Planning for your children
At Hayden Adams Law one of our areas of greatest expertise is in planning for the well-being and care of the children you love. Unfortunately having a will alone simply does not ensure the care of your kids if the unthinkable happens to you. So let us help you create a Kids Protection Plan®.
A Kids Protection Plan is a set of instructions, legal documents and even an ID card for your wallet, which you need to have if you have kids at home who count on you for their well-being and care. If you are in an accident, your Kids Protection Plan will make sure your children are never taken into the custody of Child Protective Services, strangers or the care of anyone you wouldn’t want because the authorities don't have clear instructions from you. And your Kids Protection Plan will ensure your children are raised by people you choose, not someone chosen by a Judge who doesn’t know you.
Without advance legal planning for the care of your children, if the unthinkable happens to you, here’s what could happen:
Your children could be placed into the care of Child Protective Services (yes, even if you have a will in place and even if you have a living trust) and, yes, it would very likely only be temporary, but trust us, you never want your children in the arms of strangers. Not even for a minute.
Your children could be put into the custody and care of someone you would never want, like that one family member who has good intentions, but you’d never want raising your kids.
A judge who doesn’t know you, or your family, will decide who will raise your kids, even if it’s the last person you would ever want.
Your family could get into a long, drawn out custody fight or there could be a challenge to the guardians you have designated.
Up to 5% or more of the value of your assets could be lost to court costs and other unnecessary fees through the probate process. A court process that can tie up your assets for years and deprive your kids of the resources they need to live comfortably, which can totally be avoided with advance legal planning.
Asset Protection Planning
Nobody expects to be sued. Just ask the 20 million people involved in lawsuits last year.
Divorce, inheritance, health issues, creditors, employees, theft, changing markets, malpractice suits, sexual harassment claims, natural disasters and disgruntled business partners are just a few issues that can result in devastating lawsuits for unprepared business owners. The highest level of risk falls on those who think they are immune.
That’s where we come in. We can set up your business and life structures to ensure that you can take maximum risk with minimum worry. We assist our clients in determining the appropriate level of asset protection planning for their particular circumstances.
We will consider insurance, prenuptial agreements, asset segregation, choice of jurisdiction, gifting, LLCs, partnerships, corporations, and asset protection trusts. Customized combinations are layered depending on the needs of the client and as appropriate. There are many different strategies to accomplish the protection of your assets while you are alive and after you are gone. To find out which strategies may be right for you, contact us for a Family Wealth Planning Session.
Probate
Probate in California is a court-supervised procedure that helps to ensure the legal transfer of assets from the deceased to the rightful heirs or beneficiaries. Probate is also necessary to:
Prove the validity of the will
Appoint someone to manage the estate (The “administrator” if there is no will or the “executor” if there is one)
Inventory and appraise the estate property
Pay any debts, including credit cards, utilities, loans, and even repayment to Medi-Cal for payments made for hospital and medical expenses.
Pay any taxes, including income taxes, property taxes and estate taxes.
Distribute the property as directed by the will—or by the state law if there is no will
In California if someone has $184,500 in total assets or real property valued over $61,500, they will probably have to have their assets probated.
The easiest way to avoid the probate process is to plan; but if you are now in a situation where you must go through probate courts to finalize the estate of a loved one, the best thing you can do is get educated and get help to complete the process as quickly, and cost-effectively, as possible.
Planning for Everyone You Love
Do you know what would happen legally to you, your loved ones, your money and everything else you care about if something unexpected happened to you?
If you don’t know exactly what would happen for everyone you love and everything you own, then the first step is to find out exactly what would happen, legally and financially, so that you can decide if the current state of your affairs is okay with you.
If you are a family with young children, then your estate plan should begin with a foundation that ensures your children would always be taken care of, no matter what happens.
We conduct a Family Wealth Planning Session, where we spend time together and you’ll get informed. Before your Family Wealth Planning Session, you will complete a Family Wealth Inventory and Assessment, which will help you to get clear about what you own and what you have to think about when it comes to planning for the well-being and care of your loved ones and loved belongings.
If you decide the current state of affairs is unacceptable, then we can design an estate plan together that will best suit the needs of your family. The foundation of your estate plan will often include a revocable living trust; you transfer your property into this trust for your benefit during your life. One of the benefits of a revocable living trust is that, when done correctly and maintained over time, your estate plan should help your family to avoid the cost and delay of probate and minimize or eliminate estate taxes.
Our Personal Family Lawyer® at Hayden Adams Law will educate you, take the time to get to know you, your family, your concerns, your goals and your issues and will gladly and patiently answer all your questions to produce an estate plan that is exactly right for you and will keep your loved ones out of court and out of conflict.
Estate Tax Protection
You work your entire life to save and have enough money to comfortably retire—and ideally leave something for your loved ones when you pass away. During your life, you pay all kinds of taxes: income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and so on. And at the end, the government even wants to tax you on the assets you have left at your death. This is known as the estate tax, sometimes called the inheritance tax or death tax.
The best way to protect your assets and your family’s future from excessive taxation is to hire an attorney who specializes in estate tax planning. We can help you reduce—if not entirely avoid—the federal estate tax burden.
The estate tax is totally separate from federal income taxes and is paid on the net value of all your assets owned at your death. However, at the moment there are fairly sizable exemptions to the estate tax, so it’s primarily high net-worth individuals and their families who are affected.
Trust and estate administration
When a loved one dies it can be a confusing time in which you are in immense grief while also needing to make sure you handle all the technical details of locating assets, paying bills and making sure your loved one’s assets get to the right people, without conflict.
At Hayden Adams Law, we work closely with the family, beneficiaries, and other advisors to ensure the decedent's trust assets are collected, debts are paid, and the remaining assets are distributed to the named trust beneficiaries, or to the heirs of the estate.
Depending on the type of trust involved, assets may be distributed outright to the named beneficiaries, or they might be held in trust for the future benefit of the named beneficiaries. If there is no trust, assets will either be distributed outright to heirs named in a will, or by statute, or held by a guardian named by the court until an heir reaches the age of majority.
During this time, we may also need to have appraisals of major assets completed in order to get a clear picture of what the decedent's net worth was for estate tax purposes. Additionally, the title of trust or other estate assets may need to be changed to indicate new ownership by the named beneficiary outright or under a continuing trust.
All of this can be hugely complicated and time consuming, but our trust and estate administration lawyers will transfer assets as quickly and smoothly as possible, resolve outstanding issues, and ensure that everything occurs within the applicable legal deadlines.
Conservatorship & Adult Guardianship
Whether through illness, injury, or mental decline, anyone can require a guardian (also known as a conservator) to care for them if they become mentally or physically incapacitated. Unless the person has the proper estate planning in place that names a guardian, guardianship must be established through county probate court. At Hayden Adams Law, we can provide you with a guardianship/ conservatorship attorney to guide you through this often complex and emotional process.
Although courts typically give preference to a spouse or another close family member, a guardian doesn’t have to be a relative. Provided the person is a competent adult, a close friend, or any other interested party can serve as long as they prove they’re best suited for the position.
If a relative or friend is not willing—or capable—of serving, the court will appoint a professional guardian or public guardian. Sadly, this can lead to horrible financial and/or physical abuse of the incapacitated, so it’s best to plan ahead and name a guardian in your estate planning documents to keep courts out of the picture entirely.