Estate Planning Lawyer in Sherman Oaks
Many people in their thirties and forties assume estate planning can wait until retirement. If you sign nothing, California law already decides who manages your affairs and who inherits what you own. An estate planning lawyer in Sherman Oaks can show you what that default plan looks like and whether it matches your life.
Consider a couple, both 38, who have lived together for eleven years and never married or registered as domestic partners. They rent now and are thinking about buying a home. They have signed no estate planning documents, and a series of ordinary events shows what a first plan would change.
Gold Law's office is located in Camarillo, and its clients include Sherman Oaks residents. A plan can begin whenever you are ready.
To discuss your own situation, call (805) 388-8800 and schedule an appointment with Gold Law.
What a First Plan Looks Like When a Sherman Oaks Estate Planning Lawyer Tests It Against a Hospital Stay
The first event is not a death. One partner is injured in a car accident and spends two weeks in the hospital, unable to speak for herself. Her partner arrives and finds that no document gives him authority over her care or her bank account. Gold Law's estate planning attorneys usually begin a first plan here, because a serious illness or injury can happen at any age.
Most first plans contain three or four documents. In a will, you choose the people who inherit and the person who settles your estate. With a durable power of attorney, you name the person who handles money matters during an incapacity. Your advance health care directive names a medical decision maker and puts your treatment preferences in writing. Some clients also need a trust, depending on what they own. For a renter with a savings account and a retirement account, those three documents often cover the essentials.
With those documents in place, the hospital stay unfolds differently. Her partner shows the directive to the care team and becomes the person they consult. He uses the power of attorney to pay the rent from her account while she recovers, and no one has to file anything in court.
Why the Health Care Directive Often Matters Before the Will Does
A will has no effect while you are alive. A directive works as soon as you cannot make or communicate decisions, which is why it often matters first. Naming an alternate agent is also important, since partners often travel together and could be hurt in the same event. Two documents in a first plan work while you are living, and each covers a different kind of decision.
What a California Advance Health Care Directive Lets You Decide
Probate Code section 4701 sets out an optional statutory form, and the statute says you are free to use a different form. The form has four parts. You can name a health care agent and alternates, give instructions about end of life treatment and pain relief, state your wishes about organ donation, and name a primary physician. You can complete all of those parts or only some of them.
Why Money Decisions Need a Separate Durable Power of Attorney
A health care agent does not control your bank account. A durable power of attorney does that job, and "durable" means it keeps working after you lose capacity. Without one, a partner may have to ask a court for authority to pay your rent or your bills. The document can state whether the agent's authority begins at signing or only after an incapacity, and Gold Law drafts powers of attorney to take effect when the client chooses.
When a Condo Purchase Pushes a First Plan Toward a Trust
Two years later, the couple buys a condo, and that purchase usually changes the recommendation. Real property is the asset most likely to require a court case when it is left in someone's name without a plan. A revocable living trust can hold the condo and name who receives it, and the couple can change it while both are alive. Our living trust lawyers explain whether the added document makes sense for your circumstances.
Signing the trust is only half the job. The condo must be deeded to the couple as trustees, and that deed must be recorded. Once it records, a successor trustee, the person named to take over the trust, can manage or transfer the condo after a death.
What California Intestacy Law Does to an Unmarried Partner and Why Sherman Oaks Attorneys Explain It Early
The second event is a death with no will. Intestate succession is the fixed order the state uses to distribute property when there is no will or trust. A surviving spouse or registered domestic partner receives a share first. The rest goes to children or, when there are none, to parents, siblings and more distant relatives in turn.
An unmarried partner who never registered does not appear anywhere in that order. Suppose one member of the couple dies with savings and a car in her own name. Although they shared expenses for eleven years, her property goes to her relatives under the statute, and her partner receives nothing through intestacy. A will naming him would have changed that result.
Intestacy reaches only what the person owned outright with no other instruction attached. An account that already names the partner as beneficiary still pays him, because the account form controls that asset.
How a Registered Domestic Partnership Changes the Analysis
A registered domestic partnership is a legal status, not a description of a relationship. Under Family Code section 297, the partnership exists only after both people file the state's declaration form with California's Secretary of State. Both must be at least 18, capable of consenting, not married to someone else or in another partnership, and not related in a way that would bar their marriage. Section 297.5 gives registered partners the same rights and duties as spouses, including after one partner dies. Gold Law does not advise anyone whether to register, but it does explain how registration changes the plan.
If the couple had registered, the surviving partner would stand where a spouse stands under the intestacy rules. His share would then depend on what kind of property she owned and which relatives survived her. A will still lets the couple set their own terms rather than relying on those rules.
What the Statute Does When There Is No Spouse and No Children
The California Courts glossary of probate terms calls intestate succession the order of who inherits when someone dies without a will. Probate Code section 6402 lists who inherits when there is no surviving spouse or registered partner. With no children or other descendants, the estate goes to the parents equally. If neither parent survives, it goes to the parents' descendants, which usually means brothers and sisters. After that, the statute moves to grandparents and their descendants, and then further out.
For this couple, her parents are alive, so under the statute they would inherit her savings and car. If her parents had already died, her sister would be next in line. Her partner does not appear at any step, however long they lived together.
Why a Long Relationship Does Not Create an Inheritance Right in California
The intestacy order depends on legal status rather than the length of a relationship. Family Code section 300 describes marriage as a personal relation arising from a civil contract between two people who consent. The statute says consent alone is not enough. A license must be issued and the marriage must be solemnized, subject to limited exceptions in the code. Under section 308, a marriage contracted outside California is valid here if it was valid where it was contracted. A couple who moved from another state should confirm how their relationship was treated there, since that answer affects which intestacy rules apply.
What Happens When No Relative Can Be Found
The statute keeps reaching outward, including to certain relatives of a predeceased spouse. Probate Code section 6404 says the escheat rules apply when no one qualifies to take the estate. Escheat means the property passes to the state. That result is rare, and a will that names a partner, a friend or a charity avoids it.
What Sherman Oaks Lawyers File When an Estate With No Will Reaches the Los Angeles Superior Court
Where Else in the Valley Our Sherman Oaks Estate Planning Lawyers Help People Build a First Plan
Get Your First Plan Questions Answered by an Estate Planning Lawyer in Sherman Oaks
You do not need a large estate or a crisis to start. A first plan names the people you trust and replaces the state's default choices with your own. Gold Law explains each document in plain terms before you sign it. You can take the drafts home, read them at your own pace and return with questions before anything is final.
Before the meeting, write down the names of the people you trust with medical and financial decisions and the people you want to inherit. Bring a list of accounts and any deed you hold.
A first plan is not permanent. If you marry, register, buy a home or have a child, the documents can be updated to match.
The office is located at 484 Mobil Avenue, Suite 26, Camarillo, CA 93010. Office hours are Monday through Thursday 9am to 5pm and Friday 9am to 1pm. To begin with an estate planning lawyer in Sherman Oaks, call (805) 388-8800 or leave the office a note asking for a free consultation. Choose a video meeting, a phone call or a visit to the office, whichever fits your schedule. Marissa Garcia, the firm's Managing Attorney, is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law, certified by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.
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