California is the largest consumer of alternative diesel fuels in the United States. A recent study published by the University of California Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics discusses U.S. imports of used cooking oil. The authors explain as follows: “Clean fuel programs like California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard have driven a boom in the consumption …
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We recently filed a Petition to Determine Succession to Real Property in Madera County and one in Fresno County. The Madera case was submitted for filing on October 2, 2024. The assigned hearing date for the Madera case is November 18, 2024. It takes 47 days to get a probate hearing in Madera. On the …
On August 14, 2024, my office filed a petition to approve the sale of a house in a probate estate. The sale cannot proceed until we get court approval. Which will be a long time coming, because the assigned hearing date is December 11, 2024. That’s a four-month delay. Most buyers won’t wait that long, …
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The Fresno probate court was formerly very prompt. You could submit a petition and receive a hearing date within six to eight weeks. Everything moved right along. Not now. On February 7, 2023, we filed a petition to distribute an estate to two heirs. The heirs waived the accounting, and the estate is all cash, …
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The University of California at Davis publishes an excellent agriculture newsletter. In the Sept/Oct 2022 issue, Prof. Colin A. Carter and Sandro Steinbach offer the following insights into the California almond industry (big business here in the Central Valley): “California almond tree acreage has expanded by roughly three-fold since 2000. As a result, the industry …
Continue reading “Choppy Waters for California Almond Producers”
We filed a petition to distribute an estate in the Fresno Probate court on September 26, 2022. It’s a simple case. There is only one asset, being a parcel of land. There is only one heir. There is no accounting, because the sole heir waived the accounting. The probate clerk set the matter for hearing …
Continue reading “5-1/2 Month Delay to Get Standard Hearing Date in Fresno Probate Court”
The federal estate and gift tax has been law since World War I. In its simplest terms, it provides for the taxation of gifts made at death. A certain group of influential persons don’t like this tax, and have continually attacked it, using the pejorative label “death tax.” Like all taxes, the estate and gift …
Continue reading “The Death Tax Bogeyman – More Imaginary than Real”
The first principle of mediation is that parties work to find a resolution on terms that are mutually acceptable. In mediation, nobody orders the parties what to do: the parties control the outcome. This is referred to as the principle of self-determination, and it is embodied in California Rules of Court, rule 3.853, which states …
Continue reading “Breslin v. Breslin – Court Breaks the First Commandment of Mediation”
The recent decision in Pulte Homes Corporation v. Williams Mechanical, Inc. (Aug. 9, 2016) 2 Cal.App.5th 267 was arose from a claim by Pulte for “$69,576 based on Williams’s allegedly negligent performance of a subcontract for the installation of plumbing in two residential construction projects.” The advance sheets contained the entire opinion. When the decision …
The law of payment systems has interested this writer for many years. It is an area of law filled with arcane and technical rules, most of which are never encountered in day-to-day transactions, and that’s why is important to have professionals to help you with this, Legal Riordan Lawyer Canberra has proven excellence in legal …