We have discussed California Spousal Property Petitions (SPPs) before. As a refresher an SPP is an abbreviated probate procedure used to clear title to property when a spouse dies. It doesn’t work in all cases but it works in many where one spouse dies and there is a surviving spouse. It works for both community […]

I recently discussed a case with a potential new client. The facts are similar to other cases I have seen before and I thought it might be helpful for you, my loyal readers to hear of such a case. I have simplified a few of the facts and modified so this is similar but not […]

I had a really interesting fact pattern today that I wanted to share. I got the perspective client’s permission to share but, of course, names are changed for privacy. Sadly Gina’s mom, Molly, died in December of 2015 and her dad, Donald, died in December of 2016. A crappy 12 months for Gina we can […]

INTRODUCTION I was presented a really interesting hypothetical recently. I thought it would make for a good blog post as there are a lot of intricate turns. It gets into issues of how to hold title, how to distribute assets between husbands and wives, and how small estate options work after death. HYPOTHETICAL In this […]

I met with a new client today whose husband died recently. She said she went to a local attorney, who was very nice, and told her she would have to do a full probate to get the house out of her husband’s name and into her name.  The grieving widow, luckily, decided to do a […]

As I went through my outline from my 2008 presentation, for NBI, on California probate law I realized I had pretty extensive materials on surviving spousal rights. I hope you find it interesting reading my outline!  I find any topic that I present to a room full of attorneys, like this one, is always a […]