Resources
Resources
Everything here is meant to be useful before you ever call us. Start with the free guide library, run your own numbers with the tools, and go to the California resources when you need the official source.
Start here: help by situation
If you are in the middle of something right now, start with the guide for your situation rather than hunting through the library. Each one tells you what has a deadline, what does not, and when you do not need a lawyer at all.
- Caring for an aging parent: the authority you actually have, what to do before capacity is gone, and the Medi-Cal rules that changed in January 2026.
- New and young parents: naming a guardian, and the beneficiary designation mistake that undoes everything else.
- After someone dies: what actually has a deadline, whether you need probate, and the Proposition 19 clock on an inherited home.
See all three, plus local resources
Free guide library
Thirty plain-English guides on probate costs, trust funding, successor-trustee duties, and more. Pick the ones that fit your situation, tell us where to send them, and they arrive by email, free, no follow-up calls unless you ask for one.
Before anything happens
A Clear Explanation of Wills and Trusts
What a will really does, what a trust really does, and who honestly doesn't need one. The plain-English starting point for a California estate plan.
The 7 Estate Planning Mistakes That Destroy California Families
The seven mistakes that cause most probate-court damage, what each costs, and how to shut them down.
Gift, loan, or advance? Label the help in writing before it becomes an inheritance fight.
The Blended Family Estate Plan
California's defaults were written for first marriages. Pick who's protected on purpose.
If you died on Tuesday, who lawfully signs payroll on Friday? The short list that keeps the doors open.
You can leave someone out. The difference between clean and a courtroom is doing it the way the law recognizes.
Estate fights are rarely about money. They're about surprise. One honest conversation prevents most of them.
The New Parent Guardianship Kit
Who raises your kids if you can't? Name them properly, in the right document, before the court picks for you.
Leaving Money to a Child on Benefits
An outright inheritance can cut off SSI and Medi-Cal. How special needs trusts keep the benefits and the money.
Estate Planning for Unmarried Couples
California gives your partner nothing by default. The documents that protect each other on purpose.
The legal moves to make at the first signs of decline, while every option is still open.
After a death
The First 30 Days After a Death
Almost nothing has to happen this week. What actually needs doing, in order, and what to leave alone.
The Heggstad Rescue: When an Asset Never Made It Into the Trust
When a house or account never made it into the trust, a court petition can finish the job without probate.
The Successor Trustee's First 90 Days
You're the trustee now. The notices, deadlines, and first moves, in the order they're due.
How to Administer a California Special Needs Trust
You're the trustee now. What the trust can safely pay for, what quietly costs SSI dollars, and the one thing you never do.
Under $208,850, California lets you skip probate with an affidavit. The forms, the waiting periods, the steps.
Selling a House in a Trust or Estate
Who signs, what escrow needs, and the tax clock that starts at death. The playbook for both situations.
What Probate Actually Costs in California
Statutory fees on the gross estate, the timeline, and the math that makes trusts pay for themselves.
Do You Get Paid? Executor and Trustee Compensation
Yes, you're entitled to be paid. How much, and whether to take it, is a tax question worth thinking through.
The plan you already have
Amendment or Restatement? The Right Way to Change Your Trust
Patch small, rebuild big. How to tell which change your trust actually needs.
The Beneficiary Designation Audit
The form you signed the day you opened the account outranks your will. Check every one in an afternoon.
The Estate Plan Review Scorecard
Grade your plan against ten questions in ten minutes. Find out if it still does what you paid for.
The Capacity Window: Trust Changes After a Dementia Diagnosis
What your family can still change after a dementia diagnosis, and how to make it stick.
New to California: Does Your Old Estate Plan Still Work?
Your out-of-state documents are probably valid here and probably wrong here. What community property changes.
The 12 Defects We Find in Online Trusts
The specific failures we see in DIY and online trusts, and how to check yours for each one.
The mandatory split that saved estate tax in 2005 may be costing your family capital gains today.
An unfunded trust is an expensive stack of paper. Every asset type, and exactly how each gets retitled.
What a Trust Won't Protect You From
Living trusts are oversold. What yours actually does, what it doesn't, and what fills each gap.
Money, tax & property
The 10-year rule turned inherited IRAs into a tax planning problem. Map your withdrawals before the deadline maps them for you.
Does Your Rental Really Need an LLC?
The honest math on LLCs for California landlords, and what actually protects most families.
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Articles
Asset Protection by Profession
Which of California’s five real asset protection tools work for physicians, real estate investors, business owners, tech founders, contractors, and attorneys.
Tools & calculators
Free interactive tools that apply current California law to your numbers. Try any of them, or see the full tools page.
- Probate Cost Calculator: enter an estate value and see the exact statutory attorney and executor fees a full probate would cost.
- Successor Trustee Timeline: enter the date of death and get a personalized calendar of every California trust-administration deadline.
- Trust Funding Tracker: select your assets and get a personalized checklist showing which ones are inside the trust and which still need retitling.
- Inherited IRA Calculator: find out whether you face the 10-year rule or can stretch distributions over your lifetime.
- Community Property Tracer: classify each asset as community or separate property and see how it affects your estate plan.
- Estate Tax Exposure Check: model your estate at today’s $15 million exemption and at a possible $7 million sunset.
- Power of Attorney Audit: answer 10 questions and find out whether your POA has gaps that could leave your family stuck in court.
- Beneficiary Designation Audit: enter your accounts and see whether an ex-spouse, a minor, or a missing name could override your estate plan.
- 44-Point Trust Checkup: answer questions about your current plan and find out whether it still does what you paid for.
- Trust Health Check: a deeper diagnostic for funding gaps, outdated designations, and missing powers of attorney.
- Prop 19 Calculator: enter inherited property details and see whether a tax reassessment will apply under Proposition 19.
- Do You Need Probate?: check asset values against California’s current thresholds and find out if the estate can skip court.
California resources
Official sources we point clients to. These are government pages, not ours. Bookmark them for the forms, filing rules, and benefit details straight from the source.
- California Courts: Probate self-help: forms, procedures, and what to expect if an estate goes through probate court.
- Ventura County Superior Court: Probate Division: local filing information and forms for Ventura County matters.
- Los Angeles Superior Court: Probate Division: filing and hearing information for probate in Los Angeles County.
- California State Bar: attorney search: confirm any lawyer’s license and disciplinary record before you hire.
- California DHCS: Medi-Cal: eligibility and long-term-care rules that matter for special-needs and asset-protection planning.
- Social Security: survivors benefits: what a surviving spouse or child is entitled to, and how to claim it.
- California Secretary of State: Advance Health Care Directive Registry: register your health care directive so hospitals can find it.
Want a straight read on where you stand?
Talk to Eric. A free 30-minute call, no pitch. He’ll tell you where you’re exposed, what it would cost to fix, and what you can skip.
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