San Diego Estate Planning Lawyer Blog

San Diego County is home to many members of the military stationed at Camp Pendleton, MCRD, MCAS Miramar, and the various Navy facilities such as 32nd Street Naval Station, Navy Submarine Support Facilities and Naval Base Coronado.

When a member of the military gets orders to deploy out of the area, they often need to get their estate planning and financial affairs in order. Some of the things to think about are a power of attorney for finances, a will or a trust, a designation of guardians for your minor children. If you are a single parent or both parents are deployed, you may want to execute a document naming a temporary guardian for your children. This may also include authorizations to permit the guardian to obtain medical care for your children in your absence.

JAG attorneys on the base often provide some of these documents for military personnel but if you have a unique situation, it may be worthwhile to consult a private attorney. Situations that may make this advisable are children with special needs such as autism, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, or any other physical or mental disability that would require special provisions in your estate plan. Real property in more than one state or an estate in general that is over $100,000 may warrant a revocable living trust. Also if you have a trust prepared in California, it is valid in any other state you might subsequently live.

If you need assistance with an estate planning matter, call us or email us at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP for a complimentary consultation. Also if a family member dies who is in the military and there is an estate to settle, we would be pleased to meet with you about what to do next.

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Posted In: ESTATE PLANNING , GUARDIANSHIP , LIVING TRUSTS

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Donation of organs and tissues has rapidly increased over the last 5 years. Here in San Diego we have several hospitals that received awards in 2007 for their success in increasing organ donation rates at their hospitals: Kaiser Permanente, Scripps Mercy Hospital, Sharp Hospital, and Palomar Hospital. That means that San Diego citizens are remembering what a wonderful gift an organ or tissue donation can be.

Almost 100,000 people in this country are awaiting organs. Organs that are in demand are kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, eyes, pancreases, and intestines. Tissues that can be used are bone marrow, skin, tendons, ligaments, heart valves, and connective tissue. Some people think no one would want any of their organs or tissues after they are done with them but the fact is that corneas and other tissues can sometimes be used regardless of your age.

You don't even have to die to be an organ donor. Many people have given family members and even complete strangers a kidney. To donate bone marrow you can register as a bone marrow donor and be put in a national registry. Here in San Diego the entities handling tissue and organ donation are Life Sharing, San Diego Eye Bank, and the San Diego County Medical Examiner.

To donate your organs upon your death, you can register your decision with the DMV. Your drivers license or ID card will have a pink "DONOR" dot printed on it. In addition you should state your wishes about organ donation in your Advance Health Care Directive. There you can specify the purposes for the donation such as for research, transplant, therapy, or education. For estate planning documents including Advance Health Care Directives, contact us at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates for a free consultation. If you have a question about organ donation as it pertains to your estate plan, you can also e mail us.

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Many San Diegans have timeshare properties out of state in Hawaii, Colorado, and Florida as well as right here in San Diego in the beachfront communities of Coronado, La Jolla, Mission Beach, Carlsbad, and Oceanside. If you plan to leave your timeshare properties to your heirs you need to understand several things.

There are two types of timeshare properties - deeded and non deeded. With the non deeded form of ownership you usually are buying a license to use the property or a lease or membership interest that allows use of the property for a number of years. You may or may not be able to pass this on to your heirs. With a deeded timeshare you actually have an ownership interest in the property and have a deed showing that interest.

If you have a revocable living trust, a timeshare, like any other piece of property, has to be transferred into your trust. If it is a deeded timeshare, this will be done with a trust transfer deed. Many trust administrations or trust distributions are delayed because individuals forget to transfer their timeshare properties into their trust.

With a will as your estate plan, your entire estate will have to go through the probate procedure with its accompanying time and expense. If the timeshare property is out of state, a second probate called an “ancillary probate” will have to be established, resulting in additional probate fees. Ownership of out of state property is a good reason to have a trust rather than a will.

With either a will or a trust, if you think your children will be fighting over the use of the timeshare, consider leaving it to only one beneficiary so that the timeshare does not have to be sold to distribute it.

