Living Trust Pricing & Package
Always Compare Bottom Line Pricing: It is impossible to properly evaluate living trust pricing without knowing what is included and what’s not. Many times important documents are not included in an offer or inflated add-on charges apply for necessary items. When comparing prices be careful to get to a bottom line price that includes everything you want and need. Only then can you make an accurate comparison. Also Remember The Importance of Attorney-Client Privilege: Remember that when you work with a law office, all information and communications are protected by the attorney-client privilege and by law must be held in the strictest of confidence. That is not the case with non-attorneys!
$999 Trust and Package*
|
Charges |
|---|---|
| Our Comprehensive Living Trust: A comprehensive, real world tested law office trust backed by over 30 years of dedicated trust experience that includes sub-trusts for minor children, exemption sub-trusts, and nomination of your successor trustees. | Included |
| A Master Transfer & Assignment of Assets that acts to generally assign and declare your assets to be governed by your trust | Included |
| “Pour-Over” Wills that act as an emergency backup to your trust | Included |
| Nomination of Guardianship for naming those you wish to act as your minor children’s legal guardians. | Included |
| Advance Health Care Directives, which replace the outdated Living Will and Power of Attorney for Health Care formats. | Included |
| Durable Power of Attorney for Finances, which allow you to appoint an agent to act on your behalf regarding financial matters beyond the reach of your trust. | Included |
| A Community Property Agreement (maybe the most valuable of all!) For married couple we also include a community property agreement, which is often the single most valuable component in married estate planning yet it isn’t even offered in many trust packages. Suffice it to say that the community property agreement has allowed countless surviving spouses to shelter hundreds of thousands even millions of dollars from income taxation. | Included |
| Trust Certification: Sets forth important information about your trust; helpful for titling assets in your trust and in real estate financing transactions.. | Included |
| A No-Obligation Process….You Only Pay If You Are Satisfied: We offer a no-obligation process where we allow you to go through the entire process without having to commit one dime to us. You only pay if you are comfortable, happy with what you see and decide you want to sign and complete your trust. Please however, don’t mistake this as a free pre-consultation (see note 1 below). | Included |
| California Transfer Deed and Recording Documents for Titling California Real Estate Property in Your Trust – typically your residence. |
$125 for Each CA Real Property (additional $50 surcharge applies for San Mateo & Merced Counties) |
| Charges For Out of State (Non California) Real Properties: Transfers of non-California real estate properties are typically $100 each but vary by state and are thus quoted individually. Certain conditions also apply. | Typically $125 for Each Out of State (Non-California) Real Property (conditions apply) |
| Notary Public Fees |
$7 per Notarized Signature |
| Material and Copying Costs |
$26 |
*Additional Fees & Up-Charges
Note 1: Pre-Consultations ($500): Our no-obligation process should not be interpreted as our office offering free pre-consultations. We honestly don’t want to spend appointment time trying to sell you on a trust or our office. In other words, if you make an appointment, it is an appointment for completing a trust — meaning you are ready to move forward with the process in good faith – then it’s a no obligation process. (If we don’t think you need a trust we will tell you). If, however, you show for an appointment for a pre-consultation (only wanting to discuss the possibility of a trust or using our office) a $500 fee will apply.
If You Need or Want Additional Time ($500 per appointment/consultation): We allocate a generous amount of our law office time towards completing your trust for our best price and offer most every opportunity to do so — yet occasionally some clients require or want more time than most. For example, by not completing the packet, much of your law office time will instead be diverted and spent on these fairly routine matters – and this will likely mean more appointments will be needed to complete your trust (meaning increased costs to you). Sometimes special circumstances make additional time necessary, other times it is simply “personal preference”. (Curiously, it seldom has to do with the size of the estate!) In essence, rather than charging everyone a higher base price, our pricing philosophy has evolved to only charging more to those whose needs, complexities, and additional time requirements make it appropriate. Yet even in such cases our pricing is usually far below that of most other law offices.
Complete or Large Exclusions of Any Spouse, Child, or First Line Intestate Heir ($350 additional most cases): Anyone is of course free to give away their estate to whomever they please, yet that doesn’t change the fact that we presently live in a highly litigious environment. The unfortunate consequence of this is that whenever you exclude a spouse, child, or very close family member, this increases the odds of a legal challenge. While nothing can ever stop someone from filing a legal challenge, we feel compelled to try to make it more difficult. That is why under such circumstances we go to extra lengths to further document intentional exclusions of close family members. Since this involves significantly more time and documentation we must impose an additional minimum charge of $350.
Extraordinarily Complex, Overly Lengthy, or Overreaching Inheritance Provisions ($350 additional most cases): Even under our base pricing, we are able to accommodate most clients’ needs and wishes in drafting their desired inheritance provisions. Occasionally, however, we run into some who ask for extraordinarily complex, lengthy, or restrictive inheritance provisions. Not only do such provisions require significantly more attorney drafting, they also typically involve the need for a great deal of attorney discussion. Additional charges for this will vary according to circumstances but will be a minimum of $350.
Keeping Your Appointment Also Helps Us Maintain Our Affordable Pricing: Whenever a short notice cancellation or failure to show occurs, our office suffers a very significant loss (as it is nearly impossible for us to fill a suddenly abandoned appointment slot). The overall impact of this is that we cannot possibly keep a low pricing structure in an environment where clients fail to honor the appointments they book or otherwise cancel with short notice. This is why we respectfully ask that you please do your part to help us maintain lower pricing by keeping any appointment you requested and scheduled. Thank you.
Remember You Are Only Protected by the Attorney-Client Privilege of Confidentiality When You Work With a Law Office (& Beware of Trust Scams): We think there are many self-evident reasons to work with a law office in competing your trust and if you are really going to do a fair comparison begin by considering we are a law office with over 25 years experience dedicated exclusively to California living trusts. Also remember that when you work with a law office, all information and communications are protected by the attorney-client privilege and by law must be held in the strictest of confidence. That is not the case with non-attorneys. In fact just the opposite occurs in many cases as there are many unscrupulous, non-attorney, trust companies that put on seminars, sell trusts, then use or pass along your information for the purposes of up-selling you annuities, insurance and other “financial packages”. Beware of trust scams! Read More………