I know this can be very complicated especially due to community property treatment in California so I am looking for practical experience rather then legal advice. (Although free accurate legal advice is always welcomed )
My wife’s father passed away recently. There are quite a few brokerage and bank accounts at various institutions. It won’t be difficult for her mother to gain access to funds needed to live for a long time. It would be a bit difficult to get every account titled differently.
We do want to head off major difficulties in accessing those accounts when her mother passes… what problems should we be wary of?
She needs to have a will, and one of her children should have power of attorney. I really, really, really advise seeing an attorney if there are mutiple accounts involved.
Many Californians have set up family trusts, and put their assets in there. I have one, as does my father. When my mother died, he had no difficulty in keeping access to the assets in the trust, which still continues.
An attorney can help set up the trust, make your wife a co-trustee, and answer any questions.
My impression is that a power of attorney, though useful, will not allow access to estates that get effecively frozen until settled. So I don’t think that is adequate. When my parents retired they made a hobby of going to estate planning classes at the local community college. This was good, because my father’s estate plan before this was for me to get to the safety deposit box before the bank found out he was dead. :dubious:
At the same time she does the trust, your wife should get a medical power of attorney for her mother, and make sure her wishes are written down.
IANAL, but I’ve spend excessive amounts of time with lawyers going through these things.
Setting up a trust is not all that expensive, and seems to be pretty standard here when the estate has any reasonable amount of money.
Don’t go willy nilly and change the name on the accounts to your mother’s too soon. It will take months for things like checks which are being deposited into some accounts to be changed to your mother’s. We had that problem with checks which still had both my mother’s and father’s name on them.
See a lawyer about a will and trusts. Have your own done at the same time.
I doubt you will be able to change names on any existing accounts that your father in law was named on until his estate was settled. If he died intestate his estate will have to be probated. Not much happens til probate is done. Ask me how I know this.
You should also have a very frank discussion wit your MIL and the lawyer about what to do in the event your MIL becomes unable to handle her own affairs. A conservatorship is one solution, but in the case of my father it was an absolute nightmare. His estate was not that large and the accounting was 10 steps past a hassle. Also once a conservatorship is set up it is pretty much for life. The court will look over every little thing you do.
IANAL, but I have been told that a durable power of attorney will also work in these cases.
There are pro and cons to both ways, look them over and talk to a lawyer.
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