Then the owner passes away, and the family learns that the property in the other state is not simply going to follow the California estate. It has its own rules, its own court, and frequently its own attorney.

Why real estate follows the property, not the person

Most of what a person owns is administered under the law of the state where they lived. Bank accounts, investment accounts, personal belongings, and business interests generally travel with the owner’s domicile.

Real property is the exception. Land and the buildings on it are generally governed by the law of the state where the property is physically located. The reason is practical rather than technical. A deed is recorded in a county office in that state, title is determined by that state’s records, and only that state’s courts have authority to order a change in those records. A California court order cannot, by itself, clear title to land in another state.

So when a California resident dies owning real property elsewhere, two things need to happen. The California estate is administered in California, and the out-of-state real property is administered under the rules of the state where it sits.

What a second proceeding actually costs

That second case is commonly called an ancillary administration, and it is a real proceeding, not a formality. What it involves varies considerably by state, but families should plan for several categories of cost.

• Time. The second case has its own filing requirements, notice periods, and hearing calendar, and it does not necessarily move at the same pace as the California administration. It frequently outlasts it.
• Filing fees and court costs in the second state, which are separate from anything paid in California.
• Local counsel. Most states expect an attorney licensed there to appear, which means retaining a second firm in a place where the family may know no one.
• Duplicated work. Inventories, notices to creditors and heirs, and accountings often have to be prepared twice, in two formats, on two schedules.
• Coordination. Someone has to keep the two proceedings aligned, particularly on questions like which estate pays the property taxes, insurance, and maintenance while the case is open.

None of this is catastrophic. It is simply expense and delay that the family did not plan for, arriving at a moment when they are already managing a great deal. And it typically applies to a property that everyone already agreed should go to a particular person.

California’s rules for the reverse situation

California has statutes governing the mirror image, meaning what happens when someone who lived in another state dies owning real property here. This is worth understanding, because it shows how the principle works from the other direction and because it applies to a number of Orange County properties owned by out-of-state retirees and investors.

Probate Code section 12501 defines ancillary administration as proceedings in California for the administration of the estate of a nondomiciliary decedent. The rules governing those proceedings appear in Probate Code sections 12500 and following.

Venue is addressed by Probate Code section 7052. If the person who died was not domiciled in California, the proper county is the county where they died, provided they owned property there. If they did not die in California, or owned no property in the county where they died, the proper county is any county where their property is located. When property sits in more than one county, the proper county is the one where a petition for ancillary administration is first filed, and that court then has jurisdiction over the administration.

California law does not govern how another state handles a California resident’s property within its borders. Each state sets its own rules, and the procedures, thresholds, and available shortcuts vary. That is why a general principle is the honest answer here, and why the specifics require someone licensed in the other state.

The tool that avoids the second case

A properly funded revocable living trust is the standard solution, and it is standard because it works. When the out-of-state real property is titled in the name of the trust during the owner’s lifetime, the property does not pass through probate at death. There is no estate to administer in the other state, because the trust already owns the property and a successor trustee already has authority to deal with it.

The operative word is funded. A trust that names the cabin in a schedule of assets, but where the deed still reads in the individual owner’s name, has not accomplished the transfer. The deed is what controls. This is the same issue that sends California homes through probate despite a signed trust, and it applies with equal force across state lines.

Transferring out-of-state property into a trust involves preparing and recording a deed that complies with the requirements of the state and county where the property sits. Requirements differ on form, notarization, witnesses, recording, and transfer tax treatment. It is generally handled with the assistance of someone familiar with that jurisdiction. It is a modest, one-time task compared with a full ancillary proceeding later, and it is the reason this problem is usually preventable rather than merely manageable.

A few situations worth flagging

Some out-of-state property questions carry additional considerations that are worth raising with counsel before deciding on an approach.

• Property held with someone else, where the form of co-ownership may already determine what happens at death.
• Property in a state that offers a transfer on death deed, which some owners use as an alternative, with tradeoffs worth understanding.
• Property that produces rental income, which raises income tax filing questions in the other state during administration.
• Property in another country, which is a materially different analysis and usually requires counsel in that country.
• A property that has been refinanced, rebuilt, or re-deeded since the trust was created, which is a common way a previously funded asset quietly falls back out of the trust.

The practical takeaway

If your family owns real property outside California, the question to ask is simple: whose name is on the deed today? Not what the trust schedule says, and not what everyone understands the plan to be. The deed itself.

If the answer is an individual name, the property is on a path toward a second court proceeding in another state. If the answer is the trust, the plan is doing what it was designed to do. Confirming which is true takes very little time, and it is one of the more valuable things a family can check.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• California Probate Code section 12501, definition of ancillary administration: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_12501
• California Probate Code section 7052, venue for a nondomiciliary decedent: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_7052
• California Probate Code Division 7 Part 13, nondomiciliary decedents: https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-prob/division-7/part-13/
• California Courts self-help, formal probate overview and venue: https://selfhelp.courts.ca.gov/probate/formal-probate

The post You Own a Cabin in Another State: How Out-of-State Property Complicates a California Estate first appeared on Goodman.

The good news is that California law handles this well, and the planning involved is neither complicated nor expensive.

Why you cannot simply leave money to your dog

Under California law, animals are property. Property cannot own property, which means a pet cannot be a beneficiary in the ordinary sense and cannot hold or spend money.

This is why the well-meaning approach of writing into a will that a friend should receive $20,000 to look after the cat often produces a poor outcome. The friend receives the money outright. There is no legal obligation attached to it, no mechanism to make sure it is spent on the animal, and nothing to be done if the friend decides after two months that the arrangement is not working. The gift is enforceable. The care is not.

The same problem appears with an informal understanding among family members. Everyone agrees at the time, and then circumstances change, someone moves into an apartment that does not allow animals, or an allergy surfaces, and the arrangement quietly falls apart at exactly the moment the animal has nowhere else to go.

What California allows instead

Probate Code section 15212 establishes that a trust for the care of an animal is a trust for a lawful noncharitable purpose. In other words, California expressly permits a pet trust, and it sets out how one operates.

The structure has a few moving parts, and each one matters.

Duration

Unless the trust expressly provides otherwise, it terminates when no animal living on the date of the settlor’s death remains alive. The trust is tied to the animals alive when you pass away, which is worth keeping in mind if you expect the composition of your household to change.

