you already have a binder on a shelf and no real idea whether it would actually work, you’re not the exception. You’re the norm. Most estate plans don’t fail in the drafting. They fail after the signing: the trust never gets funded, the deed never gets recorded, and the binder goes on a shelf looking finished when it isn’t.

The end state is simple: every account has a destination, and if the day comes, your family’s whole job is one phone call. I built this process so that’s what you actually get. Three steps. Five meetings inside them. Nothing skipped: including the part most attorneys hand back to you: moving your home and accounts into the trust before I close your file.

Most families go from first call to signed and funded in about four weeks. Here is exactly what happens, in the order it happens.

Step 1 · Talk

I. The Conversation

An unhurried first meeting, in person or by video, to understand your family, your assets, and the moments you are actually planning for. No documents are drafted in this room. Thirty minutes, no fee, and I’ll tell you whether you even need a trust. If you don’t, I’ll say so.

Talk to Eric

Step 2 · Build

II. Asset Review

A full inventory of what is actually there to plan around: accounts, real property, beneficiaries, insurance, business interests. The plan only works if it is built on what you actually own, so we document all of it before anything gets designed.

III. The Design

A written plan, in plain language, before any legal documents are drawn. You see exactly how the plan moves when it has to move, and where the old plan would have failed. This is also where you get the flat fee, quoted up front and in writing: $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 fee doesn’t change.

IV. Final Review

The drafted documents read together, line by line, with you in the room. We coordinate which assets move into the trust, and exactly how, so nothing is left to discover later.

V. The Signing

The documents executed, the people named, the language witnessed. In person, notary provided. This is the meeting most attorneys treat as the finish line, and where, for most of them, the work ends. For most families, the signing lands about four weeks after that first call.

Ready when you are? Talk to Eric.

Step 3 · Finish, where most plans fail

An unfunded trust doesn’t just underperform. It fails. The house still goes through probate: roughly $46,000 in fees on a $1M home and a year or more in court, for a plan you already paid for. Finishing the funding is the difference between a binder and a working plan.

Proper Funding

We move the assets into the trust: deeds re-titled, accounts re-registered, beneficiaries aligned. A plan that is not funded is a binder. An unfunded trust sends your family to probate anyway. You paid for the trust, and probate on a Ventura or Los Angeles County house still costs your family about $46,000. This is the work that most attorneys hand back to the client and most clients never finish. Here it is included, and tracked to completion: the house retitled by me, every account moved or confirmed before I close your file.

The Standing Review

Every three years, while we work together, we sit again: to update for new assets, new beneficiaries, new law, and the moments life has actually delivered. A plan is finished when it would still work today.

What you get at the end

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 family’s whole job is one phone call, to a lawyer who already knows them.

The first call is free, thirty minutes, and unhurried. 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. Talk to Eric

Process FAQs

How long does the whole process take?

For most families, about four weeks from the first call to a signed, funded plan. Simple situations move faster; if there’s real estate in another state, a business to work around, or travel to coordinate, it can run a little longer. The funding step, moving your home and accounts into the trust, continues after signing until everything is actually retitled, because that’s the part that makes the plan work.

What happens if I already have a trust?

We start by reading what you have. Often the document itself is fine but was never funded, the house was never deeded in, so the fix is finishing the funding, not starting over. When the trust is genuinely out of date or was built wrong, I restate it (a full rewrite that keeps your trust’s original name and date) for the same flat fee as a new trust. Either way, you’ll know which situation you’re in before you decide anything.

Do you really move my accounts into the trust?

Yes. I prepare and record the deed that moves your California home into the trust, and I give you account-by-account instructions and confirm each transfer before I close your file. Funding is the step most attorneys hand back to the client: here it’s included and tracked to completion, because an unfunded trust sends your family to probate anyway.

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