If you have questions about your vacation properties and whether they are properly transferred into your revocable living trust, we can assist you at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP You can also call us or e mail about any other estate planning issue.

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Posted In: ESTATE PLANNING , LIVING TRUSTS , PROBATE , WILLS

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There are many reasons why people delay creating an estate plan. One of the primary reasons is that it just doesn’t rise to the top of their “To Do” list. It is something they know they should do but they think they have plenty of time to do it. How much time do you have to procrastinate?

A fun life expectancy calculator lets you plug in information about your family history, accidents, cholesterol, use of alcohol, diet, lifestyle etc. to come up with a your life expectancy. Hoever, don't let the fact that you have another 30 or 40 years to go prevent you from creating an estate plan now.

At Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP we can help you create an estate plan now and it will be one less thing to take care of on your "To Do" list. Call us or e mail us for a free consultation.

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Reverse mortgages have become extremely popular in California and especially in San Diego communities with a large senior population such as Rancho Bernardo, Poway, Ramona, and Oceanside.

If you have a reverse mortgage already or are thinking about getting one, useful information about reverse mortgages is available fromthe U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). AARP also has information and a list of questions to ask yourself before making the decision to apply for one.

Remember from an estate planning perspective, the lender may ask you to take your home out of your living trust to accomplish the reverse mortgage. Make sure your home is put back into the trust after the mortgage is in place. This means that there is a grant deed or quitclaim deed showing the property titled in your name as Trustee. When the deed has been recorded with the County Recorder, you home is then “put back” into your trust. This process may be done by whoever handled the mortgage paperwork but it is a good idea to verify that it has in fact been done since your home is often the major asset of your estate. You do not want to pass away with a major asset left out of your trust.

If you need help transferring property back into your trust and recording the necessary deed, contact us at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP. Feel free to call us or e mail us for a complimentary consultation about this or any other estate planning issue.

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Posted In: ESTATE PLANNING , LIVING TRUSTS

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In San Diego many people are going “green” - trying to conserve our planet’s resources and natural environment for the next generation. Now there is growing trend toward “green burials” where the body is returned to the earth to decompose. No chemicals are used to embalm the body and it is laid to rest in a shroud or biodegradable casket. The first “green cemetery” in California is in Mill Valley in northern California. At Fernwood Cemetery they use no embalming fluids, only biodegradable caskets, and trees and scrubs as markers. In San Diego county, the funeral services company, Thresholds, in Lakeside, provides in home funerals and ecologically friendly burials.

According to Wikipedia, U. S. cemeteries deposit into the ground 827,00 gallons of embalming fluid, 30 million feet of hardwood, 90,000 tons of steel, 2700 tons of copper and bronze and over 1 million tons of concrete each year. Even cremation, although better for the earth than burial, leaves carbon ash that doesn’t decompose. The “green burial” movement is trying to alleviate this impact on our environment by encouraging burials without embalming, caskets that will disintegrate, and even cemeteries with no marble markers, metal vaults, or lawns that require fertilizer and pesticides.

For more information on “green burials” you can visit the Green Burial Council website. If you need to incorporate “green” provisions into your will or trust, call or e mail us at Pinkerton, Doppelt & Associates, LLP. Our initial consultation is complementary.

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Posted In: ESTATE PLANNING , NEWS AND COMMENTARY

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New facilities are springing up all over the county for seniors in such areas as Escondido, Encinitas, San Marcos, and Vista. Some facilities have a resort type atmosphere and some even specialize in dementia and Alzheimer care. You can obtain a directory of senior facilities for assisted living, independent, and convalescent care from Alternatives for Seniors.

Moving a loved one to an assisted living, nursing home or convalescent home is not an easy decision. Particularly troublesome is how to pay for such care when one spouse needs to be cared for in a facility and the other wants to remain at home. Such specialized care can be expensive and impossible for many people to pay for out of pocket. It is estimated that long term care can cost $40,000 - $60,000 per year in some areas. Medicare typically will not pay for long term care. Some people have policies of long term health care which may partially cover such costs but if the insurance was not purchased when the individual was healthy, it is not going to be possible to obtain insurance once it seems evident that long term care will be necessary.

