Kendall A VanConas's Answers

Can my brothers and I cash our checks from my grandfather's estate if we will later dispute the amount?

In order for a to properly carry out all his/her duties as trustee after death, there is a fairly long laundry list of things that need to be taken care of -- notice to certain people/entities, accountings and reports, inventorying of assets -- and many, many others. Beyond this, it goes without saying that a trustee must act within the confines of the trust document, which will set out the trustee fees to be paid, the beneficiaries under the Trust, and other powers and duties that the Trustee...

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Question Calif Probate Code 17200(7)(a)(b)

The 60 days runs from the date the beneficiary makes the request; in your case, it sounds like it began -- at the latest -- from the date the trustee acknowledged the request. If more than 60 days has elapsed with no accounting from the trustee, you can go ahead and file your petition.

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Is a truck considered 'personal property" or "real property"? and what about a checking account?

You absolutely do not need to probate this estate, or file anything with the court. You can present the affidavit to both the bank and the DMV (in fact, the DMV has their own small affidavit form that you should use). The will does not need to be subjected to probate -- the filing fees alone are a few hundred dollars, and you can avoid it because of the small value of the estate.

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Great Grandmothers will

The best thing to do is for you to contact an attorney in the county where your grandmother died, and run your facts by him/her. The answer to your question depends upon a number of factors, all of which are going to be governed by the law in the state where she resided at her time of death. You can find a probate lawyer in that area by going to one of the following: naela.com (National Association of Elder Law Attorneys), lawyers.com (Martindale Hubbell searchable data base). Also, most...

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What section of the CA Probate Code has the info for the "Waiver" of the Full Accting for a Trust? Need for our Beneficiaries.

Actually, what starts the statute of limitations running is the production of the account itself and the service of it on everyone. If all the beneficiaries are willing to waive the account altogether, the trustee is "in the clear" totally, and the beneficiaries are forever precluded from bringing any claims against him or her. No statute will be running against him, with rare exception. The waiver form is not set out anywhere in the Probate Code, it is a form you will have to draft...

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Do I need a living trust done by an attorney or can I do it myself and have it notarized??Can I exclude heirs??

Ms. Brewer summed it up pretty well. The bottom line is that a trust is a legal document and should be drafted by a legal expert. It is true that many estate planning and probate lawyers get a fair amount of business by cleaning up botched estate plans drafted by "do it yourselfers." There are many good resources that will lead you to an experienced, qualified, honest lawyer in your area. I suggest you spend your time doing that, rather than spending it doing the estate plan yourself....

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Is it too late to try to protect my mothers Home from Medi-cal recovery now that she is in a nursing facility?

The answers to your question raise several complex issues, but in summary, I respond as follows. I'm assuming that at present, her only asset is her house, and her other assets, if any, are below $2000. If the house is rented out, the rent received would be income to her, which might affect her share of cost, but won't affect her eligibility. Eligibility per se is based solely on assets, not income. If net rents accumulate to bring her assets above the amount of $2000 however, that can...

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Informing Court of non-probate assets?

As a general rule, the answer is no. The court has jurisdiction to determine the distribution of asset subject to probate only. If a decedent dies with assets that are going to distributed pursuant to contract (for example, life insurance, annuities, or IRAs), or a jointly-held asset, those will not be subject to probate. Sometimes those types of assets I described don't have an individual named as beneficiary (or the named individual might have predeceased the decedent), in which case...

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I am trustee of my deceased grandmas estate. Do I own her file?

Under California law, the attorney-client privilege held by the client passes to the administrator upon death. You might have to institute some kind of court proceeding to get appointed as special administrator, if the former attorney is very insistent on not turning anything over. But if you do that, there is no question that you have the authority to be given the file. Also, under the California Rules of Professional Conduct, the attorney NEVER "owns" the file. The attorney may be able...

No property listed in will, is there anything I can do to try and get the condo awared to me? I do not intend to sell it.

When you say the condo "was not listed" in the trust/will, do you mean to say that title is still in your grandmother's name individually, or that it simply wasn't listed in her trust as a specific item to be distributed upon her death? That is a critical point, because it determines what authority your aunt has over the property. If it's not titled in the trust, and is still in your grandmother's name individually, it must be subjected to a formal probate administration before your aunt...