Most people are familiar with a basic Last Will and Testament but very few people in Santa Clara know what a Pour-Over Will is. Essentially, a Pour-Over Will is used in conjunction with a Trust, usually a Revocable Living Trust, and it directs that any assets you own outside of the trust at the time […]

Creating and building a successful business in Santa Clara County is incredibly difficult and maintaining that success is just as challenging. You hire accountants and lawyers to make sure you are protected from those who seek to take away what you have worked so hard to achieve, but are you protected from those that will […]

As Santa Clara elder law attorneys, our answer to this question is yes and no. In most cases, it depends on where the adult children and the elderly parent live in the country. Technically, more than half of states have laws on the books that require adult children to pay for their parent’s nursing home […]

Yet another great speaker at the most recent American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys Summit was Elaine McIntosh, President and CEO of Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care. Her talk covered a wide range of matters, but I wanted to share a few: Hospice care is related to general palliative (pain- or problem-relieving) care, and […]

Need help motivating your spouse to meet with a Will and Estate lawyer here in Santa Clara? We know from experience that the legal planning process is usually initiated by one spouse and is often met with hesitation by the other. It is understandable why one or both spouses would be reluctant to meet with […]

When clients come to see a Bay Area estate planning lawyer, they generally have multiple goals in mind. Interestingly, they don’t always realize this fact, thinking that they “just” need to put together a will that stipulates who gets what after they have passed away. While this is obviously a very important part of what […]

Here at Brainin Law Office, our entire legal team is passionate about helping parents name legal guardians for their children. It’s a critical step that allows parents to document the people they want and trust to raise their kids if they are incapacitated or unexpectedly pass away. But there is another area of planning for […]

If you are over 70 ½ years old, you can donate some or all of your IRA to an eligible charity of your choice. Using a Qualified Charitable Distribution, you can donate directly from you IRA to the charity. Not only is this a great way to support your favorite charities, there are also some […]

Most people are familiar with the two types of IRAs, Traditional and Roth. Briefly: traditional IRAs are both tax-deductible (you don’t pay income tax on the money that’s contributed, up to an annual limit) and tax deferred (you don’t pay taxes on the earnings inside the IRA), but you pay income tax on all the […]

Following the shocking death of Prince, folks across the country were equally shocked to learn that the musical genius died without a Will or Trust in place to deal with the distribution of his fortune and valuable music catalogue when he passed away. Dying without a Will in his home state of Minnesota now means […]