Medi-Cal is the California Medicaid system for people 65 or older with limited income and financial resources. Medi-Cal may pay for long term care however its rules and regulations are constantly changing and often confusing for the average person. At Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates we can help you with Medi-Cal planning, which is the process of qualifying for benefits while still protecting assets that have taken you a lifetime to accumulate. Call or e mail us to set up a complimentary consultation.

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Posted In: ESTATE PLANNING , LONG TERM CARE PLANNING

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At our web site, you can read about the various ways to accomplish charitable giving. You can use a bequest in your will or trust or one of the various types of charitable trusts such as a charitable remainder trust or a charitable lead trust. At Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP we can incorporate your charitable wishes into a will or a revocable living trust. If you are considering leaving part of your estate to charity, you may wonder how do you choose one and how do you know whether that charity will use your gift wisely?

There is a way to find out such things as how efficient a charity is, how much of the donated dollars goes to administrative purposes, and how much to the actual programs. Charity Navigator rates charities using a standard of “no stars” to “4 stars” to rate charities in the areas of organizational efficiency and organizational capacity. The site also has useful information about what questions to ask before choosing a charity such as what are the charity’s goals, is it meeting those goals with its programs, is the charity well-managed, and is it a confirmed 501(c)charity (this means the charity has filed with the IRS as a tax-exempt non-profit organization).

4 Star charities in San Diego include the San Diego Zoological Society, San Diego Symphony, Autism Research Institute, Father Joe’s Village, Rady Children’s Hospital Foundation, San Diego Humane Society, and the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego. There are many other San Diego and International charities that earn the 4 star reputation. If you need more information on how to implement charitable giving in your estate plan, contact us at Pinkerton & Doppelt, & Associates LLP. You may call us or e mail us for a complimentary consultation.

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Posted In: ESTATE PLANNING

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If you die in San Diego without a will or a trust, you are deemed to have died “intestate”. To die “intestate” means to die without a “testament” (a will) or a trust and your estate will have to go through the probate process where the Probate Court will determine where your estate will go. This can result in unintended results for some people and not what they would have wanted.

As an example, most people believe that if they are married and they die without a will or a trust, all their property will go to their surviving spouse. That is not the case in California. If you are married with children, your community property(essentially property acquired during the marriage) will go to your spouse, but only one-half of the separate property (property acquired before marriage or inherited during the marriage) will go to your spouse if there is one child of the marriage. If you have 2 or more children, your spouse will only receive one-third of the separate property. This can be an unintended result if the estate is small and the surviving spouse needs all the assets in the estate to live on. Furthermore, California inheritance laws only recognize relatives of the intestate decedent, so the Probate Court can never distribute any of the estate to charities or non relatives.

Here are 10 example of things you cannot do if you die intestate:

1. Leave any part of your estate to a friend.
2. Provide for a disabled child or other disabled beneficiary so as not to impact their public assistance.
3. Designate a guardian for your minor children.
4. Prevent a minor beneficiary from receiving all of his or her inheritance at age 18.
5. Leave any gifts to charity.
6. Disinherit someone who is your heir.
7. Designate who will receive your personal property such as jewelry, artwork, coins, etc.
8. Provide a life estate so that someone can live in your home after your death.
9. Leave any part of your estate to a non-adopted step-child or foster child.
10. Designate the ages and the terms under which your children or grandchildren will receive their inheritance.

To avoid unintended results upon your death and provide for your loved ones in any of the ways listed above, it is important to have a will or a trust. A will allows you to accomplish these objectives but a will has to go through the probate process which can be costly and time consuming. A living trust is a better way to specify who you want to inherit your estate without the time and expense of probate. The experienced estate planning lawyers at Pinkerton, Doppelt, & Associates, LLP can assist you with implementing your wishes in the appropriate estate planning documents. Call us or e mail us for a complimentary consultation.

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Posted In: ESTATE PLANNING , LIVING TRUSTS , PROBATE , WILLS

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