IS YOUR TRUST DEFECTIVE?

During 1996 California’s Attorney General launched an investigation into

the sale of trusts and estate planning by groups such as the Alliance for Mature Americans who primarily wanted to sell investments, deferred annuities. Attorney General Lundgren, discovered people claiming to be “estate planning experts” counseled thousands of Californians regarding their wills and trusts. Their training lasted less than 2 weeks . They advised people, they collected information, and came back later with estate planning documents. They gave or sold the information to others to help sell annuities and other products.

The attorney General found that attorneys did not review the documents, and that the information was collected in order to facilitate the sale of single premium insurance, annuities and other investments. In many cases, the salesmen came back months or years later to “review and update” the documents which gave them another chance to try and sell more of the products.

Alliance for Mature Americans sold more than 10,000 living trust packages and more than $200 million in annuities. They used scare tactics and misinformation to do it.

The sale of “investments” by persons claiming to be from a “non-profit” group for seniors is still going on today , possibly by some of the same people. Thousands of trusts and wills are still being prepared by people with little or no training, and they are collecting more information than they really need.

Problems:

1)        Trusts not properly filled out, many have missing information.

2)        Trusts were not properly witnessed or notarized

3)        Trusts not funded

4)        Trusts that have conflicting clauses

5)        In some cases the “estate planner” has included themselves in the distribution

Unscrupulous salespeople have your bank account numbers, the amounts; a copy of the deed for your home, and in looking at documents, they collect social security numbers and drivers license numbers, and they sell the information to others hoping to sell you “investments”.

Some trusts which were prepared years ago need to be changed because of new tax laws, or your relationship with the beneficiaries has changed. Our office can review old trusts, revise them or revoke them entirely. Call to make an appointment. Be sure to bring the old trust and all of its amendments. Bring the deeds transferring property into the trust.

"Margaret Norman Attorney at Law" Trusts wills 'Manhattan Beach' 'Redondo Beach' "Hermosa Beach"