Who enforces it

The trust can be enforced by a person designated for that purpose in the trust instrument, or, if none is designated, by a person appointed by a court. In addition, any person interested in the welfare of the animal, or any nonprofit charitable organization whose principal activity is the care of animals, may petition the court.

This enforcement mechanism is the entire reason a pet trust works where an outright gift does not. Someone other than the caretaker has standing to ask whether the animal is actually being cared for.

Accountings

The statute contemplates detailed accountings under Probate Code section 16062, provided to the beneficiaries who would be entitled to distribution if the animal were deceased, and to any qualifying nonprofit charitable corporation that requests them.

The $40,000 threshold

This is the provision that makes pet trusts practical for ordinary families. If the value of the assets in the trust does not exceed $40,000, no filing, report, registration, periodic accounting, separate maintenance of funds, appointment, or fee is required.

For most households that is the relevant category. A dog or a pair of cats with routine needs will generally fall well under that figure, which means the arrangement can be handled inside an existing revocable trust without creating an administrative burden for anyone.

Deciding how much to set aside

The honest answer is that it depends on the animal, and that both overfunding and underfunding cause problems.

Reasonable inputs include the animal’s expected remaining lifespan, ordinary food and routine veterinary care, grooming, boarding when the caretaker travels, and any existing medical condition that requires ongoing treatment or medication. Some animals, such as parrots and certain tortoises, can outlive the person planning for them by decades, which changes the analysis considerably.

Overfunding carries its own risk. A trust holding an amount far beyond what the animal could plausibly need invites a challenge from residual beneficiaries who believe the arrangement is unreasonable. Setting an amount that is generous but explainable, and naming where any remainder goes when the trust terminates, avoids most of that.

Choosing the caretaker, and a backup

This is the decision that determines whether the plan works. A few things are worth thinking through before naming anyone.

• Ask first. A person who learns of the responsibility after the fact may decline, and a plan with a caretaker who says no is a plan with no caretaker.
• Name at least one alternate. Circumstances change, and the person who is right today may not be available later.
• Consider whether the caretaker and the enforcer should be different people. Separating those roles gives the enforcement provision real meaning.
• Think about housing and household. Whether the person can keep an animal where they live, and whether there are existing pets, children, or allergies, matters more than good intentions.
• Consider a charitable organization as a final backstop. Some animal welfare organizations operate programs that accept animals under a planned arrangement, generally in exchange for a gift. Terms vary, and any such arrangement should be confirmed with the organization in advance.

Write down what the animal actually needs

The legal document handles authority and money. It does not, on its own, tell anyone how to care for the animal.

A short letter of instruction kept with the estate planning documents fills that gap. It typically covers the veterinarian’s name and contact information, current medications and conditions, food and feeding schedule, temperament and routines, whether the animal does well with other animals or children, microchip and registration details, and your wishes regarding end-of-life care.

This document is not binding, and it does not need to be. It is the practical knowledge that lives in your head and would otherwise be lost, and caretakers consistently report that it is the most useful thing they receive.

Where this fits in the plan

For most families, providing for a pet is a provision inside the revocable trust they already have rather than a separate instrument. It is a short set of paragraphs naming the caretaker, the successor caretaker, the person who can enforce the arrangement, the funding amount, and where any remainder goes.

It is also, for many people, the item that finally prompts them to update a plan that has been sitting untouched for years. That is a perfectly good reason to make an appointment.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• California Probate Code section 15212, trusts for the care of animals: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_15212
• Animal Legal and Historical Center, California Probate Code 15212: https://www.animallaw.info/statute/ca-trusts-%C2%A7-15212-trusts-care-animals-duration-requirements-accountings-beneficiaries

The post Planning for Pets in a California Estate Plan first appeared on Goodman.

Adult children in this position tend to ask a practical question first: what do we need to be able to help? The answer depends almost entirely on timing, and specifically on whether the parent still has the capacity to sign documents. That single fact determines whether the family is looking at a straightforward planning conversation or a court proceeding.

Two very different paths

A durable power of attorney is a document your parent signs, choosing an agent to act on their behalf in financial matters. Durable means the authority continues if the person later becomes incapacitated, which is the entire point. Your parent decides who serves, what that person can do, and when the authority begins. It takes effect without a court, and it can be revoked while capacity remains.

A conservatorship is what happens when that document does not exist and the person can no longer sign one. A family member, friend, public official, or nonprofit agency petitions the court. The petitioner must show, by clear and convincing evidence, that the proposed conservatee is unable to provide properly for their personal needs, or is substantially unable to manage their own financial resources. A court investigator interviews the person and reports to the court. A judge decides at a hearing, and the proposed conservatee has the right to be present, to be represented, and to request a jury trial.

California recognizes conservatorship of the person, which covers decisions about residence, health care, food, and clothing, and conservatorship of the estate, which covers finances. A given case may involve one or both.

What court supervision actually means

A conservatorship does not end at the appointment. It is an ongoing, supervised relationship with the court, and families are often unprepared for how ongoing it is.

Under Probate Code section 1850, a court investigator visits the conservatee six months after the initial appointment and reports on whether the conservatorship remains appropriate. Review then occurs one year after appointment and annually after that, though the court has discretion to set the next review at two years if the conservator is acting in the conservatee’s best interests, provided an investigator conducts a status check one year before that review.

A conservator of the estate files an inventory of assets and submits periodic accountings documenting every transaction. Significant actions, such as selling real property, generally require court approval before they can proceed. Investigators may examine the conservatee’s living situation, care, and finances, and may inspect the conservator’s records.

None of this is punitive. It exists because a conservatorship removes rights from an adult, and the court retains oversight for exactly that reason. But it means filings, deadlines, professional fees, and a level of formality that a family managing a parent’s affairs under a power of attorney simply does not encounter.

The capacity window

Here is the part worth understanding clearly, because it is where families lose options without realizing it.

A person can sign a durable power of attorney only while they still have the capacity to understand what the document does. Capacity is not a single switch, and it is not determined by a diagnosis. It is assessed in relation to the specific decision being made, and it can vary over time and even across parts of a day.

When an attorney meets with a client whose capacity may be in question, the attorney is generally paying attention to whether the person understands what the document is, who they are naming, what authority they are handing over, and what the consequences of that choice are. The attorney is also watching for whether the decision appears to be the client’s own, which is why a meeting arranged and dominated by the person who stands to be named as agent creates a problem rather than solving one.

The practical consequence is that the window is open earlier than most families expect and closes sooner. Once it closes, the family is in court. That is the entire distance between the two paths described above, and it is usually measured in a conversation nobody wanted to have a year earlier.

