Will our children be mad at us?
Question of the week: Will our children be mad at us?
Answer: This is question has so many possible responses due to so many factors not being in the question: How old are the kids? Did they ask to go to a concert and spend the night with other kids you don’t know? Were you singing at the top of your voice to the grocery store soundtrack playing “Born to Run?” Did you tell their fiancé about the time s/he was in high school and their pants fell down during the school talent show?
Did you die without having a trust and will?
Depending on your relationship with you child(ren) and their natural demeanor, the first questions above may result in a “no” or “not too” mad at you.
Regardless of your relationship with your child(ren), dying with no estate planning will very likely have them upset with you, quite possibly very upset; putting some tarnish on memories, and impacting their grief process.
(I am not an attorney—below is for general information to provoke a discussion for you to have with an attorney)
Dying without a valid will is called dying intestate. Intestacy does not automatically require probate, but too often does.
In California, when a person dies with assets in their name alone, and those assets do not automatically pass to someone else the estate (assets possessed by deceased) must go through probate.
Such assets can include real estate, bank accounts, investments.
What is probate? It is a court supervised process for settling the estate of a deceased person.
If there is a will, probate validates it. A person is appointed to represent the estate as administrator. S/he will ensure debts, taxes and expenses of the deceased are paid, and the remaining assets are distributed to heir or beneficiaries as decided by the probate court.
I recently read a summary of a presentation at the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s annual program that featured bench officers for Los Angeles Country probate courts. If you do not have an estate plan, after reading below you will likely, I hope, schedule an appointment with an attorney that specializes in trusts and estates.
Every year 85,000 probate cases get filed in LA County. Of these, approximately 35-40,000 cases go to trial. There are about 12-15 probate judges in the County to handle these cases.
Depending on their weekly calendars, the bench officers, the judge or presiding judicial officer, have 1500 to 2000 matters each week they must handle.
Fred is a widower who passes away owning a home he has had for 40 years that is worth $1.2 million, he has $500,000 in an IRA and about $75,000 in his bank account. He has two adult children by his first wife, he second wife whom he lived with for 25 years had two adult children he never adopted, but lived with he and their mother for their teenage years. He has a simple will he completed leaving his home and other assets “to my children.”
Who gets what? Does “children” include the step-children whose mother contributed to the assets in the estate but went to Fred when she died? Will there be a fight over who is appointed to administrator? Do the step-children make a claim on the estate?
Fred’s estate is very likely headed to probate, which will entail hiring a probate attorney, which will be one of the debts paid from the estate. Every contest to the estate will require a filing for the court to review and rule upon. As can be seen from the numbers above, if the probate is in LA County, the probate could take a few years to settle.
Fred’s children will be stressed, frustrated, upset, and not happy with him for not taking the time, and spending probably 5-10%, or less, of the cost of the probate attorney, to have an estate plan with a trust and will created, the estate could settle in a matter of months with minimal headaches for the family.
If your parents do not have an estate plan, and you will likely be the court appointed administrator, it may be a good investment for future piece of mind and sanity to offer to pay for their estate plan, explaining the reason being you do not want to be burdened with probate after they pass.
“We don’t have children.”
“I’m not married.”
“I’m young.”
Theses are the most common comments I receive from clients when I encourage them to get a trust. Regarding no children or spouse, someone will have to probate their estate, and a court will make a decision as to who gets the proceeds. Would you rather the judge determines which of your relatives making claims are rewarded with your passing, including your niece and nephew who are constantly engaged in nefarious activities? Or would you rather determine which, if any, friends, relatives, charities, organizations, received proceeds from your estate?
Regarding the last comment, being young. Age does not make you immune from dying, nor does it necessarily make you immune from dying before you are “old.” Covid taught us that. Accidents and nature happen. If a young couple both die in an accident with no estate plan, and they have children, it is very likely there will be a fight between grandparents, aunts, uncles as to who will raise the children, who will be executor and control the assets of the estate, all of which will cost money and create animosity between the orphaned children’s closest relatives. An estate plan will clearly set up who will raise your children, be in charge of the financial support they will receive, and steward the estate to, hopefully, provide for future education and living needs.
Finally, who do you want to decide to pull the plug or leave the tubes, wires, and machines keeping your heart beating for who knows how long? A very important part of estate planning are the medical directives authorizing who makes decisions should you be incapacitated.
Click on your calendar on your computer or phone, depending on where you are reading this, and schedule a time next week that you will set aside to make an appointment with an attorney to start the process.
To schedule an initial meeting by phone or Zoom, click here for my calendar, please feel free to forward to a friend or family member!
Have a question? Ask me!
Higher rates on the table with Labor Department’s job report for May. Far exceeding the 80,000 expectations, the economy added 172,000 jobs in May. March, April and May averaged 188,000 new jobs each month, the highest pace since March 2024. Unemployment remained the same as April at 4.3%. It may be the World Cup effect for some sectors new hiring as leisure and hospitality added 70,000 new jobs and local government—supplying public safety, infrastructure, transportation—added the most jobs in a month, 55,000, in over two years.
While total salaries increased with the expanded payrolls, wages grew from last May by 3.4%, ordinarily a nice increase, except when inflation is 3.8%. While more households are bringing home paychecks, those already with paychecks are feeling the crunch from inflation—which can lower demand and consumer spending, possibly slowing inflation.
Rates for Friday June 5, 2026: Rates this Friday are barely holding flat from last week as the strong employment data points to the Fed possibly raising rates to cool hiring, the economy and inflation.
FIXED RATE MORTGAGES AT COST OF 1.25 POINTS LOCKED FOR 45 DAYS FOR PURCHASE TRANSACTIONS:
30-year conforming 6.25% Flat
30-year high-balance conforming 6.375% Flat
Please note that these are base rates and adjustments may be added for condominiums, refinances, credit scores, loan to value, no impound account and period rate is locked. Rates are based on 20% down with 740 FICO score for purchase mortgages.
Yes, election day was Tuesday. However, there is another vote you can cast today—with many almost as many options on your “ballot” as there were for governor in California.
It’s National Donut Day! Cast your vote for best donut by picking up a glazed, jelly, crueler, old fashioned, buttermilk.
This brings me to my favorite and the source of arguments similar to “is a hot dog a sandwich” debates; my donut shop vote is the apple fritter.
And a hot dog is not a sandwich, but a hot dog in a bun is!
Dennis
