In 2004, at the recommendation of a local attorney who was about to retire, we went to a young woman who specialized in “Eldercare” and estate planning. She did a trust for my mother, and her advice was extremely useful in getting us through double dementia and double death of my mother and her second husband.
A few months ago, we met with her again and described our current needs; she agreed to write new trusts for our changed circumstances. Now, I think she may have thought writing three new trusts was going to mean big bucks, but it turned out we needed only two very small trusts and a modification of ours. In any case, I got hold of her today after a couple of unsuccessful tries, and she is “overcommitted in her case load” so will not take our family on again.
i want to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she’s got other issues, but I’m really disappointed.
It’s a pain in the ass to have to look for and interview an estate planning attorney; explain once again the nature of our needs—fairly complex but not terribly so—and decide whether it’s a relationship we think we will work out.
We’ve had bad luck—one attorney who did our family living trust just up and left town; another who was very good retired; we’ve met with a couple of others and virtually ran from their offices.
Seems we need to find someone just starting up practice so is not so busy; yet we want someone with proven experience.
The whole thing is complicated by our uncertain residence—whether we’re staying in San Diego or maybe moving back to Northern California.
We didn’t need this rejection right now.
My brother, who lives in England, is recovering from sepsis brought in by pneumonia, and it was close to fatal this time.
My brother, younger sister, and I inherited my mother’s house; I’m the trustee of the trust; and it’s going to be complicated when one of us dies.

Oh—and she didn’t even give us a recommendation—just call the county laywers’ association. I consider that a kiss-off.

I'd consider that a kiss off too.

A couple of thoughts on the matter, if you are in a city with an estate planning council contact them. If you have a relationship with a bank that has a trust department, distinct from investments and mutual funds, get a referral from your branch to the trust dept. I'd take this one off approach because the branch will get you to the right or near-right guy or gal to have what should be a brief discussion.

You aren't imposing here, it's a one hand washing the other kind of deal. The banker is in a relationship business and referring to other parts of the bank is part of his job. The trust department likes to refer clients out to lawyers on the premise that they earn a friend and their is a chance they will gain a client . The lawyers like it because they get a client.

I hope it works out well for you.

I need to establish a trust myself, but I’ve been putting it off. My financial guy offered to put me in contact with a reliable estate planner. A welcome kick in the pants.

We had a trust created some years ago for Dad. The attorney we used was known to us through church. He started to retire a couple of years ago, and has two younger ones there now. I'm meeting with one this week (Dad passed away 10 days ago - more on that later in another post).

I'll let you know my experience with this attorney. The firm is in Sacramento.

Sacramento would be perfect for us. I'm eager to hear your experience, you know my e-mail.

quote:

If you have a relationship with a bank that has a trust department, distinct from investments and mutual funds, get a referral from your branch to the trust dept

Be careful of banks. My cousins were screwed by overcontrol & excessive fees by their fathers bank. The estate included 125 rental properties & a few million in cash. The bank fees were about 1/3rd of the estate value.

sjtill, I can recommend you to our Escondido Attorney who drew up our docs if your interested. I trained/worked with his brother. A good family. He is a stand-up guy, involved in the community and someone I would recommend.

Email in profile

Urbanwarrior, thanks for the offer. I think we’re going to go with a Northern California attorney because we will likely be spending at least half time in northern Cal for a number of years.

Sent an email to sjtill.

Incredibly disappointing. More so if they provided no direction or recommendation. I dread this shit.

quote:

Be careful of banks. My cousins were screwed by overcontrol & excessive fees by their fathers bank. The estate included 125 rental properties & a few million in cash. The bank fees were about 1/3rd of the estate value

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Very true. All the banks want to do is liquidate assets at whatever price.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Be careful of banks. My cousins were screwed by overcontrol & excessive fees by their fathers bank.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Very true. All the banks want to do is liquidate assets at whatever price.

You are completely wrong on this. Maybe you are referring to the investment departments, the mutual fund guys, IDK.

The topic discussed here is trust and fiduciary, a completely different entity with a completely different fee schedule and business purpose than the financial sales areas.

Well, I will say that my father named me executor of his estate. He had a bank manage his father’s affairs, and watched a bank manage an acquaintance, and neither honored the spirit of the intent expressed. With either party.
Interestingly enough, this year, when I met with our estate atty along with my folks, and expressed mild concern over the distribution of all the assets, the atty (assoc with the bank whose meeting room we were using) immediately offered to take over on the banks’ behalf.

My dad politely told him to fuck off, so I’m still on the hook, but now I worry that the bank will mess with me, too. I think it’s very hard to cross all the t’s and dot the i’s, no matter how hard we try.
I hope you find someone you trust.

If she's overcommitted she's probably prioritizing her clients based on potential earnings so whoever pays the most is going to get her attention. I don't blame her

Many thanks to SigSac for getting back to me about his new estate planning attorney. We're going to try to set up a Zoom call with her. If she's on maternity leave soon, she's going to be in practice for a while.