Palo Alto and Los Altos, California (650) 325-8276

California Estate Planning Attorney

My client was a U.S. citizen who owned $40 million in real estate assets with her husband, a citizen of China.

When he gave up his green card status and moved back to China to care for his parents, he lost access to the unlimited spousal estate tax exemption and became vulnerable to a heavy estate tax burden of $16 million. The unlimited spousal estate tax exemption does not apply to non-resident aliens who transfer U.S. property to their children, even if the children are U.S. citizens.

Their goals were:

  • Reduce the estate tax burden to maximize the inheritances of their (adult) children from the husband’s first marriage.
  • Omit one disfavored child from the primary estate plan, but develop a backup plan in case the son returns to favor before the husband or wife dies.
  • Protect the assets, after they are transferred to the children, from “creditors, predators, in-laws, and outlaws.”

I created a plan that reduces the estate tax vulnerability from about $16 million to about $7 million. The plan is built on the foundations of the spousal gift exemption, the lifetime non-spouse gift exemption for U.S. citizens, a life insurance trust to set aside funds to pay the remaining estate taxes, and the asset protection features of limited liability companies and irrevocable trusts. The estate plan includes “backup clauses” by which the wife and husband can make later gifts and bequests to the currently disfavored son, in the event that he regains favor.

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Providing for a Child Who Struggles With Addiction

Over the course of my practice, I have observed time and again that families face the same challenges when planning their estates — whether the estate value is $500,000 or $50,000,000. A parent whose child struggles with addiction will worry that the child will waste their inheritance, regardless of the value of the inheritance. The difference is that a parent with a high net worth estate has resources available to build in preventative measures. With a $500,000 estate, the only realistic solution is usually to assign an independent trustee who is charged with the responsibility of carefully doling out trust funds. With a $15 million estate, the options are different.

On behalf of such a client, I negotiated with a major bank to serve as the trustee of the trust, which will control the house that the daughter will receive as inheritance. Over multiple iterations of the trust language, I negotiated language and funds permitting the bank to do occasional sophisticated testing to detect evidence if the home is being used as a methamphetamine lab. These measures are both to protect the daughter and to protect the bank, which was very concerned about opening itself to legal liability if it managed a house being used for illegal activity. The trust also requires the daughter to get regular drug testing and attend Narc-Anon meetings.
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My clients were a couple who had a $16-$18 million estate by the time their two children were in elementary school.

When we wrote their estate plan, we discussed guardianships for their children in the event both husband and wife died. They wanted the wife’s sister’s family to raise the children. That family lived across the country in Pennsylvania; the sister was a school teacher and the husband was a coal miner. I counseled them through the process of deciding how to manage their children’s trusts, given that they would be worth about $8 million each if they did, in fact, go to live with their middle-class aunt and uncle. Should their children live a reduced lifestyle? Should their children get to access their wealth but be powerless to share it with their new family? Or, should the wife’s sister’s family be included in the estate plan?

My clients preferred the philosophy that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” We wrote the guardians into the estate plan with a clause that effectively stated: “So long as there’s enough money in the trust to care for our children, then you’ll get a stipend every year to take the whole family to Disneyland” or share another experience that would otherwise be out of range financially. It would have been impossible for the trustee of the children’s funds to meet my clients’ wishes if it had not been explicitly written into the estate plan language, because a trustee cannot disburse funds to anyone but named beneficiaries.
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My clients are a middle-aged couple with an estate worth $30-$40 million.

They knew they needed an estate plan that reduced their vulnerability to estate taxes. However, they were not yet prepared to gift $23.7 million (the gift and estate tax exemption at the time) to their adult children, both because they want their children to establish their careers and also because they want to ensure they have enough funds to live well themselves for several more decades.

I used spousal lifetime access trusts to accomplish their goals. The spouses put a total of $23.7 million into trust for each other, which required me to navigate complex IRS rules that govern “reciprocal trusts.” They are each entitled to the interest and can withdraw principal. In addition, the parents plan to give their children low-cost intra-family loans so each child can buy a home.
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International estate planning for a couple with growing net worth

I was asked to assist a couple where one spouse is a U.S. citizen and the other is a permanent resident with citizenship in Japan. Decades ago, they created a revocable trust. Since then, their asset value grew, and the current/future net asset value seems to exceed the estate tax exemption. They consulted a self-help book that stated there are only two solutions to cope with the situation: (1) Establish a qualified domestic trust (QDOT); or (2) the non-citizen spouse acquires U.S. citizenship The non-citizen spouse is considering acquiring U.S. citizenship but would prefer to hold the Japanese citizenship. It will take a year or so to complete the citizenship acquisition process. Their primary question is whether they should establish a QDOT regardless of whether the non-citizen spouse acquires U.S. citizenship, to protect their assets while citizenship application is pending.