What a complete set of documents covers

A durable power of attorney handles finances, but it is not the only document that matters when a parent begins to decline. Families are usually best served by looking at the full picture at once.

• A durable power of attorney for finances, naming an agent and at least one successor.
• An advance health care directive, naming someone to make medical decisions and recording treatment preferences. A financial power of attorney does not cover health care.
• A revocable living trust with clear successor trustee provisions, so that assets held in the trust can be managed without a court if the person becomes unable to serve as their own trustee.
• Access arrangements for accounts and digital records, so that the named agent can actually reach what they have been given authority over.

Together these documents cover most of what a conservatorship would otherwise address. They do not guarantee that a conservatorship will never be necessary. A court can still appoint a conservator if the circumstances require it, and a conservatorship can override a prior power of attorney where the court finds that appropriate. But a well-drafted set of documents removes the ordinary reasons a family ends up petitioning in the first place.

Having the conversation

The legal part of this is generally the easier part. The harder part is raising the subject with a parent who does not want to be treated as though they are failing.

A few things tend to help. Framing the conversation around planning rather than decline, since these are documents every adult should have regardless of health. Raising it alongside something ordinary, such as a move, a change in insurance, or a family event, rather than immediately after a frightening incident. Asking what your parent would want rather than telling them what should happen, since the choice of agent is genuinely theirs. And involving siblings early, because a plan that surprises one adult child often becomes the plan that gets contested.

It also helps to keep the first appointment simple. Bringing a list of accounts and institutions, any existing estate planning documents, the names and contact information of the people your parent would consider naming, and a short account of what has prompted the concern is usually enough to have a productive first meeting.

If the window has already closed

Sometimes families arrive at this point too late for a power of attorney, and it is worth saying that this is not a failure. Capacity can decline suddenly, and many families are managing a situation they did not see coming. A conservatorship is a legitimate and sometimes necessary tool, and it exists precisely because these situations occur. Understanding what the process involves, what the court will expect, and what the ongoing obligations look like makes it considerably more manageable.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• California Probate Code sections 1850 to 1853, periodic review of conservatorship: https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2009/prob/1850-1853.html
• CANHR, probate conservatorships in California: https://canhr.org/probate-conservatorships-in-california/

The post When a Parent Starts to Slip: Powers of Attorney Versus Conservatorship in California first appeared on Goodman.

Both are reasonable questions. There is also a fair amount of inaccurate information circulating, including one error about contribution limits that appears in several widely shared articles. This post sticks to what the IRS has actually published.

What a Trump Account is

A Trump Account is a tax-advantaged savings account established for a child who has not reached age 18 by the end of the year, and for whom an election is made, generally by a parent or guardian. Functionally it operates as a form of individual retirement account for a minor, and it converts to a traditional IRA once the beneficiary turns 18.

Contributions must be invested in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds that track the Standard and Poor’s 500 or another index made up primarily of American equities. Withdrawals are generally not permitted before January 1 of the year the child turns 18.

That long horizon is the defining feature. This is not a college savings vehicle in the way a 529 plan is, and it is not money a family can reach in an emergency. It is a long-dated account with a specific investment mandate.

The numbers, stated carefully

These are the figures worth committing to memory, because they are where most of the confusion lives.

• Contributions could not be made before July 4, 2026.
• A one-time federal pilot contribution of $1,000 is available for eligible children born January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2028, who are United States citizens.
• Other contributors may put in up to $5,000 per year per beneficiary.
• An employer may contribute up to $2,500 per year through an employer program, and that employer contribution counts against the same $5,000 annual limit. It does not sit on top of it.

That last point is the one to get right. Several published articles describe the employer contribution as an additional $2,500 above the $5,000 cap, producing a combined figure of $7,500. That is not what the guidance says. If an employer contributes $2,500 for a child, the remaining room for family contributions that year is $2,500, not $5,000.

For a grandparent planning a gift, or a business owner designing a benefit, the difference is material. It is worth confirming the numbers with your tax advisor before committing to a contribution schedule.

How this fits with an estate plan

The most useful way to think about a Trump Account is that it is a coordination question, not a replacement for anything. It does not do what a trust does, and a trust does not do what it does.

A few points come up repeatedly in planning conversations.

Who is responsible for the account

Someone has to be named to manage the account for the child’s benefit. That naturally raises the questions every estate plan is built around. What happens if that person dies? What happens if that person becomes incapacitated? Is there a successor named, and is that person the same one the family’s broader plan would choose? An account with no named successor can create exactly the kind of gap that a family spent years using a trust to avoid.

What happens at 18

The account converts to a traditional IRA when the beneficiary reaches 18, which means the young adult gains control at that age. Families who have carefully structured a trust to distribute in stages, or to hold assets until a child is older, should understand that this account will not follow those terms. It is worth deciding whether that is acceptable rather than discovering it later.

How it interacts with the rest of the plan

For most families, a Trump Account is a modest piece of a much larger picture. It sits alongside a trust, guardianship nominations for minor children, and whatever education savings the family already has. The planning value is in making sure those pieces do not contradict each other, particularly on who is in charge and who takes over if that person cannot serve.

The gifting question for grandparents

Grandparents most often ask how contributions interact with gift tax. The general framework is familiar. For 2026, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per donee, and the federal basic exclusion amount for estates of decedents dying in 2026 is $15,000,000.

Because a Trump Account contribution is capped at a much smaller figure than the annual exclusion, the exclusion is rarely the limiting factor for a single grandchild. The practical constraints are the $5,000 annual cap itself, the fact that employer contributions eat into it, and the coordination with anything else the grandparent is giving that year.

It is also worth noting that the IRS has not yet released inflation-adjusted estate and gift figures for 2027. Those numbers have historically been published in the fall. Any planning that depends on next year’s figures should wait for the actual release rather than an estimate.

How contributions are treated for gift tax purposes in a particular family’s circumstances is a question for a tax professional, and it is one worth asking before making a large or recurring commitment.

For business owners

If you own a business in Orange County and are considering an employer contribution program, the estate planning angle is narrower but still relevant. The contribution is a benefit decision with tax and administrative dimensions that belong with your CPA and your employment counsel. What belongs in an estate planning conversation is your own family’s accounts, meaning the same questions above about responsible parties, successors, and coordination with your trust.

