What to bring to your first estate planning meeting
There are two types of preparation that can (or should) be done for this meeting. There's the information, and there's the thinking. People tend to go heavy on the information part of the preparation. They collect contact details and social security numbers for long lost cousins; they show up with tabbed binders and alphabetized bank statements covered in highlighter. Then the conversation turns to who should raise their kids, and the room goes quiet.
Compiling the information takes an evening. The thinking takes longer, and it's the part that actually shapes your plan. Here's how to do both without losing a weekend.
Photo by Ellen Tanner on Unsplash
Write down one page of what you own
One page. Everything significant, roughly what it's worth, and the detail almost everyone skips: whose name is on it.
That last column is usually the most important thing you'll write down. How something is titled decides whether it goes through probate, what tax basis your family inherits, and whether your trust can reach it at all. A house in joint tenancy behaves differently from the same house held as community property with right of survivorship, and neither behaves like a house in a trust. Same house, three different outcomes, all decided by a line on a deed you probably haven't read since escrow.
So next to each item, jot down the name that's actually on the deed or the account. Sole, joint, community property, trust, or "no idea." No idea is a perfectly respectable answer. It's often the most useful one, because it says where to look first.
Round numbers are fine. Nobody needs your balance to the dollar, and it'll be different by Thursday anyway.
The list:
Real estate, including anything outside California, anything owned jointly with others, and any timeshares
Retirement accounts
Bank and brokerage accounts
Life insurance
A business, if you own all or part of one
Crypto, which gets its own conversation
Anything that already has a name attached to it in your head (think: the ring your mother wore).
What to leave at home
Your Social Security number. Your full account numbers. Your passwords. Your crypto recovery phrase. All of it stays home.
None of that makes the planning one bit better, and there's no reason to hand sensitive information to anyone unnecessarily. Yes, including us. We'd rather you didn't. The institution, a ballpark balance, and the last four digits is plenty to build a plan around.
Bring what you already have, even the embarrassing stuff
A will, a trust, powers of attorney, a healthcare directive. Old ones count. The one you made online in 2011 counts. The trust you're pretty sure was done wrong counts double, because finding out is the whole point of the meeting.
Dig up your beneficiary designations too, if you can. Retirement accounts and life insurance don't care what your will says. They pay whoever's on the form, and the form wins every time. An ex-spouse still sitting on a 401(k) form from 1998 is a classic of the genre, and it isn't fixable after the fact.
Discuss before you arrive
Who raises your children. If you have kids under 18, everything else on this page is a footnote. California Probate Code sections 1500 through 1502 let you nominate a guardian in your will or in a separate signed document, and courts give that nomination real weight. But nobody can weigh what you never wrote down. Skip it, and a judge chooses based on a courtroom's worth of information about your family instead of a lifetime's.
Two mistakes worth skipping. First, name a backup, because your first choice can move to Portugal or simply say no. Second, ask the person. It's an awkward phone call, but you should have it anyway. The version where they find out from a lawyer is worse.
Who handles the money. This is a different job, and it doesn't have to be the same person. Often, it shouldn't be. Your most loving sibling and your most organized sibling are not always the same sibling.
A quick vocabulary fix while we're here, because the internet is a mess on this one. In California, a person who manages a minor's money is a guardian of the estate. A conservator is appointed for an adult who can't manage their own affairs. If a website tells you to name a conservator for your kids, it isn't describing California, whatever its URL says.
The person you want here is organized and honest. They don't need to be good with money so much as humble about it. Willing to hire an accountant will always beat certain they don't need one.
You'll also pick someone to step in if you're incapacitated, and someone for medical decisions. Same standard; different jobs; possibly different people.
Bring your questions, especially the ones you think are dumb
Your questions aren’t dumb. That random person from Reddit or your (even well meaning) in-laws might not know the law as well as your lawyers. So don’t be afraid to ask. Questions that start with "is it true that" are ones we love to answer the most.
If your mind blanks, start with these three: What happens to my house? What happens if I get sick instead of dying? How do I best protect my kids?
Three ways to get this wrong
Waiting for the “perfect” folder of information and decisions. An incomplete list at a real meeting beats a complete one at a meeting that keeps not happening.
Deciding the answer in advance. How to structure your trust, your will, and your incapacity documents is the conversation, not the homework.
Editing out the messy parts. The estranged brother. The second marriage. The kid who is wonderful and also terrible with money. The loan to your nephew that the whole family politely calls a gift. Those are the facts that change the plan, and a plan built for the tidy version of your family fails at the exact spot you were worried about. Estate lawyers are unshockable. Bring the real version.
If one of these applies to you
You own a business. Bring the operating agreement and any buy-sell agreement.
A family member has a disability and receives benefits. Note what they receive and from which program. An inheritance handled wrong can cost them their eligibility, and that's preventable.
Blended family. Bring any agreement left over from a prior divorce.
Property in another state. Bring the deed. Out-of-state property changes the plan more than people expect.
Then just come in
An hour of honest thinking beats another inch of paper. You can book at either office, Studio City or Mission Viejo, or you can meet with us over Zoom. Bring what you have, including the parts you're unsure about. Especially those.