Estate Planning

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers Trust Administration – What’s that? This is a question we get on occasion from clients.  The terms trust administration or trust settlement refer to the process of following through with the trust provisions and distributions after someone has died.  This process may involve helping the trustees (often a family member) with gathering and...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers In this article, Stephen M. Wood, Attorney in our Camarillo and Ventura County office discusses A-B Trusts and why you should consider having your trust reviewed by an Attorney now. Bypassing the “B” Trust Under the current estate tax regime, it is often unnecessary for a married couple to have what is commonly called an A-B Trust. The “A”...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers This is an eye-opening article from Forbes on the cost of caring for aging parents. You might be surprised to read that it costs families more to care for a frail older adult than to raise a child for the first 17 years of her life. Planning for these costs now will prepare you and your family for the future. Read the entire article here: Costs...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers We have had the pleasure of spending time with Stephen Bezaire and his team and are honored that he has entrusted his successful, long-standing practice to us at CunninghamLegal. Our shared passion for the law and estate planning bode well for a smooth and seamless transition as Stephen heads to a well-deserved retirement. Most important is that...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers When I was going to law school, I often received calls from family members and friends with legal questions they had ranging from contracts, landlord-tenant issues, divorce, personal injury, workers compensation and the list goes on. I would try my best to help answer someone’s legal question, but I quickly realized that it is impossible for an...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers The year 2017 is bringing changes to the estate and gift tax exemption, the annual exclusion as well as a possible repeal of the estate tax due to President Trump and a Republican majority in Congress. The estate and gift tax exemption is increasing this year as expected. As a refresher, the estate and gift tax is a tax on the transfer of assets...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers CunninghamLegal has just released it’s January 2017 Seminar Schedule and the first few weeks of the year are jam-packed with valuable, free education on Estate Planning, Living Trusts and Medi-Cal. Learn how: • Your Living Trust may fail to protect your valuable IRAs (401ks, Roth, 403(b)). • Your Living Trust may fail to protect your...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers When Nordman, Cormany, Hair & Compton closed its doors in 2013, hundreds of estate planning files were left without a home. In June 2016, CunninghamLegal was entrusted with these files, and is currently in the process of letting the owners of the original documents know about the transfer. If you or someone you know is looking for original...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers I often tell clients to consider a living trust like a box with instructions written on the side.  Assets, including real estate, bank accounts and brokerage accounts are put into the box.  The writing on the side of the box instructs a person (called the “Trustee”) what to do with the items in the box after someone dies.  Assets are “put” into...

CunninghamLegal – The Living Trust Lawyers Planning for Incapacity “I’d like to do a power of attorney for my mother who has dementia.”  This is the type of request that I sometimes receive from a prospective client calling our office.  In these cases, a conservatorship is the only option.  An estate plan is not just for efficiently passing on wealth to the next generation, asset...