It is also a reasonable prompt for a broader review. Business owners frequently have the most complex coordination problems in their plans, and a new account type is a useful occasion to confirm that everything else still lines up.

The honest summary

Trump Accounts are new, the guidance is recent, and regulations are expected. For most families this is a modest addition rather than a restructuring. The sensible approach is to understand the actual rules, confirm the numbers with your tax advisor, name a responsible party and a successor deliberately, and make sure the account does not quietly work against the structure you have already built.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• IRS, guidance on Trump Accounts, Notice 2025-68: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/treasury-irs-issue-guidance-on-trump-accounts-established-under-the-working-families-tax-cuts-notice-announces-upcoming-regulations
• IRS, what is new for estate and gift tax: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/whats-new-estate-and-gift-tax
• IRS IR-2025-103, 2026 inflation adjustments: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-releases-tax-inflation-adjustments-for-tax-year-2026-including-amendments-from-the-one-big-beautiful-bill

The post Trump Accounts and Your Family Plan: What Grandparents and Business Owners Should Know first appeared on Goodman.

This is not a post about worst cases. It is a short, practical question that has a good answer: if you had twenty minutes, what paperwork would actually matter, and what could you safely leave behind? Knowing that in advance means you are not making the decision in a hallway with a car running.

Most documents are replaceable. A few are not.

The instinct is to grab everything in the filing cabinet. That is usually the wrong use of limited time and space, because the great majority of what is in there can be reproduced.

Bank statements, tax returns, insurance policies, account statements, and vehicle titles can generally be obtained again from the institution that issued them. Recorded deeds are on file with the county recorder, and a certified copy can be requested. Birth and marriage certificates can be reordered from vital records. None of this is fun, but none of it is lost.

The documents that deserve priority are the ones where a signed original carries weight or where reconstruction is genuinely difficult.

• The signed original trust instrument, together with every amendment or restatement. If amendments were signed at different times, they belong with the original.
• The signed original will, including any codicils.
• Signed originals of your advance health care directive and your durable power of attorney. These are the documents most likely to be needed on short notice, and institutions sometimes ask to see an original.
• Original deeds in your possession, along with any documents showing property transferred into the trust.
• Original stock certificates, promissory notes, or other instruments where the paper itself represents the asset.
• Any document you know exists in only one signed copy.

The better answer is not to need the list

A go-bag is a fallback. The real solution is storing originals somewhere they are not at risk in the first place, and making sure the right people can reach them.

Options families use most often include a fire-rated safe at home, a safe deposit box, or leaving originals with the attorney who prepared them. Each has tradeoffs. A home safe is convenient and stays with you, but rated for a limited time and temperature. A safe deposit box is secure, but is accessible only during banking hours and only by someone with authority to open it, which is worth arranging in advance rather than discovering at a bad moment. Attorney storage is reliable and removes the problem from the house entirely, though it means a phone call to retrieve anything.

Whatever the choice, the location needs to be known by more than one person. A successor trustee who cannot find the trust is in nearly the same position as a family with no trust at all.

A digital backup that is actually useful

Scanned copies do not replace originals for every purpose, but they solve a large share of practical problems. A successor trustee who has a clear scan of the trust can start work, identify accounts, and contact institutions while the originals are being retrieved.

A workable backup usually includes complete scans of the trust and all amendments, the will, the powers of attorney and health care directive, recorded deeds, a current list of accounts and institutions without account numbers, insurance policy numbers and agent contact information, and photographs or video of the home’s contents for insurance purposes.

Two cautions. Store this material somewhere encrypted rather than in an unprotected email folder or an unsecured cloud drive, since it is a concentrated picture of your financial life. And make sure at least one other person can reach it, because a backup that only you can open does not help in the situation where you are unavailable.

What a successor trustee is actually asked to produce

It is worth understanding what the paperwork is for, because it clarifies what matters.

When a successor trustee steps in, financial institutions and title companies generally want to see the trust instrument, or a certification of trust that summarizes the relevant terms, along with proof of the trustee’s authority to act. What they are confirming is that the trust exists, that it says what the trustee claims, and that this person is the one entitled to act under it.

That is why the complete set matters more than any single page. A trust with a missing amendment can raise questions about which version controls. A first amendment that changed the successor trustee, sitting in a different folder than the original, is exactly the kind of gap that turns a routine transaction into a delay.

After a loss or a move

The other half of this topic gets less attention and causes more long-term trouble. What happens to an estate plan after a property is damaged, rebuilt, sold, or replaced.

A rebuilt or replaced property can quietly fall out of a trust. If a home is sold and another purchased, the new property needs to be titled in the trust, and that step is easy to miss in the middle of a move. If insurance proceeds are paid, where those funds land matters, since a large sum sitting in an individual account is not trust property. If a deed is re-recorded during a refinance, which lenders sometimes require, the property can return to individual ownership without anyone noticing.

The pattern is the same in each case. The trust was funded correctly once, an event changed the title, and nobody went back to check. Adding a title review to the list of things you handle after any property event, alongside the insurance and the permits, keeps a temporary disruption from becoming a permanent gap in the plan.

A short seasonal checklist

• Confirm you know where every original document is, and that a second person knows too.
• Verify the set is complete, particularly trust amendments and restatements.
• Make or refresh encrypted scans of everything, and confirm someone else can access them.
• Review insurance coverage and confirm the beneficiary and payee information is current.
• Check that recent property changes, including refinances and purchases, are reflected in how title reads.
• Tell your successor trustee and health care agent where things are and who to call.

None of this takes long, and most of it is a once-a-year task rather than an ongoing one. The point is not to prepare for disaster. It is to make sure that a difficult week does not turn into a difficult year.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• California Courts self-help, probate and trust information: https://selfhelp.courts.ca.gov/probate

The post Wildfire Season in Orange County: Making Sure Your Estate Documents Survive an Evacuation first appeared on Goodman.

A trust signed in 2015 was accurate in 2015. Since then a house may have been refinanced, a retirement account rolled over, a marriage ended, a child turned 18, or the person named as successor trustee moved across the country and had three children of their own. None of that changes the document. All of it changes whether the document still does what it was written to do.

National Estate Planning Awareness Week, which the House of Representatives adopted in 2008 through House Resolution 1499 and which falls during the third full week of October each year, is a convenient annual prompt. In 2026 it runs October 19 to 25. What follows is the review we would suggest for a California family, in the order that tends to catch the most.

