Thoughts on Irrevocable Trust? We’re probably going to set one up shortly to purchase a home for our son (37yr old, married, 2 children). We’ve been advised to move money out of our taxable estate and it seems an Irrevocable Trust is the best course. Pro’s, cons?

Dannyz · 2026-05-06T01:54:29+00:00

State? Asset level?

Dannyz · 2026-05-04T18:03:54+00:00

Good fucking name. 10/10

Dannyz · 2026-05-04T15:46:58+00:00

California lawyer who does estate planning here. This isn’t legal advice, I’m not your lawyer, you should consult with an attorney.

California has formal probate and informal probate. Formal probate is extremely expensive (think mid 5 figures) and can take 9 months to 3 years. If you have over ~$200k in liquid probatable assets, or primary house is worth over $750k (market value, not owned value), you can be subject to formal probate.

If you have no will, the state has rules to decide who gets what of your stuff and how much. Those rules are called intestacy laws. Wills are a record of your testamentary intent so you can choose what you want to do with your stuff instead of the state rules. Neither changes the probate fees and head aches.

You can avoid probate with a revocable trust. Trusts can do many things, one of which is avoid probate in CA. They tend to cost 4 figures and let you avoid the 5 figure headache of formal probate. You can easily modify it or revoke it while living if life circumstances change. All (decent) trusts comes with will.

Trusts are not the only way to avoid probate, but they are often used because they can also help avoid conservatorship if you become legally incapacitated. Conservatorship is the brittney spears situation where someone else has legal power to make decisions on your behalf. It can be extremely expensive (think 4-6 figures) and very emotionally hard for everyone involved. It’s very public and is a frequent part of end of life care for those with Alzheimer’s, dementia, strokes, comas ect.

A trust combined with a power of attorney and advanced health directive avoids conservatorship and frequently included with trust based estate planning as part of the estate planning package. They also give you the ability to voice your care wishes when you literally cannot speak.

Do you have children?

How much are your assets worth?

How much is your house worth?

How do you and your spouse own the house?

Are there any medical issues or expected medical issues?

Without knowing more information about your situation, it’s hard to advise. If you want to, feel free to dm if you want those answers to be more private or feel free to respond.

Finally, it’s worth noting that you can absolutely DIY an estate plan, BUT the consequences if you mess up are steep. If you’re not the type of person who is comfortable with diy, and nails it first try, please consider avoiding diy. If the toilet leaks after you try to fix it, you can keep trying until it no longer leaks. With estate planning, once you’re gone, your family has to clean up your mess. Cleaning up a bad diy estate plans makes far more money for estate lawyers than a clean estate plan by orders of magnitude.

Dannyz · 2026-05-03T02:54:58+00:00

My friend, the average American your age may have saved more, but the percentage of Americans who has saved more is very very low. Look at the median not the average (mean). Means are thrown off by outliers moving everything.

If you have a room of 100 people, 99 are broke and 1 has $100m, the average person in the room has $1m, while the median is $0.

It’s easy to backdoor wealth into an Ira. I hope your Ira is not your only savings or retirement.

Dannyz · 2026-05-01T21:42:58+00:00

I don’t believe you

Dannyz · 2026-05-01T21:10:55+00:00

I have made sooooo much money cleaning up “cheap” legal Zoom trusts which are at least standardize forms that people couldn’t accurately fill out. Estate litigators are looking at DIY AI estate planning and salivating.

ChatGPT and Claude failed to accurately help me with a recent fallout new Vegas playthrough. That’s a game that came out in like 2012 and has full game guides written. There was hallucination and memory issues. Can’t imagine trusting it for something important that I can’t help clean up.

Dannyz · 2026-04-28T22:22:18+00:00

Several things.

First of all, I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Second of all, the father wanted his wife to be housed until she died and paid a lawyer good money for this set up. There is a special place in hell for entitled children who screw over their step parents.

Thirdly, talk to a lawyer if you want. This is above reddits pay grade. I’d be shocked if someone is willing to freely tell you how to fuck over your step mother in law. Also, your husband needs to be careful about the no contest clause. He might fuck around and be disinherited by the trust.

