Distribute your assets, and move on after your death during the probate process. While having a proper will and estate plan can help, estate planning attorneys make sure the job gets done correctly and in a legal manner.
When someone dies, there is a great deal of work that needs to be completed. An Orange County, CA probate lawyer can help clients throughout the whole process so their loved ones don't have to stress about it.
Orange County probate attorneys, often referred to as trust lawyers, manage the filing of a deceased person's will. It's common for people only to consider hiring a lawyer after someone has passed away. However, choosing a certified specialist representing clients for years to do advanced planning will help you and your beneficiaries in the long run.
Waiting until someone passes means finding a lawyer at the last minute. That might mean not making the best decision while dealing with the urgency of the decision and during the probate litigation.
An Orange County probate lawyer can also help you create your will and other estate planning documents like a living trust, powers of attorney, and more. This ensures a smoother transition of passing on your assets to your beneficiaries. Attorneys at law can also assist in protecting your assets, income tax issues related to your trust, other legal fees, and dealing with actions in court.
It's not legally required to hire a California attorney to go through probate law and probate courts. Some people try to handle everything on their own, but this can lead to a probate process disaster. Failure to create or execute a plan can result in various challenges, lost money, and a great deal of frustration. In difficult situations, mishandling a trust could result in a personal liability lawsuit.
There is also a chance that someone will contest a loved one's will or the decisions made about your trust. The lawsuits could prolong the distribution probate process and drain the trust of its resources. Working with a skilled lawyer in Orange CA can help you go through or avoid probate court and probate law as quickly and as painlessly as possible.
If a deceased person's will is ready when they die, it certainly makes things easier. It's common to hire estate lawyers in law offices to advise the estate administrator or the beneficiaries of the will on legal matters. They can also help in the probate case when the will is challenged or needs to be challenged.
Here are some of the other tasks that a probate attorney Orange County can help complete at probate if there is already a will in place:
If someone dies and they do not have a will, things get far more complicated during probate. In this situation, the deceased is considered to have died "intestate." State laws then determine how property is distributed regardless of your wishes.
California probate lawyers can be used to assist the administrator of the estate — the administrator is appointed by the court and manages the estate. However, due to the complexity of state law regarding intestate assets, it can be difficult to navigate the process.
While an Orange County trust attorney can help with several tasks in estate planning, there are three significant areas where they can assist the most:
Many legal documents may need to be prepared during probate to ensure the lost loved one's trust is managed correctly. These contracts could cover everything from real estate deeds, disclaimers, and more.
For example, two brothers may inherit the family business from their parents. One of the brothers may not want to stay in business and decides to sell his share. Your lawyer can help draft up the sale contract while ensuring the original plan is maintained. When business, real estate, or other valuable properties are involved, an attorney's advice can do wonders.
Probate issues after someone pass away are, unfortunately, common. These conflicts can often become bitter and can even tear families apart. A professional legal counsel can work as a mediator to reduce as much conflict as possible.
One of the most common conflicts is if someone thinks the will is invalid. They may argue that the signer created the will under duress or that it was created improperly according to state law. A probate attorney Orange County can come in to represent the estate.
Another example is if the deceased individual remarried and had more children with the second spouse. Children from either marriage may feel like they didn't get a fair share of the inheritance. Both parties would then need lawyers to help solve the dispute in accordance with the estate's law. Probate litigation scenarios like this often result in draining significantly more funds from the trust.
If a trust requires proceedings in court, attorneys at law are undoubtedly an asset. Probate court proceedings could be the result of someone challenging the will and/or trust of an estate when elements of the will or trust are unclear, which is also known as probate litigation. A probate court in Santa Ana and Newport Beach, CA, may be used to help interpret unclear parts of the plan. Interested parties in these situations can work with attorneys to argue for their interpretations of these legal documents.
The first thing that you need to keep in mind is that hiring a service of a lawyer minimizes the stress of your loved ones because there are times when families are torn apart when money gets involved in the equation.
When an executor makes an error in generating reports, paying debts, or marshaling his assets in the wrong amounts or order, a personal liability could arise in a probate scenario.
There are times when documents and signed forms are incomplete, which can lead to delays in inheritance and rescheduling of court dates. However, your lawyer can make the process more quickly and smoothly. Therefore, this saves your family and loved ones valuable time.
Disputes can be both expensive and time-consuming but these could be diminished if you have a lawyer who can handle these kinds of situations effectively and efficiently. It is their job to resolve these disputes early on in the process to make it inexpensive for all the parties involved.
Whether you're in the process of creating a plan, expect to deal with someone else's will, or recently experienced a loss, a probate attorney Orange County can help. Leaving things to chance and decisions made by the court could result in unwanted outcomes, such as a contested will. Even if the deceased has a solid will, an attorney can help advise those involved with the estate, shortening the time it takes to liquidate it.
The end of someone's life is not the time to deal with complex legal matters alone. You need time to grieve, to remember, and to move on. Super lawyers can ensure a smoother process than going through it alone. Contact us for your legal consultation today and see how our law corporation in Orange County, California can help you.