One. Is the trust actually funded

This is the item that turns up most often, and it is the one with the largest consequences. A revocable living trust only controls the assets that have been transferred into it. A trust document sitting in a binder while the house deed still reads in an individual name has not accomplished what the family thinks it accomplished. The house is headed for probate regardless of what the trust says.

The five-minute self-check is straightforward. Take the list of your significant assets and, for each one, ask how title reads today.

• Real property. Pull the most recent recorded deed for each parcel, including any out-of-state property. Refinancing is a common way a home quietly returns to individual ownership.
• Bank and credit union accounts. Confirm whether each account is held in the name of the trust.
• Non-retirement investment accounts. These are often the ones that were opened after the trust was signed and never retitled.
• Business interests. An LLC membership interest or corporate stock generally has to be assigned deliberately.
• Newly acquired assets. Anything bought since the last review deserves a specific look.

Retirement accounts are the exception. Those generally are not transferred into a trust during your lifetime, and they pass by beneficiary designation instead, which is the next item.

Two. Do the beneficiary designations still match

Retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities, and accounts with payable on death or transfer on death instructions pass by the form on file with the institution. That form controls regardless of what your will or trust says.

This is how an ex-spouse inherits a 401(k) years after a divorce, and how a child who has since passed away remains the named beneficiary while a grandchild receives nothing. Neither outcome reflects what the family intended. Both are common.

Request a current beneficiary confirmation from each institution rather than relying on memory. Check that both primary and contingent beneficiaries are named, since a missing contingent designation frequently sends an account into probate. If a trust is named as beneficiary, confirm it is named correctly and that this is still the intended structure, because designating a trust as beneficiary of a retirement account carries tax consequences worth reviewing with counsel.

Three. Can the people you named still serve

Every estate plan names people. A successor trustee. An executor. An agent under a financial power of attorney. An agent for health care decisions. A guardian for minor children.

Those choices were made at a particular moment, and people’s circumstances change. Run through each name and ask three questions. Is this person still willing? Are they still able, in terms of health, location, and capacity? Are they still the right choice given how the family and the estate have changed?

Also confirm that successors are named at each position. A plan with a single named trustee and no alternate is one health event away from a court proceeding. And check that whoever you have named actually knows they were named, knows where the documents are, and knows who to call. A person who learns of the appointment at the worst possible moment is at a serious disadvantage.

Four. What changed this year

Certain life events reliably require a plan update. If any of these occurred, the review is not optional.

• A marriage or a divorce, either your own or that of a child who is a beneficiary.
• A death in the family, particularly of anyone named in your documents.
• The purchase or sale of real property, in California or elsewhere.
• A new business interest, or the sale of one.
• A move into or out of California, which can change how property is characterized and how documents are treated.
• A child turning 18, at which point a parent no longer has automatic authority over medical or financial matters.
• A significant change in health for anyone in the family.
• A meaningful change in the size or composition of the estate.

Divorce deserves particular attention, because the update is rarely finished when the judgment is entered. Beneficiary Designations , trustee appointments, powers of attorney, and health care directives frequently still name a former spouse long after the marriage has ended.

Year-end gifting

For families who make annual gifts, the calendar year matters. For 2026, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per donee. The federal basic exclusion amount for estates of decedents dying in 2026 is $15,000,000.

Two notes. First, gifting is only sensible in the context of the broader plan, since giving away an appreciated asset during life forfeits the step-up in basis that the same asset would receive at death, which for a California couple with community property can be a substantial difference. Second, the IRS has not yet released inflation-adjusted estate and gift figures for 2027. Those have historically been published in the fall, and any planning that depends on them should wait for the actual numbers.

What a review usually looks like

For most families this is not a rebuild. A large share of reviews conclude with the documents unchanged and a short list of administrative items, most often a deed to record, a beneficiary form to update, or a successor to add. That is a good outcome, and it is worth the hour. Where a review does produce changes, they are usually smaller than people fear. Amending a revocable trust, updating a power of attorney, or adding a successor is ordinary work. The expensive scenarios are the ones where nobody looked for a decade, and a family discovers the gap at the point when it can no longer be fixed.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• H.Res. 1499, National Estate Planning Awareness Week: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-110hres1499eh/html/BILLS-110hres1499eh.htm
• NAEPC, awareness campaign dates: https://www.naepc.org/events/awareness_campaigns
• IRS, what is new for estate and gift tax: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/whats-new-estate-and-gift-tax
• IRS IR-2025-103, 2026 inflation adjustments: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-releases-tax-inflation-adjustments-for-tax-year-2026-including-amendments-from-the-one-big-beautiful-bill

The post National Estate Planning Awareness Week: A Year-End Review Checklist for California Families first appeared on Goodman.

This is not a technology problem. It is an estate planning problem, and California has a statute that addresses it directly. Understanding how that statute works, and what it does not do, is one of the more useful things a family can take care of in advance.

California has a law for this

California adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which appears in Probate Code sections 870 through 884. In plain terms, it creates a legal pathway for a fiduciary, meaning an executor, a trustee, an agent under a power of attorney, or a conservator, to reach the digital accounts of the person they are serving.

The law covers what most people would expect: email, photo storage, social media, cloud documents, domain names, loyalty and rewards programs, and online financial accounts. It applies to the account itself and to the information in it. It does not, on its own, transfer ownership of anything, and it does not override federal privacy law. What it does is give a custodian, meaning the company that holds the account, a defined process to follow instead of a blanket refusal.

The order of priority is the part most people get wrong

Probate Code section 873 sets up a three-step order that decides which instruction controls. It is worth reading slowly, because the result surprises people.

• First, the online tool. If a platform offers its own tool that lets you name someone to receive your account or direct that it be deleted, and that tool lets you change your choice at any time, your instruction there controls. It overrides a contrary direction in your will, trust, or power of attorney.
• Second, your estate planning documents. If you have not used an online tool, or the platform does not offer one, then what you say in your will, trust, power of attorney, or other record controls.
• Third, the terms of service. Your direction under either of the first two steps overrides a contrary provision in the platform’s user agreement.

The practical consequence is worth stating plainly. A legacy contact setting you clicked through years ago, on a platform you barely use, can quietly outrank the trust you signed last month. This is not a defect in your estate plan. It is how the statute is written, and it is why a thorough plan includes a review of the settings themselves, not only the documents.

