A recent legacy case illustrates how Proposition 19 impacts grandparents wishing to leave their family vineyard property to their granddaughter. Change in the Law Effective February 16, 2021, Prop. 19 modified the reassessment exclusion for parents and grandparents wishing to pass down their property to their children or grandchildren who were not going to live there, leaving certain estates vulnerable. What About the Exclusion Limits? Prior to Prop. 19, primary residences of unlimited value could be transferred avoiding reassessment up to an additional $1 million of assessed value. This also had zero requirement that the child lives at that property. Read more…

In this day and age of websites, blogs, coaching programs and such, if you own a business that has these things, if something were to happen to you, what would happen to these things? These sort of things are what is referred to as ‘intellectual properties’ and if you have a will or estate plan that includes directives for your business you might think more about protecting these aspects to your business or endeavor. Under the law, in the broadest sense an intellectual property is an abstract item such a concept, ideas or formula and so on. To protect things Read more…

Recently as marriage equality and identity classifications have been critiqued more closely by the LGBTQ community, here’s some info about name changes. Basically it’s not that difficult. Anybody can change their name legally. Just make sure it is not to commit fraud or make a false identity. The simplest and most common is when people marry. Today’s customs and attitudes about marriage lets women keep a “maiden name” or allows for a hyphenated name. Hyphenated names are used in England. Historically, it has been part of the class or caste-system in English society. Hyphenated names were passed down as a Read more…