A will goes to court. A trust doesn't.
Both say who gets what. Only one of them keeps your family out of a public process that takes years and is priced as a percentage of everything you own.
1Will-based plan
A will directs who inherits, but it only takes effect through probate — the court process it is meant to guide.
- Names guardians for minor children
- Still requires probate to take effect
- Becomes a public court record
- Lower cost to create, higher cost to administer
2Living trust
A funded trust passes property directly to the people you name, privately, without a court ever being involved.
- Avoids probate entirely when funded
- Stays private — nothing is filed publicly
- Manages your affairs if you become incapacitated
- Distributes in weeks rather than years
A plan is four documents, not one.
People ask for a will and need rather more than that. These four together cover both what happens after you die and what happens if you cannot speak for yourself.
The trust or will
Who inherits, in what shares, and at what age children receive anything.
Durable power of attorney
Who pays your bills and manages your property if you are unable to. Without it, a conservatorship may be required.
Advance healthcare directive
Who speaks to doctors, and what you want done. The document hospitals actually ask for.
Guardianship nomination
Who raises your children. Nothing else in the plan matters as much to parents of young children.
Quoted before we start. No hourly surprises.
Estate planning is predictable work and should be priced that way. Probate, by contrast, is priced by statute — which is the argument for planning.
Initial consultation
An hour, no obligation
Complete trust package
All four documents, signing included
Will-based plan
For estates without real property
Some circumstances remove the option to plan.
Capacity is the dividing line. Once it is gone, almost every door in this area closes and the remaining routes run through a court.
A diagnosis affecting capacity
A plan has to be signed while the person signing clearly understands it. After that, the route is conservatorship.
A death with no trust in place
Probate starts whether or not anyone files. Beginning early limits the cost and the delay.
Long-term care beginning soon
What a family can protect depends heavily on how early planning starts relative to the start of care.
The attorney you meet is the attorney who handles your case.
Ruth Kaminski has drafted more than 3,000 estate plans and still meets every client personally before anything is signed.
Straight answers.
If you own a home in California, a trust almost always saves your family more than it costs. Without real property a will may be sufficient.
Statutory fees are a percentage of the gross estate, not the equity — so a mortgaged home is charged on its full value.
A living trust is revocable. You can amend or revoke it at any time while you have capacity.
Usually two appointments: one to design the plan, one to sign it. Typically two to three weeks apart.
Find out in one call whether you qualify — and what you get to keep.
No cost. No obligation. No judgment.
(800) 555-0142