Wills & Trusts

What is Proper Estate Planning?
Proper estate planning allows you to plan for your future and that of your loved ones without giving up control of your affairs. Your estate plan should also address and plan for the possibility of your own disability. Your estate plan should help you save every tax dollar, professional fee, and court cost that is legally possible to save. That usually involves avoiding probate.

Probate has been described by some as paying lawyers to sue yourself so the court can pay your creditors first, giving whatever may be left over to your loudest heir(s).

The Problems with Traditional Estate Planning
Below, we’ll address conventional estate planning tools and their various disadvantages.  Used conventionally, these tools contradict our definition of proper estate planning.

The Pitfalls of Relying on Wills to Accomplish Your Estate Planning Goals
• Wills guarantee probate, which can generate executor and attorney fees and cause time delay before your loved ones receive their inheritance.
• Wills are fully public. They are open to inspection by anyone who wants to know about you and your affairs.
• Wills offer no planning or direction for you or your family in the event of your disability.
• Wills are easily challenged by unhappy relatives and creditors.
• Wills usually don’t control life insurance proceeds, retirement benefits, or jointly owned property.
• Wills are often bare-bones form documents written in hard-to-understand language. They don’t capture the hopes, fears, dreams, values, and ambitions of their makers.
• Wills may not be effective when their makers move to or own property in another state.

The Pitfalls of Relying on Jointly Owned Property to Accomplish Your Estate Planning Goals
• Your joint tenancy property may pass to unintended heirs.
• Joint tenancy does not avoid probate. It only delays it.
• There may be unintended gift and estate taxes if joint tenancy is used between non-spouses or with children.
• Joint tenancy makes no provisions for estate tax planning.
• Joint tenancy does not allow you to give your property to who you want, the way you want, and when you want.

The Pitfalls of Relying on Beneficiary Designations to Accomplish Your Estate Planning Goals.
• Designating beneficiaries on a standard business form, ‘beneficiary designation,’ often means losing control of a major portion of your estate. It does not enable you to leave instructions or provide guidance to your loved ones.
• Oftentimes the wrong beneficiary is named in the beneficiary designation.
• A beneficiary designation won’t protect your spouse and children from unscrupulous people.
• Equal distributions from a beneficiary designation may cause unequal results that won’t meet your family’s special needs.
• Beneficiary designations make no provision for federal tax planning and may penalize your beneficiaries by unnecessarily forcing them into a higher tax bracket.

Proper Estate Planning
A well designed estate plan makes use of various planning methods selected for their specific benefits, while planning for and addressing their shortcomings. That means the custom estate plan that the estate planning attorneys at The Law Collaborative design for you and your family may include a will, a revocable living trust, healthcare planning documents, and other tools specifically selected and custom tailored to fit your circumstances and help you meet your goals.

Most people are familiar with the concept of a living trust but fail to appreciate the importance that a trust be specifically tailored to the individual and their family to accomplish their specific estate planning goals.  This lack of understanding leads many to believe they can simply go to a bookstore and buy a book or download a form to prepare their trust.

The Pitfalls of Generic or Bare-Bones Living Trusts
• Although living trusts appear to be better than wills, they do not avoid probate unless they are fully funded.
• Most living trusts are sterile legal forms designed to accomplish only limited objectives and they rarely include important instructions for loved ones.
• Generic living trusts do not allow you to pass on values or preserve special assets such as family cabins, heirlooms, or firearms.

The Solution: Custom Estate Planning
While the basis for many well-designed estate plans is a revocable living trust containing special instructions for your loved ones regarding your assets, a trust cannot address your health care or end of life planning.

What can Proper Estate Planning do for You?
• Provide instructions for your care and that of your loved ones in the event of your disability.
• Be effective if you move to or own property in another state.
• Avoid probate and its associated legal costs.
• Keep your affairs private and confidential.
• Control all of your property, including pensions and life insurance.
• Allow you to leave explicit instructions for the care of loved ones.
• Create protective trusts for young children, disadvantaged children, adult children and grandchildren.
• Provide federal estate tax planning.