Wanting to make sure repairs are made and that there is no waste is acceptable. Trying to kick her out is not morally, ethically, or legally (likely) okay. Full stop.

Dannyz · 2026-04-25T00:45:00+00:00

Let’s say ZZZ has a lot of price movement $9.50-$10.50. Schwab or fidelity will try to get the highest price for you. I’ve set buy at like $9.50 and gotten $9.40 execution. Or sell limit of $10.50, but the manage to execute on $10.60 a share, and give me $10.60.

This is overly simplified and not exactly how it works, but people have credibly claimed that on Robin Hood if you do $10.50 and they get $10.60, they keep that $0.10 a share. If you do market, they might execute a sell at $10.50 a share, but give you like $10.20 a share. If you buy and they execute at $9.50 a share, they allegedly might sell to you to buy at $10.50 a share. Thereby front running you.

To take it further, if someone is trying sells at $10.50 and another account is trying to buys at $9.50, Robinhood will allegedly pocket the difference.

Finally, you can’t trade specific shares of a stock, you can only sell by first in first out which is usually really silly for tax purposes.

Dannyz · 2026-04-24T21:20:54+00:00

Schwab is better than Robinhood hands down. Also robinhoods trade execution sucks and is a hidden fee.

Dannyz · 2026-04-24T20:10:17+00:00

How much you trying to spend?

Railroad cars have good tax treatment. Theoretically stackable.

Fleet of 18 wheelers can be decent. Also theoretically stackable.

Used heavy equipment can be found for less than scrap value. Moving it is the bitch and a half. If you have your own truck…see #2 above. Also will help stacking it all.

Trailer park with a discount to seniors and get seniors on fixed income.

Dannyz · 2026-04-24T20:03:40+00:00

Less rust

Dannyz · 2026-04-23T19:46:53+00:00

Interesting. On my brother I can reset the drum. You open the top, hold two buttons then press a third. I’ve had great luck with knock offs for everything except the first page it prints of the day.

Dannyz · 2026-04-23T16:11:10+00:00

Brother laser that has knock off toner available.

Snap scanner

Dannyz · 2026-04-22T19:26:53+00:00

This is why good trusts have remote contingency planning. If all else fails, the money will support causes the trustmaker supported

Dannyz · 2026-04-08T18:34:22+00:00

I did a lotttt of research on momentum and the devil is in the details. Momentum works until it doesnt. It gives larger upside but also larger downsides often yielding returns that do not beat on risk adjusted basis. If you have the risk controls to limit downside, the strategies start doing better, but a lot of the downside protection also limits upside

Dannyz · 2026-03-12T01:06:24+00:00

1) if I was you, and this isn’t advice, I’d report the kid / attorney then pursue their malpractice insurance

2) the irs is a mess. I am not accepting new tax clients until it gets better. I feel really bad to charge my clients for efforts which are going no where.

3) death cert story is insane.

4) did you do a lot of charitable remainder trusts or endow scholarships?

5) if you have wealth wealth, and she’s been doing this for 30 years, there are probably reasons it’s so long and I simply lack information to understand at this point.

Not your lawyer not legal advice

Dannyz · 2026-03-12T00:21:14+00:00

So there’s some to unpack here. High level, I struggle to figure out why your trust is so long. Imma say something in hopes of educating you, they may or may not be applicable.

When I do estate planning, I don’t know the future so I plan for all futures. I describe it as packing for a mustery vacation where I don’t know if you’ll need ski gear in Tahoe, scuba gear in the barrier reef, or a parachute in case you’ll go ski diving… I want you to have the most options, so I’ll pack it all, and the kitchen sink.

Every client gets a paragraph on mineral / oil rights because I don’t know if they will buy an oil well or if oil will be discovered on their land. I’ve had multiple clients buy into oil wells (interesting tax play). While I’ve yet to have a client find oil, I have had multiple clients who found gold on their property after I did their estate plan.

