California trust review · $500 flat

Is your house actually in your trust?

Often it is not. The document is usually fine — what fails is the funding, and you cannot see that by reading the trust. You see it at the county recorder.

$500 flat, and no meeting to sit through. You already know you want it checked. Send me the trust and the address of the property, and I will tell you plainly whether your plan works.

Start a trust review

$500 flat. Written findings, usually within a week.

When was your trust signed?

Which county is the property in?

Who prepared it?

Your name

Phone

No payment is taken here. I check for conflicts first, then send you an engagement letter and a payment link. Nothing is owed until you accept it.

Admitted: California, 2004
Where: All 58 counties
Fee: $500 flat, no meeting first
Verify me: Bar No. 233854

A trust only controls what is actually in it.

This is the single most common failure I see, and it is almost never a drafting problem. The document is usually fine. The funding is what fails — and you cannot see that by reading the trust. You see it at the county recorder, by checking whose name is on the deed.

If your home is still titled in your own name when you die, it goes through probate regardless of what the trust says. On a $1.2M California house that is roughly $50,000 in statutory fees your family did not need to pay.

Most at risk

Online or budget trusts

Many services draft the documents and leave the deed to you as "funding instructions". Those deeds are not always recorded — and nobody checks until it matters.

Also at risk

Anything pre‑2018

Older trusts often carry formula clauses tied to estate tax exemptions that have since changed beyond recognition, and trustees who have died or moved on.

And

If you have moved or refinanced

A refinance sometimes takes the property out of the trust and nobody puts it back. Buying since the trust was signed has the same effect.

What $500 buys.

A flat fee, one time, no obligation to do anything afterwards.

I read it

Your trust and the related documents — the will, the powers of attorney, the health care directive — reviewed by me personally.

I pull title

County records checked to see whose name is actually on your property. This is the step that finds the problem, and it is the one you cannot do by reading your own paperwork.

I check the people

Successor trustees, beneficiaries and agents — whether they are still alive, still willing, and still who you would choose.

You get it in writing

Plain English findings, not a memo full of citations. If it is sound I tell you so and you have spent $500 for the peace of mind. If it is not, you get a firm quote to fix it and no obligation to accept.

Find out before your family does.

Send me the trust and the property address. I run a conflict check, send an engagement letter and a payment link, and the findings follow.

Start my review — $500