San Diego Estate Planning Attorney Blog

As a San Diego Estate Planning Attorney, I advise my clients that, if they have minor children, they MUST have an estate plan in place. period. A well-designed estate plan doesn't just state who will inherit your money and your belongings after you're gone. Most importantly, it will establish who will care for your children and how they will be provided for financially if you die or are unable to care for or provide for them due to illness or injury. Here are 10 simple elements of a well-designed estate plan for any California parent:

1. Set up a Revocable Living Trust now so that your estate won't be stuck in probate when you pass on.
2. Once you have set up your Revocable Living Trust, be sure to fund it!


3. Create pour-over wills naming guardians and successor guardians to care for your children when you're gone.


4. Also name temporary guardians - to care for your kids until the permanent guardians can take over custody. This is essential to avoid your children going into protective custody.


5. Name a trustee and successor trustee over your childrens' trusts who will be both responsible and caring in providing for your kids' financial needs.


6. Talk to your chosen guardians and trustees about your choices and your wishes for your children. You want to be sure they will accept the responsibility and will understand your wishes.


7. Carry a wallet card with you which includes up to date contact information for your childrens' temporary and permanent guardians, as well as your attorneys in fact, trustees and executors. If you suddenly become ill or injured, the police, EMTs, doctors and/or nurses need to know who to contact immediately.


8. Create a General Durable Power of Attorney, and a Medical Directive naming a person or people to make financial, legal and medical decisions for you if you are unable to do so. This will avoid conflict among your loved ones and help to guide them with difficult decisions in a time of crisis.


9. If you have pets, include them in your estate plan and consider a provision stating that your pets should be in the same household as your children. If your kids have lost you, you don't want them to lose their beloved pets as well.


10. Keep all of your financial information updated and prepare a list of all of your assets, accounts and professional advisors to make it easier for your family to handle your estate when your gone. You don't want your loved ones to have to dig through files and boxes looking for this information at such a difficult time.

A Los Angeles, California court recently established a conservatorship over actor Peter Falk, appointing Falk's wife as his conservator and granting visitation rights to his daughter.

What is a conservatorship? It is a formal legal proceeding in which a conservator - most often a spouse, partner, family member, close friend or professional caregiver - is appointed by the probate court to make decisions for an adult who is unable to care for or make decisions for themselves. In Falk's case, according to testimony from one of his doctors during the two-day conservatorship hearing, a conservatorship was needed because the actor suffered from advanced dementia, likely resulting from Alzheimer's disease.

A conservatorship is a very serious matter in that it actually removes or restricts the conservatee's rights relating either to his or her own personal care and health-care (Conservatorship of the Person), financial matters (Conservatorship of the Estate), or both (Conservatorship of the Person and the Estate). For a combined conservatorship of the Person and Estate, the court may appoint separate conservators for the person and for the estate, or a single conservator for both.

A conservatorship can be tailored to the specific needs of the person to be protected, and can be limited where, for instance, a developmentally disabled is able to manage certain aspects of their daily life and/or finances, but needs assistance with certain other matters. Another form of Conservatorship, know as an "LPS Conservatorship" is available for a person who is seriously impaired by a mental disorder and who may need to be admitted to a locked mental health facility.

While a Conservatorship is a useful and often necessary tool allowing you to care for and protect loved ones who are incapacitated, it is also costly, time-consuming and public. A person can take steps to avoid being placed in a conservatorship, or at a minimum designate the person who they would want to have appointed as a conservator, by working with an estate planning attorney to prepare a comprehensive estate plan which may include a durable general power of attorney, an advanced health care directive, a living trust and a will.

'Columbo' Star Peter Falk Placed Under Conservatorship, Entertainment Tonight, June 2, 2009