A primary purpose of estate planning is to determine what a child will inherit (if anything) upon a parent’s death.  But what about a gift given during the parent’s life?  Is it an advance on the child’s inheritance, like putting it on the child’s tab until the trust is cashed out?  Or is the gift in addition to anything the child will get upon the parent’s death?  The answer in California depends on the parent’s…

On November 20, 2019, California attorney Jeffrey T. Makoff presented to the Sacramento Estate Planning Council on the topic: “Welcome to the Post-Marriage World: How to Plan for a Generation That Says ‘I Don’t.’” Jeff started with evidence that marriage rates have declined sharply from the Silent Generation (those born from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940s) to the Millennials (those born from about 1981 to 1996). California’s elaborate Family Code establishes property rights between married…

As our population ages, more of our seniors are moving into assisted living facilities.  The number of such facilities has nearly tripled over the past two decades, with construction of memory care units the fastest-growing segment of senior care.  Half of assisted living residents are age 85 and older, and over 40 percent have some form of dementia. In “How Not to Grow Old in America,” an article by Geeta Anand in the New York…

Often an aging parent will add an adult child to the parent’s account as a joint holder to assist with asset management or bill payment.  However, this may lead to an unintended result in California when the parent dies.  The child, as surviving account holder, may get all of the account proceeds even if the parent wanted them shared among a group of beneficiaries. Provisions of the California Probate Code set ground rules for the…

(Editor’s Note: The Court of Appeal granted rehearing on December 2, 2019 such that the opinion referenced below is no longer citable.)  It is widely understood in California that inherited assets, unlike assets earned from labor, are the separate property of the receiving spouse.  But what if the assets do not come directly from a parent and instead pass from one sibling to another? Inheritance for separate property purposes generally means direct inheritance, says the…