A trust allows you to bypass California probate in many cases. This can save you months of time and thousands in fees. Your trust can distribute your assets the way you really want, all without court supervision. It offers you flexibility during your lifetime and protects your assets after you are gone. At Filippi Law…
After a person passes away, their estate may need to go through California probate. This process is called probate administration, and is best handled with the help of an experienced California estate planning attorney. Certain assets require court supervision for transfer, especially if the estate plan did not avoid probate. If the decedent died without…
You may have heard the term “dynasty trust” if you’ve ever wondered how some families pass down wealth from one generation to the next while paying as little tax as possible, protecting their assets, and keeping their family values. A lot of people don’t understand these trusts, but they can be very useful, especially for…
Change is a constant in the world of law—and when it comes to estate planning, even a single piece of federal legislation can reshape the way families prepare for the future. That’s exactly what’s happening with the recent passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025. At…
Spend ten minutes on the internet and you’ll bump into headlines that promise a “bullet‑proof” trust—drop your name on a template, wire a retainer to Nevada, and poof your creditors vanish. If only it were that easy. After years of advising California families, we’ve found that most of what circulates about asset‑protection trusts falls somewhere…
When planning for the future, one crucial document to consider is the Durable Power of Attorney (DPOA). This legal instrument allows you to appoint an agent to manage your financial and legal affairs if you become unable to do so yourself. However, a key decision in drafting a DPOA is determining when your agent’s authority…
As an estate and business planning law firm serving Rocklin, Roseville, and Granite Bay, we often address the intersection of estate planning and business compliance issues. One such requirement is the Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting mandate, introduced by the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) and enforced by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Whether you…
There’s nothing more terrifying than leaving your estate to chance—or worse, relying on piecemeal methods that promise simplicity but end up creating a tangled mess. In the spirit of Halloween, let’s delve into the horror story of the Frankenstein Estate Plan—a cobbled-together estate planning approach that might seem straightforward but often spawns nightmares for loved…
The world of trusts is complicated and usually calls for specific roles to guarantee their seamless and efficient running. One such function is that of a trust protector, a rather recent addition to California trust law but a necessary one especially in sophisticated estate planning in Rocklin, Roseville, and Granite Bay. This article examines what…
In the world of estate planning, few changes are as significant as those related to federal tax law. On January 1, 2026, the current federal estate and gift tax exemption is set to revert to pre-2018 levels, dramatically altering the estate planning landscape. With the current historically high exemption set to be cut in half,…
