Dear Liz: My husband and I have a revocable trust that was drawn up in Florida. We live in California now. We are renting and don’t own a house. Do we still need a trust if we don’t own property and have just one adult child to leave our financial funds to? One tax planner wants to charge us $1,800 to revise our trust to comply with California laws. That sounds high to me. What do you recommend?
Answer: Any time you move across state lines, you should have your estate documents reviewed and — probably — revised. State laws differ, and in this case you moved from a common law state to a community property state, where the rules differ a lot. Property acquired during marriage in a common law state isn’t automatically owned by both spouses, while in community property states, it typically is.
“Property,” by the way, doesn’t just refer to real estate. It refers to pretty much all your assets, including financial funds.
A relatively simple revocable living trust typically costs $2,000 and up, so the price you were quoted does not seem high, but you can check with one or two other estate planning attorneys if you want to compare costs.