ESTATE PLANNING · CALIFORNIA
Estate Plan Review and Second Opinion for California Families
You paid for a plan. This tells you whether it actually works.
A fixed-fee review of your existing documents, your trust funding, how your assets are titled and who your beneficiary designations name, with written findings you keep whether or not you change anything.
Keep Your Estate Plan Up to Date
Most estate plans are not wrong when they are signed. They stop being right afterward.
A trust is created and the house is never retitled into it. A brokerage account still names an ex-spouse. A plan drafted in Illinois moves to California and nobody checks what changed. A child is born, a business is sold, a parent dies, and the document still describes the family as it was eleven years ago. The plan sits in a binder looking complete, and nobody finds out otherwise until it is needed, which is the one moment nothing can be fixed.
The most common failure by far is funding. A living trust only controls what has been put into it. If the deed, the accounts and the titles still say your name rather than the trust's, your family goes through probate anyway, having paid for a plan specifically designed to avoid it.
This review is a fixed fee, deliberately. You should be able to find out whether your plan works without committing to a rebuild, and plenty of reviews end with me telling you it is fine.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
What's Included in Your Plan Review
I.
A full document review.
Trust, will, powers of attorney, healthcare directive, any amendments and restatements, read against current California law.
II.
An incapacity check
Whether your power of attorney and healthcare directive are current, correctly executed and specific enough that a bank or a hospital will accept them.
VI.
A follow-up conversation
A follow-up conversation to go through the findings and answer questions.
III.
A people check.
Whether the trustees, executors, guardians and agents you named are still the right people, still willing, and still alive.
IV.
A people check
Whether your estate is heading toward the federal exemption, and whether your plan still assumes a tax rule that has since changed.
V.
Written findings you keep
A plain-English list of what works, what does not, what is urgent and what is optional, with a recommended order. Yours to act on with me, with your existing attorney, or not at all.
WHY IT'S WORTH DOING
Why Your Plan Review Matters
I.
You find out before your family does.
Every problem on this list is fixable while you are here, and none of them are fixable afterward
II.
Out-of-state plans often do not fit here
California is a community property state with its own probate rules and property tax regime. A plan written elsewhere usually needs work, particularly if you have bought property since arriving.
III.
Prop 19 changed what your children inherit
Since 2021, a child who inherits a property they do not live in faces reassessment at market value, which can multiply the tax bill. Plans written before that rule often assume the old one.
IV.
The fee is fixed and the outcome is honest
You get a straight answer, including the answer that nothing needs doing. There is no obligation to have anything redrafted.
WHY WORK WITH ME
A Second Opinion You Can Trust
A second opinion is only useful if it is honest, including when the honest answer is that your plan is fine.
I spent over a decade in estate planning, first at an established California law firm and then as in-house counsel at a registered investment adviser. That second role is where I saw the pattern this service exists for: plans that were perfectly well drafted and quietly failing, usually because the assets never made it in, or because the family changed and the documents did not. I am admitted in California and New York, and I have been named to Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in Trusts and Estates.
I review plenty of plans written by other attorneys and I have no interest in finding fault for its own sake. If the drafting is sound, you will be told so and the findings will say what to keep an eye on. If it is not, you will be told exactly what is wrong and what it will cost to fix, and you are free to take that to the attorney who wrote it.
How It Works
Your Path to a Stronger Estate Plan
I.
Free consultation
A short conversation about your plan, your assets and what has changed since it was written. You will know by the end whether a review is worth doing.
II.
You send the documents
Trust, will, amendments, deeds, recent statements and beneficiary designations, through a secure link.
III.
The review.
I read everything against current California law and check the funding and titling.
IV.
The findings.
A written report and a call to walk through it, with priorities and estimated costs for anything worth fixing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Common questions before booking
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My fees are flat and confirmed at the initial consultation, so you know the number before any work starts. The figure depends on what your plan needs, which the first conversation establishes. For comparison, probate on a $1 million estate in California costs the estate around $46,000 in statutory attorney and executor fees alone, before court costs and a year of delay. A funded living trust avoids that entirely.
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Funding means the assets are legally owned by the trust rather than by you personally. Two quick checks you can do today. Look at the deed for your home and see whether the owner is named as the trustee of your trust. Then look at a brokerage statement and see whether the account is in the trust's name. If either still shows your name alone, that asset is outside the trust and will go through probate unless something else catches it.
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Usually it is valid, and usually it needs work. A will or trust properly executed elsewhere is generally recognized here, but California is a community property state, which changes how assets between spouses are characterized and how they are taxed at death. Our probate process, our property tax rules and our statutory forms for healthcare directives and powers of attorney are also our own. If you have bought property in California since moving, that is the most urgent piece, because a house outside the trust is the usual reason a family ends up in probate.
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It might be. The language wording itself is often reasonable but can miss key decisions, or changes in the law or family circumstances. And AI can almost never pick up on complex family dynamics. We know the questions to ask to understand the full picture, so it’s probably worth it to have a lawyer double check.
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Every five years as a habit, and straight away after anything that changes the picture: a marriage, a divorce, a birth, a death, a move to another state, buying or selling property, a refinance, a business sale or a significant inheritance. A change in tax law is worth a look too, and there have been several recently. Most reviews find one or two things rather than a rewrite, but the one or two things are usually the ones that matter.
BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION
Let's Make Sure Your Plan Works
If you already have a plan, the useful question is not whether it exists. It is whether it still does what you think it does. Book a free consultation, by video or at my Marina Del Rey office, and we will work out whether a review is worth doing in your case. Call 310.853.2667, email info@honeybrookslaw.com, or use the booking form.