Creating an Estate Plan is Easy
With the help of your attorney and advisors, you will quickly and comfortably establish a living trust centered estate plan for yourself and your loved ones. Your living trust may be changed or canceled at any time. As maker, trustee, and primary beneficiary, you control every aspect of your property. You also appoint the trustees, naming as many or as few as you like, with specifications regarding who takes care of what and when.

A Proper Estate Plan Meets Your Goals
It allows you to plan for possible disability and direct the distribution of your property. It saves tax dollars, professional fees and court costs. And, most importantly, it keeps you in control of your own affairs.

UPDATE! SB-880/AB-1135 the so-called “Assault Weapon Ban” or “Bullet-Button Ban” require that previously legal firearms be registered with the DOJ as assault weapons, prohibiting their sale or transfer to heirs.  A properly written Gun Trust is now the only way to keep newly defined assault weapons (many semi-automatic rifle models including AR/AK series rifles and pistols, and all rifles with bullet buttons) from being surrendered for destruction when you die. It won’t allow assault weapons to be transferred or conveyed, but it will provide for their on-going maintenance, use, and enjoyment by future trustees and beneficiaries. 

You may not own a firearm, but statistically you might as well: The U.S. population is currently just under 320 million and our government estimates there are roughly 347 million firearms in civilian hands.  The majority of American gun owners are passionate about their Second Amendment rights.  If you are gun owner, or if you love a gun owner, you need to continue reading to learn how you and your loved ones can avoid becoming “accidental felons.”

If you’ve ever purchased a firearm in California, you’re aware of the many state and federal laws which govern the ownership and transfer of firearms.  You may remember being asked questions under penalty of perjury, you had to provide positive identification and proof of residency, and you were required to pass a written safety test and demonstrate a general knowledge of safe firearm handling.

If you’ve never purchased a firearm, or if it’s been a while, you might not have any idea how many confusing and often conflicting laws control the transfer and ownership of firearms in California.  Neither would your heirs.

Putting firearms in a will or traditional trust exposes your loved ones to possible state and federal criminal charges, and ignorance of the law is no defense.  If your kid borrows your key ring, and one key opens your gun safe, you might both be instantly guilty of several felonies even though you were otherwise in full compliance with the law.  Or if your wife gives grandpa’s old rifle to Jimmy who has a prescription for medical marijuana — she and Jimmy could both go to jail.

During your life, a properly written gun trust can protect you, your family, and your collection should laws change, or should you or a family member become a “prohibited person” disallowed the possession or ownership of firearms due to a conviction, a restraining order, or one of the many other barriers to gun possession.

When you’re no longer around to provide guidance, a gun trust can protect your family by providing instructions for the proper handling, transfer, or sale of your guns and by preventing illegal transfers which might occur with a will or regular trust.

Even if your heirs do not share your passions, a firearm trust can help preserve the value of these unique assets by providing instructions for long-term maintenance and storage or for obtaining top dollar should you allow for future sales.

If you value your Second Amendment rights and wish to pass these values on to your heirs, we can prepare a Family Armory Gun Trust which provides firearms safety and marksmanship training, incentives for maintaining and promoting our Founding Fathers’ values, and to help preserve multi-generational heirloom collections originated by brave law enforcement or servicemen which might otherwise be illegal to transfer to an individual.

If you’re interested in owning an AOW such as a Serbu Shorty or a Taurus Judge, an NFA Gun Trust can make that possible and may provide further protection against future gun bans.

Whether you own one gun or several, whether you own guns as a hobby, an investment, or simply for self defense, you have a responsibility to ensure that those firearms are handled properly, now and in the future.

You will leave a legacy:  Make sure it isn’t a legacy of prison time for your heirs or your surviving spouse. 

Here’s a link to a brief video interview on the subject.

Our gun trust lawyer is a Collector of Curios and Relics (C&R) with a 03 FFL from the BATFE and a COE from the California DOJ. He is also a member of a small practice group comprised of some of the top legal minds in firearm law, criminal law, and estate planning law, so his knowledge is up-to-date and he is eminently qualified to discuss your firearm planning. Call (818) 348-6700 to discuss protecting you, your heirs, and your guns today, before it’s too late.