A list of accounts is easier to get than the contents

The statute draws a line that explains most of the frustration families run into. Probate Code section 877 covers the catalogue of electronic communications, meaning the record of who communicated with whom and when, along with other digital assets that are not message content. A personal representative can request that catalogue by supplying a written request, a certified copy of the death certificate, and certified letters or a court order. Advance consent from the person who passed away is not required for this category.

Probate Code section 876 covers the content of electronic communications, meaning the actual text of the emails and messages. Here the custodian is required to disclose only if the user consented or a court directs it. The representative must also supply a copy of the will, trust, power of attorney, or other record showing that consent, unless the user used an online tool.

That distinction is why a family can often learn that an account existed, and that it was active, while still being unable to read what is inside it. If access to the substance of an account matters, the consent needs to be in place ahead of time.

Cryptocurrency sits in a category of its own

Digital currency held on an exchange behaves somewhat like a brokerage account. There is a company holding the asset, that company has a process for death and incapacity, and a fiduciary with proper documentation can usually work through it.

Self-custody is different, and the difference is absolute. When a person holds cryptocurrency in a wallet they control, the private key or recovery phrase is the only thing that can move those assets. There is no company to petition. There is no reset process. A court order cannot compel a key that no one has. If the key is lost, the asset is generally unrecoverable, regardless of how clearly the estate plan says who should inherit it.

The planning answer is not to write the key into your estate plan. A will admitted to probate becomes a public court record, and a trust may be shared with beneficiaries and institutions. The better approach is to make sure your documents give your fiduciary clear authority over digital assets, that your fiduciary knows the assets exist, and that the access information is stored somewhere secure and separate, with instructions for reaching it. The document points to the location. The location holds the key.

What this looks like in an actual plan

A digital asset plan does not need to be complicated. In most cases it comes down to four things.

• Language in your trust, will, and power of attorney that expressly grants your fiduciary authority over digital assets and gives the consent that Probate Code section 876 requires for message contents.
• An inventory of accounts that actually matter, meaning anything holding money, anything holding irreplaceable photographs or records, anything that automatically bills a card, and anything a family business depends on.
• A deliberate pass through the legacy and inheritance settings on the platforms you use most, so that those settings match your documents rather than contradicting them.
• A secure method for storing credentials, and a person who knows how to reach it.

That inventory is also the piece most likely to go stale. Accounts open and close, phones change, and a two-factor method tied to a retired number can undo an otherwise careful plan. Reviewing the list when you review the rest of your plan keeps it useful.

Where this connects to the rest of your plan

Digital assets belong to the same family of problems as beneficiary designations and unfunded trusts. In each case, an asset that the family assumed was covered by the estate plan turns out to be controlled by something else, whether that is a form on file with a custodian, a title held in the wrong name, or a setting clicked years ago. The documents are not wrong. They simply are not what governs that particular asset.

Approaching your digital life the same way you approach the rest of your estate, as property that needs to be identified, assigned, and made reachable, keeps it from becoming the loose end that costs your family the most time.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• California Probate Code section 873, online tool priority: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_873
• California Probate Code section 876, disclosure of content of electronic communications: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_876
• California Probate Code section 877, disclosure of other digital assets: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_877
• California Probate Code Part 20, RUFADAA, sections 870 to 884: https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-prob/division-2/part-20/

The post Your Digital Life Is Part of Your Estate: California Rules for Online Accounts and Cryptocurrency first appeared on Goodman.

Quick Answer

Your successor trustee is the person who will manage your trust if you become incapacitated and settle it after your death. It is one of the most consequential choices in your entire plan, because this person will handle your finances, follow legal duties and deadlines, and can face personal liability for mistakes. The best choice is someone trustworthy, organized, and willing to serve, who can stay fair among your beneficiaries. For some families, a professional or corporate trustee is the wiser option.

What a Successor Trustee Actually Does

When you create a revocable living trust, you usually serve as your own trustee while you are alive and well. The successor trustee is the person, or institution, who steps in when you no longer can, either because you have become incapacitated or because you have passed away. It is easy to treat this as an afterthought, a name you fill in near the end of the paperwork. That is a mistake. Choosing your beneficiaries and choosing your successor trustee are arguably the two most important decisions in your plan.

The role carries real work and real responsibility. Depending on the situation, a successor trustee may need to manage your finances during incapacity, gather and value assets, pay debts and taxes, give required legal notices, keep careful records, communicate with beneficiaries, and distribute assets according to the terms of the trust. They do all of this under a legal duty to act in the beneficiaries’ best interests, and they can be held personally responsible if they get it wrong.

It is worth pausing on that last point, because people often underestimate it. A trustee is a fiduciary, which is the highest standard of responsibility the law imposes. It means putting the beneficiaries’ interests ahead of their own, avoiding conflicts, treating beneficiaries fairly, and being able to account for every decision. This is not a ceremonial role or a simple favor. It is a genuine job with real legal weight, and choosing the right person for it deserves real thought.

The 2026 Environment Is More Demanding

Serving as a trustee has always been challenging, and in 2026 the environment is more demanding than ever. California has tightened notice and compliance rules, the state has built faster ways to review estates, and the expectation of a clean, well-documented administration has grown. A trustee who is disorganized or unaware of the rules can create problems that fall on them personally.

This does not mean a family member cannot serve. Many do, and do it well. It does mean that the job asks more than it used to, and that the person you choose should be prepared to get good guidance rather than improvise. When you pick a trustee today, you are choosing someone to operate in a stricter environment than the one that existed even a few years ago.

One practical implication is that the willingness to ask for help has become one of the most valuable traits a trustee can have. The strongest trustees are not the ones who assume they can handle everything alone. They are the ones who recognize when a question is beyond them and bring in an attorney or accountant before a small issue becomes a costly one. When you evaluate a potential trustee, consider not just whether they are capable, but whether they have the humility to seek guidance when the rules demand it.

The Qualities That Matter Most

The right successor trustee is defined less by financial sophistication than by character and reliability. The qualities that tend to matter most include:

• Trustworthiness and integrity, since this person will control your assets and must act honestly even when no one is watching.
• Organization and follow through, because the role involves deadlines, records, and paperwork that cannot be ignored.
• Fairness and levelheadedness, especially where there are multiple beneficiaries who may not always agree.
• Willingness to serve, since no one should be drafted into this role by surprise. Ask the person first.
• Availability, because administration takes time, and a trustee who is overwhelmed by their own life may struggle to keep up.

Notice that specialized expertise is not at the top of the list. A trustee can hire an attorney, an accountant, or a financial advisor for help. What they cannot outsource is honesty, diligence, and good judgment.

