Best Estate Planning Attorneys in Palo Alto, CA

Powers of attorney give one or more persons the power to act on your behalf. The power may be limited to a particular activity (e.g., closing the sale of your home) or general in its application, empowering one or more persons to act on your behalf in a variety of situations. It may take effective immediately or only upon the occurrence of a future event (e.g., a determination that you are unable to act for yourself). A Power of Attorney meets an important estate planning objective to prepare for situations when you may not be able to act on your own behalf due to absence or incapacity. Such a disability may be temporary (e.g., due to travel, accident, or illness) or it may be permanent. If you do not have a Power of Attorney and become unable to manage your personal or business affairs, it may become necessary for a court to appoint one or more people to act for you, referred to as guardians or conservators. With a Power of Attorney, you choose who will act and define their authority and its limits, if any.

Choose someone whom you trust. Many people name their spouses or one or more children (if not a minor). You should name a successor agent to address the possibility that the person you name as agent may be unavailable or unable to act when the time comes.

Their purpose is to allow you to express your preferences concerning medical treatment at the end of your life. These documents provide your expressed wishes, rather than making the family guess your desires, which eases the burden on your family during this stressful time. They also provide your physician with a written expression from you as to your medical care and designate for the physician the person he or she should consult concerning medical questions.

It varies depending on the complexity of the plan and whether all information necessary has been gathered. If you have completed the questionnaire and all questions are answered, the process could take as little as 4-6 weeks (see below for the steps of estate planning). Emergency cases can be expedited.

My office typically charges a fixed fee for estate plans. We ask for half of the fee after the first meeting. The remaining fee is due at the final signing. If you engage my office to do the estate plan, the fee for the first meeting is credited toward the total fee. For trust administration and complex work, we charge hourly (which actually turns out to be more cost effective for the client than fixed fee, because a fixed fee is usually a percentage of the total assets). We ask for a deposit and then we send monthly invoices for these types of cases.