Marin County, California, Estate Planning Lawyer
Estate planning concerns every aspect of your life and affects your assets, debts, families and heirs. Everyone has an estate plan; either one that is carefully created or one haphazardly established for them by the maze of interconnected laws and statutes that dictate what happens if you fail to create and implement your own estate plan. The "default" estate plan created by laws and statutes upon your death is uncoordinated and is usually inconvenient, time-consuming and expensive.
Single, married, in a domestic partnership, living together, divorced, remarried or disabled - everyone owns or controls property and assets, and everyone has financial and other obligations with which they must deal. The Laing Law Offices in Larkspur, California, understands the sensitive nature of each client's estate planning concerns. Privacy and discretion are at the center of the service we provide.
Offering over 30 years of experience, Attorney R. Bruce Laing has represented a number of high profile public officials, politicians, film industry and entertainment figures in their complex estate planning needs. Contact us today to discuss your estate planning objectives in a confidential consultation and case evaluation with an experienced Bay Area attorney.
Beyond Wills, Trusts and Power of Attorney
Estate planning, family law, property law, corporate and partnership law and tax laws all overlap and are interrelated. For example:
- Special Needs Trusts for children, and for those disabled by injury or disease, profoundly affect estate plans.
- Durable Powers of Attorney for property and asset management provide control and stability for those who are incompetent to manage their own affairs because of mental and physical disabilities.
- Insurance Funded Trusts provide controlled cash benefits, including money to pay child and spousal support obligations. Pet Trusts can insure life-long care for beloved pets.
- Blended Family Trusts and Subsequent Marriage Trusts involve family, probate and tax matters. Frequently, each spouse has children from a different relationship who become increasingly interested in preserving "Mom's property" or "Dad's property" as their respective parents age. This is an area for careful and clear planning.
- Prenuptial Agreements, also known as premarital agreements, created before a first or subsequent marriage significantly affect estate plans.
- Postmarital Agreements, also known as postnuptial agreements, can effect a property division between married parties and act as a divorce substitute where necessary to preserve essential benefits, such as medical coverage for one or more spouses who would not otherwise be able to procure adequate medical coverage.
- Non-Marital Agreements, Co-Tenancy Agreements, living together agreements and Residence Trusts can be coordinated with individual estate plans.
Family Limited Partnerships: An increasingly important cross-over between estate planning and business planning and asset preservation is accomplished by the coordinated use of the family limited partnership (FLP), limited liability company (LLC) and other entities to protect and preserve family estates and businesses, to limit exposure to liability, and to limit the cross-over of business liabilities into family assets. At Laing Law Offices, we create and draft these plans, drawing on our extensive experience and that of competent and experienced accounting and other financial experts.
California Community Property Law: In California, many businesses fail to take into account the effects of California community property laws and the interrelated effect on the business of community property law and estate plans of their principals. Buy-sell agreements are frequently not coordinated with the estate plans of the principals of the business, and agreements under which businesses operate frequently do not contain adequate provisions to govern valuation of the principals' respective interests in the business, divorces and other similar proceedings. Typically, written spousal consents are either not obtained or are inadequate, causing undue expense and turmoil when the business is dragged into a divorce proceeding.
Serving the Bay Area from Santa Rosa to San Francisco
Each person's estate planning concerns are unique. We take that into account at Laing Law Offices. Please contact us concerning your estate planning needs.
LAING LAW OFFICES
100 Larkspur Landing Circle, Suite 110
Larkspur, Ca 94939
T: (415) 461-3133
F: (415) 461-4022
At Laing Law Offices, we serve clients in Larkspur, Corte Madera, San Rafael, Mill Valley, Sausalito, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Novato, and communities throughout the Bay Area, including those located in Marin County, San Francisco County, Sonoma County, Alameda County, and Contra Costa County, California.