Family Member, Friend, or Professional?

Most people first think of a family member, often an adult child. That can be an excellent choice when the person is responsible, fair, and on good terms with the other beneficiaries. It keeps the role personal and usually avoids professional fees.

But a family member is not always the right answer. If your family situation is complicated, if there is tension among beneficiaries, if the person you would choose is not organized or lives far away, or if the trust is large or complex, a professional or corporate trustee may serve your family better. A professional trustee brings experience and neutrality, which can be worth a great deal when emotions run high. The tradeoff is cost and a less personal touch. There is no universally correct answer, only the right fit for your family.

A useful way to think about it is to imagine the hardest version of your family’s situation, not the easiest. If two of your children have a history of conflict, ask honestly whether the one you name as trustee could enforce the trust’s terms against the other without the relationship collapsing. If the answer gives you pause, a neutral professional may protect both the plan and the family. The point of naming a trustee is not to honor someone with a title. It is to make sure the job gets done well, even under strain.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

A few missteps come up again and again, and all are avoidable:

• Naming someone without asking them. Serving is a significant commitment, and a surprised trustee may decline or struggle.
• Choosing based on birth order or feelings, rather than fit. The oldest child is not automatically the best trustee.
• Naming co-trustees who do not get along, which can deadlock the administration and invite conflict.
• Failing to name a backup. If your first choice cannot serve, a named alternate keeps the plan from stalling.
• Never revisiting the choice. The right trustee ten years ago may not be the right trustee today, so revisit it as life changes.

Set Your Trustee Up to Succeed

Whoever you choose, you can make their job easier and protect them from avoidable mistakes. Keep your trust funded and your records organized, so your trustee is not starting from scratch. Consider leaving a letter of instruction and a simple inventory of accounts, advisors, and important documents. And make sure your trustee knows they are allowed, and encouraged, to hire professional help when they need it.

The goal is not to hand someone a burden. It is to hand them a plan they can actually carry out. A well-chosen, well-prepared successor trustee is one of the quiet reasons a good estate plan works smoothly at the very moment your family needs it to.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• Kenneth E. Devore & Associates – April 2026 Estate Planning Advisory (successor trustee selection; more demanding 2026 environment for non-professional trustees).
• The Estate Lawyers, APC – California Trust and Estate Law in 2026 (fiduciary liability; disciplined administration).
• Goodman Estate Law – The Step by Step Checklist for California Successor Trustees (live) companion.

The post Choosing the Right Successor Trustee in 2026: Duties, Liability, and How to Pick Wisely first appeared on Goodman.

Quick Answer

A complete California estate plan generally rests on four core documents: a revocable living trust, a pour over will, a durable power of attorney for finances, and an advance health care directive. Summer, with its slower pace, is a natural time to confirm each one still reflects your family, your assets, and your wishes. The most common problems are not missing documents but outdated details, an old trustee, a former spouse still named, or a home never retitled into the trust.

Why a Mid-Year Review Is Worth Your Time

Estate planning is not a “set it and forget it” task. Laws change, families change, and assets change, and a plan that was perfect five years ago can quietly drift out of date. Summer offers a natural pause. The calendar is often a little slower, families gather, and it is an easy time to spend an hour making sure the plan you already built still does its job.

The good news is that a review is usually far simpler than creating a plan from scratch. In most cases you are confirming that a handful of documents and details are still accurate, and fixing the one or two that are not. A review rarely means starting over. It means catching the small things that have drifted, before they become the reason a plan fails when your family needs it.

It also helps to know that the most damaging problems are almost never dramatic. They are quiet. A trustee who has moved away or grown estranged. A home that came out of the trust during a refinance and was never put back. A health care agent named a decade ago whose circumstances have changed. None of these announce themselves. A short, deliberate review is how you find them. Here are the four documents to check, and what tends to go wrong with each.

1. Your Revocable Living Trust

For most California families, the revocable living trust is the centerpiece of the plan, because a properly funded trust keeps your estate out of probate. When you review it, look past the document itself to the details that matter most. Is the successor trustee still the right person, and are they still willing and able to serve? Have your beneficiaries or your wishes for them changed? And, critically, is the trust actually funded?

Funding is the step that families most often miss. A trust does nothing until your assets are titled into it. If you bought a new home, opened a new account, or refinanced and the property came out of the trust in the process, that asset may now sit outside the trust and be exposed to probate. Confirming that your home and accounts are titled in the name of the trust is the single most valuable check on this list.

2. Your Pour Over Will

The pour over will works alongside your trust. Its job is to catch any assets that were not titled into the trust during your life and direct them into it at your death. It is a safety net, not the primary plan, and the goal is for as little as possible to actually need it.

When you review it, confirm that it still names the guardians you want for any minor children, since this is the document that addresses guardianship, and that the people named to carry it out are still the right choices. A pour over will that names an ex-spouse or an estranged relative as executor is a common and easily fixed oversight. Guardianship in particular deserves a fresh look as children grow, since the person who was the right choice for a toddler may not be the right choice for a teenager, and family circumstances shift over the years.

3. Your Durable Power of Attorney for Finances

This document names the person who can manage your finances if you become unable to do so yourself. It is one of the most important and most overlooked pieces of a plan, because it addresses incapacity, not death. Without it, your family may have to go to court to be appointed to handle your affairs, which is exactly the outcome planning is meant to avoid.

Review who you named as your agent, and who you named as a backup. Relationships and circumstances change, and the person who made sense years ago may not be the right choice today. Confirm the authority you granted still matches what your family would actually need.

4. Your Advance Health care Directive

The advance health care directive names the person who can make medical decisions for you if you cannot, and it records your wishes about medical treatment. It combines a health care power of attorney with your treatment preferences in one document that is legally binding under California law.

Check that your named health care agent is still someone you trust with these decisions, and that your stated wishes still reflect your views. This is also a good moment to make sure the people named actually have access to the document when it is needed, since a directive locked in a drawer no one can find does not help in an emergency.

The Life Events That Should Prompt an Update

Beyond a routine summer check, certain events should trigger a review no matter the season. A marriage or divorce, a birth or adoption, a death in the family, a significant change in your assets, a move, or a change in your wishes about who should serve or inherit are all signals that your plan may need attention. If any of these has happened since your last review, do not wait for next summer.

