For some people, the choice is easy; for some people the choice is hard. Here are some things to consider before choosing your Trustee. (These also apply to your choice of Executor and financial Agent.)

I was wondering whether ChatGPT would create a valid Will for me and if so, what that Will would look like. So I asked it to write one for me. Here is my experience.

Why do many people resist estate planning? I think that there are several reasons:

1.  Estate planning forces us to confront our own mortality.

2.  Some people are uncomfortable talking about their private lives with attorneys.

3.  Indecision and overwhelm.

4.  Expense and reluctance to deal with attorneys.

However, if you let these emotional hurdles stop you from creating an estate plan, you may miss out on the emotional benefits of estate planning.

With the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade last week, many people are concerned that other fundamental privacy rights are in jeopardy. If you are in a same-sex marriage and you are worried about the Supreme Court overturning Obergefell v. Hodges, or if your spouse is a different color than you and you are concerned about the Supreme Court overturning Loving v. Virginia, you may not be able to protect all of your marital rights through the use of estate planning documents, but you can protect some of them.

Here are a few common questions about notaries:

Where Can I Find a Notary Public? Can I Notarize My Documents Online? Can a Notary Public Come to Me? Can a Notary Public Witness My Will?

1.  Not Making an Estate Plan. If you have not created an estate plan, the State of California has one for you. It’s called intestacy, and it may not reflect your wishes and will require your loved ones to open a probate case in court.

We at California Trusts Online believe that you are who you are and you love whom you love. We serve underserved communities—those who do not need complex estate planning, those who do not have the resources for a traditional attorney-client relationship, and those who may not fit the traditional ideas of gender and relationships. We welcome the LGBTQ+ communities. We strive to include all forms of relationships and concepts of family.

At some point in your life someone else may have to make decisions for you about your health care. If you have named an Agent in your Advance Health Care Directive, the person you have chosen will have the first priority for making health care decisions for you when you can no longer make those decisions for yourself. Does your Agent know your values well enough to make good decisions about your health care?

For the vast majority of clients, a complete estate plan includes four documents: a Revocable Living Trust, a Pourover Will, a Financial Power of Attorney and an Advance Health Care Directive. Each document covers a different set of concerns, different assets, and different effective time periods. The two basic set of concerns are financial and health care. The two basic time periods they cover is either before or after death, and the two basic types of assets are Trust and non-Trust assets.

Your documents are not effective until you sign them. Whether you print your own documents or have California Trusts Online print and mail them to you, you are responsible for signing your documents. There are different requirements for signing different documents which are set out in this post and in the table below.