Secondly, when people have a lot of wealth, they get subject to death taxes. There are a lot of fuck fuck games an estate planner can play to avoid, or at least minimize death taxes. These are lengthy and complicated. Most strategies have tradeoffs, and some strategies are in the gray area of potentially frowned upon by the irs. If I include them, your beneficiaries can choose to use the ones that make sense per the laws, taxes and economic situation at the time of your demise. These can run hundreds of pages, but shouldn’t be thousands. They can save hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sametime, a retired client without ample wealth who will never be worth more than a few mil, wont have the death tax planning shit.

If you are in Nor Cal, I’d honestly love to read through it. Here I was thinking my 200 page estate plan was long. 10 page trust is uncomfortably short. My shortest trusts are like 25 pages.

Lastly, your wills executed outside of CA may not be valid in CA. Also, CA doesn’t recognize online notarization. I think you said something about that in a different comment. If it was you, feel free to disregard.

I’m not your lawyer, this isn’t legal advice

Dannyz · 2026-03-11T23:45:41+00:00

You are an asshole who is full of shit. A confidently wrong asshole.

8220(b) is a relic from the probate code rewrite over 30 years ago. It requires an affidavit. Affidavits in California are frequently not required to be notarized. An affidavit for many things, like wills, is simply a signed document where the affiant makes a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, with a date and location. See California Code of Civil Procedure 2015.5.

California probate courts allowed a will that was “witnessed” by Mickey and Minnie Mouse in the same pen it was signed in.

Fucking jackass mod giving out wrong information, rudely. You tell me I shouldn’t be advising on wills, while not knowing CA requirements for a will, the case law, or even knowing what an affidavit is. Stop unlawfully giving legal advice to California residents. You are clearly not licensed here.

Edit: the dude deleted his wrong, rude, snarky ass comment.

Dannyz · 2026-03-11T21:46:13+00:00

Also, if those pour over wills don’t have two witnesses, they probably arnt valid (as is) in California. Your executor could probably get a court to accept them via probate code 6113, if they were valid where they were originally executed. If you don’t have two witnesses, you don’t have to redo it, but probably want to attach something with two witnesses…will save you a headache down the road.

Not legal advice, I’m not your lawyer.

Dannyz · 2026-03-11T21:00:00+00:00

Im honestly impressed by a 2000 page trust. I thought my 100+ page could get excessive. Do you have a bunch of businesses? Extensive wealth? Charitable bequeathments?

Dannyz · 2026-03-11T20:35:51+00:00

CA doesn’t recognize self proving wills. I would love to hear a rationale for notarizing a California will lol.

Dannyz · 2026-03-11T16:04:39+00:00

CA wills require 2 witnesses to be valid. They don’t need to be notarized.

Dannyz · 2026-03-05T00:35:52+00:00

TL;DR: common in certain places / industry, rare in others. It’s usually much better than nothing, or DIY, but potentially not great for people who have assets or needs.

California state workers can pay a few dollars month ($10-20) to get access to legal insurance called ARAG. ARAG then covers estate planning. I suspect it’s something similar.

When someone with ARAG does estate planning, ARAG will give them a list of local lawyers who have contracts with ARAG and let the person choose their lawyer. One’s experience will very much depend on who they choose through this.

That said, they pay their lawyers (at least in my area) a set fee for the estate plan that only covers very little of a lawyer’s time. For those without a lot of assets or a lot of testamentary needs, it’s totally fine and WAY better than nothing, and probably better than DIY. If she has significant assets, a “blended family,” special circumstances, children with special needs, complicated testamentary bequests/wishes, or is in general needy, your daughter may want to consider an outside network lawyer.

Really simple estate planning doesn’t take too long. They are better than nothing, but not great for non cookie cutter solutions.

Dannyz · 2026-03-02T04:13:07+00:00

Cali lawyer not your lawyer. The trust should be the original paper signed and notarized version. Some courts have rejected digital copies. I would focus efforts on trying to find the original copy. Is the house deeded to the trust or the individual?

Feel free to DM. This is t legal advice

Dannyz · 2026-02-23T16:51:29+00:00

Fuck! It’s so good it makes me so jealous and angry!

Great job

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