Changes in the law can matter too. California and federal rules around trusts, probate, and taxes shift over time, and a plan drafted under older rules may not take advantage of newer opportunities or may rely on assumptions that no longer hold. You do not need to track every legislative development yourself. That is part of what a periodic review with an attorney is for. The point of the summer check is simply to build the habit, so that your plan is looked at on a regular rhythm rather than remembered only in a crisis.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he reviews and updates estate plans for families across the county.

Sources

• Isha Singh Law – California Estate Planning Checklist 2026 (five core documents; trust funding; directive combines living will + health care POA).
• Baron Law – Estate Planning Considerations for 2026 (review triggers; incapacity planning; fiduciary review).
• Goodman Estate Law – Turning 18 in California (live) confirming Brett’s combined directive-plus-HIPAA approach (two documents, not three).

The post Summer Estate Plan Check-Up: 5 Documents Every California Family Should Review Before Fall first appeared on Goodman.

Quick Answer

Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, life insurance, and payable on death accounts control who inherits those assets, and they override whatever your will or trust says. A missing or outdated designation is one of the most common and costly estate planning mistakes, and it can force an account into probate or send it to the wrong person. A short review of every account’s beneficiaries, done every few years and after major life events, is one of the highest value hours you can spend on your plan.

The Documents Most People Forget

When people think about their estate plan, they picture a will or a trust. Those documents matter, but they do not control everything. A large share of a typical family’s wealth passes outside the will and trust, through beneficiary designations. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, annuities, and payable on death or transfer on death accounts all pass directly to whoever is named on the form.

This is the part people forget. You can have a beautifully drafted trust, and it will have no effect on your 401(k) if the account names your beneficiaries directly. The account form wins. That is why a plan is only as good as the beneficiary designations that sit alongside it, and why reviewing those forms is not optional busywork. It is core to whether your plan actually works.

How Designations Override Your Will and Trust

This surprises people, so it is worth stating plainly. If your will or trust leaves everything to your children, but your life insurance policy still names your ex-spouse, the insurance company generally pays the ex-spouse. The will does not control the policy. The designation does.

The same is true for retirement accounts. Your IRA or 401(k) passes to the named beneficiary regardless of what your trust says. This is not a loophole or a mistake in the law. It is how these accounts are designed to work, and it is usually a good thing, because it lets the asset pass quickly and outside probate. The danger is only when the named beneficiary is wrong, outdated, or missing.

There is a common and understandable misconception at the root of this. Many people believe that once they sign a will or fund a trust, they have covered everything, and that these documents quietly sweep up all their assets. They do not. A will and a trust are powerful, but they operate alongside beneficiary designations, not above them. Understanding that division of labor is the first step to making sure nothing slips through the gap between them.

The Costly Mistake of a Missing Beneficiary

Consider a common scenario. A Newport Beach retiree holds a retirement account worth around $1 million. Years earlier he named his wife as the beneficiary. After she passed away, he never updated the form, and he never named a contingent, or backup, beneficiary. When he died, the account had no living named beneficiary at all.

With no valid beneficiary, the account was forced into probate. The family faced roughly $44,000 in combined legal and court costs, along with months of delay, before the money reached the people he intended to receive it. A single form, updated in a few minutes, would have let the entire account pass directly to his intended heirs, outside probate, with no court involvement. This is not a rare story, but is one of the most preventable failures in estate planning.

What makes this mistake so frustrating is how invisible it is. Nothing looks wrong. The account statements arrive as usual, the balance grows, and the owner assumes their family is protected. The gap only reveals itself after death, when it is too late to fix. That is exactly why a proactive review matters. You cannot rely on a problem to announce itself, because a beneficiary designation problem almost never does until the worst possible moment.

The Life Events That Should Trigger a Review

Beneficiary designations are not set and forget. They should be reviewed on a schedule and after anything that changes your family. The events that most often make a designation dangerously out of date include:

• Marriage or divorce, which can leave a former spouse named on accounts you would never intend them to receive.
• The birth or adoption of a child or grandchild, who may need to be added.
• The death of a named beneficiary, which can leave an account with no valid beneficiary if there is no contingent named.
• Opening a new account, which may have been set up with no beneficiary or a default one.
• Creating or updating a trust, since some accounts may need to coordinate with the trust rather than name individuals directly.

A good rule of thumb is to review every designation at least every two to three years, and promptly after any major life change.

Coordinating Designations With Your Trust

Beneficiary designations and a trust are not competitors. They are teammates, and they need to be coordinated. In some cases you will name individuals directly on an account. In others, especially where you want the protections a trust provides, such as staggered distributions or protection for a beneficiary who is not ready to manage a large sum, you may name the trust or a special subtrust as beneficiary.

Retirement accounts add a wrinkle, because the tax rules for inherited retirement accounts are complex, and naming a trust as beneficiary must be done carefully to avoid unintended tax consequences. This is one area where guidance genuinely pays for itself. The goal is a plan where the will, the trust, and every beneficiary designation point in the same direction rather than contradicting one another.

When these pieces are aligned, the result is a plan that does exactly what you intended with as little friction as possible. When they are not, even a small inconsistency can send an asset to the wrong person or into court. The difference between the two outcomes is often nothing more than an afternoon of careful review, which is a modest investment for the peace of mind of knowing your family will not face an avoidable surprise.

How to Run Your Own One-Page Audit

You can start today. Make a simple list of every account and policy that has a beneficiary, then confirm the named primary and contingent beneficiary for each:

• Retirement accounts, including IRAs, 401(k)s, and 403(b)s
• Life insurance policies and annuities
• Payable on death bank accounts and transfer on death investment accounts
• Health savings accounts and any employer benefits with a beneficiary

For each one, ask three questions. Is the primary beneficiary still who I want? Have I named a contingent beneficiary in case the primary predeceases me? Does this coordinate with my overall plan? If you cannot answer confidently, that account belongs at the top of your list to fix. A short conversation with an estate planning attorney can turn that list into a coordinated plan.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim-based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families coordinate their accounts and beneficiary designations with their overall plan.

Sources

• Baron Law – Estate Planning Considerations for 2026 (beneficiary audit; ~$44,000 probate cost on ~$1M IRA with no contingent beneficiary).
• Estate Law Center USA – Estate Planning Trends 2026 (beneficiary alignment; designations override the will).

Goodman Estate Law – The 10-Year Rule for Inherited IRAs (live post) for retirement-account coordination.

The post Beneficiary Designations: The One-Page Audit That Can Save Your Family Thousands first appeared on Goodman.