We only do estate planning and trust administration. You work with an experienced California attorney from your first meeting to your last, in person at our Windplay Drive office or by Zoom. Most plans finished in about two weeks. Flat fee, no hourly billing.
El Dorado Hills sits among the most valuable residential markets in the Sacramento region, and Folsom is not far behind. For most families here, the home alone is enough to guarantee a probate problem, let alone the savings, investments, and business interests. A living trust is the difference between your family inheriting what you built and watching a large piece of it disappear into the California probate court.
California probate applies to most real property and other assets that total more than $208,850 with no beneficiary designation.
Probate takes twelve to eighteen months on a typical estate. The fees are set by California statute on the gross value of the estate, not the equity. On a $1,000,000 home, increasingly common across El Dorado Hills and Folsom, the combined statutory attorney and executor fees pass $46,000, before court costs, appraisals, and accounting.
A revocable living trust can avoid California probate entirely. Your successor trustee manages and distributes your assets with no court involvement, on your timeline, in private. If you own a home in El Dorado Hills, Folsom, Cameron Park, Shingle Springs, Placerville, or anywhere in El Dorado County, a will alone is not enough. A will without a trust leads to probate.
Estate planning is the only thing we do. Not family law. Not real estate closings. Not criminal defense on the side. Estate planning and trust administration have been the entire practice since 1996. That focus is why we are fast and why we catch the things a general practitioner misses.
You work with an attorney, start to finish. Not a paralegal. Not a paralegal or case manager. Attorneys Clark Allison, Jennifer Ferraiuolo, Nora Hall, and Tristan L'Engle handle our estate planning in El Dorado Hills. The attorney you meet on the first call is the one who designs your plan, builds it, reviews it with you at the signing, and answers your email down the road when something changes.
Done in about two weeks. Two meetings, roughly two weeks from start to finish. Most California firms take six weeks or more. We are faster because estate planning is all we do.
$3,000 single, $4,000 married for most clients. The flat fee covers the complete plan. No hourly billing, no clock running while you ask a question, no surprise invoices. Once you are a client, follow-up questions are free.
We are in the Business Park at 4944 Windplay Drive, just off Highway 50, serving El Dorado Hills, Folsom, Cameron Park, Shingle Springs, Placerville, El Dorado County, and the greater Sacramento region. Meet us face to face, or skip the drive and work with us by Zoom.
Clark Allison has done this since 1996. We have seen what happens when families do not plan, and we have spent decades making sure our clients have a plan that holds up when their family needs it.
Most El Dorado Hills, Folsom, and Sacramento families finish their plan in two meetings at our El Dorado Hills office. We design the plan in the first meeting, then review and sign in the second. If getting to our office doesn't work, we do it on Zoom. Same attorney, same work, same fee.
You tell us what you have and what you want. We answer your questions, tell you what your family actually needs, and tell you how long it will take and what it will cost. If we are a fit, we schedule your design meeting.
About an hour at our El Dorado Hills office, or by Zoom. We discuss your family, your assets, and build the blueprint for your estate plan.
About one to two weeks later, we review your documents to make sure everything is right and that you understand how your plan works. In our El Dorado Hills office you sign and notarize in the same meeting. If you are working by Zoom, we schedule a short session with our remote online notary for the signing. You'll receive the hard copies in an Estate Planning Portfolio, and we'll send you digital scans.
Most El Dorado Hills, Folsom, and Sacramento-region families come to our Windplay Drive office and sit across the table from the attorney who builds their plan. Plenty of our clients make the drive from Sacramento and Elk Grove, and tell us it is worth it.
Prefer to skip the drive? It works just as well by Zoom, from the intro call to the signing. Bay Area, Los Angeles, anywhere in California. The drafting, the document review, the attorney, and the fee are the same either way.
For most El Dorado Hills families, that is the full price. Living trust, pour-over will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive and HIPAA, the trust transfer deed for your home, and asset protection trust provisions for your children's inheritance. No hourly billing. No clock running while you ask a question. No surprise invoices. Once you are a client, follow-up questions are free. More involved plans run higher, and we quote the flat fee before any work begins, so you know the amount going in.
When you call our El Dorado Hills office, you are matched with the attorney who fits your situation. That attorney designs your plan, reviews it with you at the signing, and is the one you call years from now when something changes. No handoff to a paralegal or case manager.
For most El Dorado Hills and Folsom homeowners, a living trust is the right call. A will alone sends your estate through California probate, which runs twelve to eighteen months and costs roughly $46,000 in statutory fees on a $1,000,000 home, calculated on the gross value, not your equity. A revocable living trust keeps your home and your accounts out of probate entirely. A will alone is fine for a young adult with no real estate. Most El Dorado Hills and Folsom families who own a home need both: a living trust to hold the major assets and a pour-over will as the backup.
Some firms bill by the hour. Some charge fixed fees. We charge flat fees and tell you upfront what it will cost. For most families, $3,000 for a single person or $4,000 for a married couple. The flat fee covers the complete plan, including the trust transfer deed for your home. More involved plans run higher, and we quote the flat fee during your free intro call before any work begins.
About two weeks for most plans, from the design meeting to the signing. More involved plans take longer. Most California firms take six weeks or more. We are faster because estate planning is the only thing we do.
Yes. Our office at 4944 Windplay Drive is about 25 to 30 minutes from midtown Sacramento via Highway 50. Many of our Sacramento and Elk Grove clients meet with us in person here, and they tell us the drive is worth it. If you would rather not make the drive, everything can be done by Zoom and a remote online notary.
One of our El Dorado Hills attorneys: Clark Allison, Jennifer Ferraiuolo, Nora Hall, or Tristan L'Engle. You are matched with the attorney who fits your situation, and that attorney is the one who designs your plan, reviews and signs it with you, and takes your call years later when something changes. No handoff to a paralegal or case manager.
We are at 4944 Windplay Drive, just off Highway 50, serving El Dorado Hills, Folsom, Cameron Park, Shingle Springs, Placerville, El Dorado County, and the greater Sacramento region.
Yes. Estate plan updates are common as families change, tax laws change, and older plans become outdated. A trust written before 2020 may predate Proposition 19 and the SECURE Act and almost certainly needs a review. We review your existing documents, walk through what should change, and quote a flat fee for the update before any work begins.
That is trust administration, not estate planning. It is the work a successor trustee handles after a death: notifying beneficiaries, valuing and managing assets, and distributing what your family member left to the people they named. We handle California trust administration throughout the state.
Sometime before you die. After that, it's too late.
You now know what a California living trust does, how the process works, what it costs, and who you'll work with. The free intro call is fifteen minutes. We'll confirm what your family needs, what it will cost, and how long it will take. From there it's your call.
