We recently filed a petition for guardianship of a minor. The grandmother requested guardianship of the person of her grandson. The minor’s father had died, and the 8-year-old minor was living with his mother in Fresno. Our client had substantial contact with the minor before his father died, but was cut off from all contact …
Continue reading “Unpublished policy from the Fresno County Probate Court Investigator’s Office”
Part of a continuing update regarding the time needed to obtain a hearing in the Fresno Probate Court. We just filed a petition for distribution from a decedent’s estate, all cash, three heirs. Filed on January 21, 2025, set for hearing July 9, 2025 (169 days). What was it like in the past? We filed …
Continue reading “169 days to get a hearing for probate distribution in Fresno Superior Court”
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, …
Continue reading “It takes four months to get a real estate sale approved in Fresno Probate Court”
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”
Sometimes a court provides a clear statement of the law. Greenspan v. LADT LLC (2010) 191 Cal.App.4th 486 is one such opinion, providing a definite and authoritative answer to the issue of whether a trust is an entity – it is not. From the opinion. “Courts often speak of the alter ego doctrine as if …
Continue reading “Greenspan v. LADT LLC – Once and for All, a Trust Is Not an Entity”
The law is filled with rules. Rules give guidance to judges. Sometimes the legal result does not square with the facts. In Estate of Britel (2015) 236 Cal.App.4th 127, “the court admitted into evidence a DNA test showing a 99.9996 percent probability that the decedent (Amine Britel) was A.S.’s (the child’s) father.” Yet the court …
Continue reading “Estate of Britel – When is a Child Not a Child?”
Case law reflects a tension in the interpretation of fiduciary duties. One camp favors a “I know it when I see it” approach, while the more rigorous jurists seek to discern the basis for imposition of such liability. This tension is on full display in the recent en banc decision in U.S. v. Milovanovic, ___ …
Continue reading “U.S. v. Milovanovic – Ninth Circuit Adopts a Sloppy Fiduciary Standard”
A study of the ancient English common law begins, for many points, with the law that developed after 1066. The history of inheritances of land is certainly curious, as we inevitably find it tied to the duties owed in a feudal, agricultural society. Here is an excellent analysis from Oxford Prof. A. W. B. Simpson. …
Continue reading “A. W. B. Simpson on English Wills in the 12th and 13th Centuries”
In a law review article published 50 years ago, Cambridge law professor L.S. Sealy reviewed two centuries of English case law on fiduciary relationships. He concluded, correctly, that different relationships give rise to different duties. As a starting point, “Fletcher Moulton L.J. once warned against what he called ‘the danger of trusting to verbal formulae’ …
Continue reading “L.S. Sealy – Categories of Fiduciary Duties”