Yes, trusts can avoid probate in California. By creating a trust and transferring your assets into it, you can bypass the probate process when you pass away. This can save your beneficiaries time and money, as probate can be a lengthy and expensive process in California.
The cost of setting up a trust in California varies depending on the complexity of the trust and the attorney's fees. A basic Revocable Living Trust generally ranges from $1,000 to $3,000. More complex trusts can cost several thousand dollars more. Online services like Snug can provide a more affordable alternative to traditional legal services, offering estate planning services, including trusts, at a lower cost.
A Revocable Living Trust is the most common type of trust people set up, offering flexibility and control over your assets during your lifetime and helping to avoid probate. Other types of trusts, such as Charitable Trusts, Special Needs Trusts, and Irrevocable Trusts, may be appropriate depending on your specific circumstances and goals.
Funding a trust in California involves transferring ownership of your assets to the trust. For real estate, a new deed must be prepared with the trust as the owner. Bank accounts should be retitled in the name of the trust, and other assets like vehicles, personal property, stocks, and bonds must also be formally transferred to the trust.
In California, any individual who is at least 18 years old and mentally competent can serve as a trustee. Additionally, California law allows for corporations, such as banks or trust companies, to serve as a trustee if they are authorized to exercise trust powers in the state. Trustees must be able to handle and take care of property, and they can't have been found guilty of serious crimes, including felonies or crimes that involve dishonest or immoral behavior.
In California, to modify your living trust, you need to create an amendment to the original trust document. This amendment should clearly outline the changes you wish to make, whether that's adding or removing beneficiaries, changing trustees, or altering distribution instructions. Be sure to include the date, your name, the name of the trust, and the date the trust was originally created. Just like the original trust document, your amendment needs to be signed in the presence of a notary public. If there are numerous changes to be made, it might be more practical to draft a complete restatement of the trust. A restatement allows you to rewrite the whole trust, yet it maintains the original date and title of the trust, which is advantageous to avoid the process of retitling assets. In this restatement, you can include all the new changes you want, and these new provisions will replace the existing ones in entirety.