Bequests to adult children: fair versus equal

A widow in her late 80’s with 7 “kids” (ranging in age from late 40s to about 60) vacillates between wanting her estate plan to treat them “fairly” versus treat them “equally” – which is not the same thing in her mind. I’ve made several changes in her documents over the past 5 years. She and her husband started and ran 3 companies, all of which she still owns. Son #1 runs one business; Son #2 runs another; and a non-family partner runs the 3rd.

Decades’-long relationship: estate planning, estate administration, disposition of commercial real estate

My client is the daughter of a woman whose estate plan I created 20+ years ago. I have helped my client for the last 10+ years while she took care of her aging mother (who died in 2020 at age 106) and tried to keep her siblings in line. Now I’m assisting with administration of the mother’s estate, including selling her mother’s home and deciding what to do with some commercial real property that her brother uses for his business. Do they sell it? A sale would be better for the daughter & her sister because the sale would free up a lot of cash. However, a sale would be bad for her brother, because he would face either a monthly rent increase of $7,000-to-$10,000 per month or eviction if the new owner decided to tear down and rebuild.

Estate planning with international real estate ownership

My client is a woman in her late 80s. She is a published author who was born and raised in South Africa, then moved to London (where she still maintains a home). She now lives in Palo Alto. I’ve revised her estate plan several times, and I have also worked on behalf of her son-in-law.

High net worth family; husband, wife, and minor child each has a complex citizenship status

I was asked to assist a family with an especially complex estate planning situation due to citizenship status. The husband is a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen. The wife is a French citizen who holds a U.S. green card (resident alien). They have a 13-year-old daughter who is a triple citizen (U.S.-born with Australian and French citizenship).

The husband has worked with a publicly traded high-tech company for 27 years. He has stock with an original cost basis of as little as $0.50 per share (adjusted for stock splits) that’s currently selling at about $125.00 per share. Total estate value is between $30 million – $35 million, depending on stock prices.

The husband’s financial advisor told them to investigate advanced estate planning. Beneficial strategies may include GRATs (grantor retained annuity trusts) or SLATs (spousal lifetime access trusts), which will allow them to “lock in” the current lifetime estate tax exclusion. They might also be served by an ILIT (irrevocable life insurance trust) funded with a “2nd to die” life insurance policy of $2 million to $10 million.

One complicating factor is that the husband is thinking of giving up his U.S. citizenship and moving back to the U.K. If so, the wife would give up her resident alien status. There are tax laws dealing with expatriation, for which they need to consult a tax attorney. There are also tax laws that will impose sky-high estate taxes if they make gifts to their U.S. citizen daughter when they are former citizens/resident aliens. A SLAT could put their assets out of reach of those tax laws. Alternately, an ILIT would be a way to set aside the funds their daughter might need to pay any estate taxes.

Additionally, France is a “forced heirship” country. This means that if they acquire assets in France, those assets will need to follow the French distribution requirements regardless of any U.S. estate planning documents that state otherwise.

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Helping 3 generations of a family

My clients are a married couple who are retired doctors. I first met the wife 20+ years ago when her mother passed away and I helped with the trust administration. After that, I prepared the husband and wife’s estate plan and I have revised it a few times. More recently, I’ve prepared an estate plan for their daughter.

An uncomfortable “sibling problem”

My clients are a married couple. I’ve helped them and one spouse’s mother (now deceased) with estate planning. I’ve also helped the married couple navigate an uncomfortable “sibling problem,” which I’ll hold confidential. I administered the mother’s estate, as well.

Foreign nationals require guardianship for their dual citizenship daughter

I was asked to assist a family with a 2-year old daughter seeking help to set up their estate and contingent child care plans. Both spouses are both foreign nationals (China and U.K. citizens) and U.S. green card holders. Their daughter was born in the U.S. and is a citizen of both the U.S. and the U.K. The families of both spouses are non-U.S. citizens and live outside of the U.S. in China and the U.K. Their main goals were to understand potential complications, make arrangements for their daughter to be raised by their family members out of the U.S., and ensure that their daughter would inherit their assets.

A successful entrepreneur with a blended family

My client is an entrepreneur who started a software company that’s done very well. He has children by a first marriage and is now married for the second time. I advise him on estate planning questions that arise due to tensions between the children of the first marriage & the current spouse.

Using a trust to assist a disabled family member

My clients are a married couple. The wife works for a local non-profit and the husband is in charge of the custodial staff at a local school. They don’t work in high-tech, which makes them an atypical Silicon Valley couple. When the wife’s widowed mother died, I helped her set up a trust for her autistic brother. I have worked on the couple’s estate plan, as well.

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