Silicon Valley estate planning attorney Janet L. Brewer has released a “Guide to Choosing Your California Estate Planning Attorney“. Designed especially for San Francisco Bay Area families and individuals of high net worth, the guide includes a checklist that can help narrow down the choices when faced with dozens of attorneys.

Brewer has focused exclusively on California probate law, estate planning, and gift-planning law since 1991. She summarizes the process required for a custom-designed estate plan, and the qualities that distinguish the most capable attorneys.

Readers may be surprised to learn that any attorney can call himself an estate planner, even if he has no qualifications or experience in estate planning.

“No one wants to see his or her financial legacy come undone,” says Brewer. “If you have an estate worth several million dollars — and you likely do if you own property in the Bay Area — then you need to think about how you will protect it from being ravaged by taxes, creditors, and predators. You need to protect your assets during your lifetime, and you need to make sure that they remain available to your heirs.”

Brewer answers fifteen frequently asked questions related to estate planning, covering such topics as:

• The difference between a living trust and a will
• The impact of foreign citizenship, and
• How often an estate plan should be updated

REAL WORLD SCENARIOS

The guide also lays out a handful of scenarios, and the kinds of issues that should be dealt with in the various cases. For example:

• Barry is an entrepreneur in his 50s. He holds a green card and owns real estate, stock, cars and antiques in the U.S. He also has assets in South America and Europe. The guide tells how a good estate planning attorney can help Barry minimize estate, capital gains, and property taxes.
• Sanjay and Ling are foreign nationals whose children were born in the U.S. They want to make sure their two young children are cared for if anything bad happened. See how an experienced estate planning attorney can help them update their plan as their family — and finances — grow.
• Edna wants all four of her children to share equally in her estate. But she wants her son to have the $7 million family home. An experienced estate planning attorney will recognize some of the pitfalls in that scenario, such as the financial burden of taking over the mortgage and property taxes.
• Bill is a successful Palo Alto business owner ready to retire but lacking an exit strategy. He needs an attorney experienced in formulating personalized business exit plans and estate plans for Bay Area business owners.

TIPS ON COMPARING ATTORNEYS

Professional services can’t be judged in the same way someone might compare two models of TV sets or the various options available on a new car, Brewer says. Clients need to understand what an estate planning attorney must do, and the kind of expertise needed to do it well. When the client and attorney are a good match, the family members can feel confident that their wishes will be carried out even when they are no longer there to personally supervise.

GUIDANCE FROM A TRUSTED SPECIALIST

Serving Palo Alto and the surrounding region, Brewer is certified as a Specialist in Estate Planning and Probate Law by the CA State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. She writes the California Probate, Trusts, and Estate Law Blog and has authored several guides on estate planning, including:

•      U.S. Gift Tax and Estate Tax Planning for Non-Residents and Non-Citizens
•      Year-End 2010 Tax Law Update for Bay Area Families
•      Tax Law Update for San Francisco CPAs Serving High Net Worth Clients and
•      Picking Your Trustee in California

About the Law Offices of Janet L. Brewer

Janet Brewer is a certified specialist in estate planning by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization, and has an advanced degree in tax law. She has practiced California estate, gift-planning, and probate law exclusively since 1991. Brewer offers comprehensive estate planning probate services including:

•      Providing professional advice on living trusts wills, irrevocable life insurance trusts, charitable planning, and international estate planning
•      Probate estate administration
•      Establishing family limited partnerships and limited liability companies
•      Minimizing estate taxes preparing estate tax returns
•      Minimizing gift taxes preparing gift tax returns
•      Preparing a full range of estate planning documents, including Wills, Revocable Living Trusts, Life Insurance Trusts, Children’s Trusts, Generation-Skipping Trusts, Qualified Personal Residence Trusts, Charitable Trusts, Medical Powers of Attorney Living Wills
•      Preparing financial powers of attorney other financial arrangement, and more

To retain Brewer, please visit www.calprobate.com/get-started.

To stay up to date on Brewer’s posted tips and guides, subscribe to receive her emails or follow @calprobatenews.

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For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prwebestate-planning-attorney/guide/prweb8524545.htm

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/06/06/prweb8524545.DTL

But others will be closing their doors next month, despite the movie-rental chain’s last-minute reprieve from liquidation.

A $229 million deal to turn Blockbuster over to a group of hedge funds and Blockbuster bondholders was agreed to by a New York bankruptcy judge, after disgruntled creditors, including movie studios and Yahoo, signed on to a revised deal.

That means 17 Blockbuster stores out of 24 listed in the inner Bay Area will stay open, at least for a while longer. “We’re fine, we’re fine,” said a sales clerk in the Alameda store.

Of those scheduled to shut their doors in April, three are in San Francisco – on Church Street, Geary Street and 16th Street in Potrero Hill – and one each in Albany, San Leandro and Alamo.

But there could be more. The company, once the world’s largest movie-rental outlet, with 9,100 stores, reported a loss of $64.8 million in the last quarter. Under the purchase agreement signed with the hedge fund group last month, Blockbuster said 609 of its remaining 3,300 U.S. stores were to be shut as part of an “initial liquidation.”

A sales clerk at the Daly City Blockbuster, not currently on the list, said she’d been told hers might close in November. On the other hand, the Pinole store, which is on the list, might be re-evaluated, a sales clerk there had heard.

To what extent the new owners are re-evaluating remains to be seen. Having made what is called a “stalking horse” bid for the Dallas company, they might be looking to flip the property for a higher price.

Asked what she’s going to do in April, a sales clerk at the Church Street store replied, “Stand on a street corner, hope people feel sorry for me and give me money.”

Coincidence?: Turns out the scheduled auction of the Westin San Francisco, which we noted in Thursday’s column, is off. The creditor seeking the foreclosure suddenly got the $22 million loan owed by the hotel’s owners, a Goldman Sachs real estate entity and a Dallas private-equity firm.

“The borrower paid off the loan in full (Wednesday) night,” said an attorney for the Carlton Group, a foreclosure and debt restructuring firm, after it had posted the auction notice that morning on behalf of its client, Deutsche Bank.

All this occurred after we made inquiries – which got the silent treatment – and a small item appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

News of the payment was e-mailed to interested parties Thursday morning, and showed up in bold capital letters on the Carlton Group’s website, over the original notice of the auction.

Dare we say The Chronicle gets results?

Cold decaf: Remember how hard Peet’s Coffee Tea tried to buy Diedrich Coffee, the Castroville (Monterey County) roastery and chief supplier to the fast-growing single-cup coffee market?

The Emeryville chain thought it had the $226 million deal closed in November 2009, when along came Green Mountain Coffee, known for its Keurig single-cup coffee dispensers and K-cup portion packs, and snatched it out of Peet’s hands with a better offer.

Adding insult to injury, the Vermont company on Thursday signed a partnership deal with Starbucks, under which the latter’s coffee (and its Tazo tea) will be sold in Green Mountain’s K-cups portion packs at Starbucks’ 11,000 outlets, plus supermarkets, drugstores and other retail establishments throughout North America.

Instant reaction: Green Mountain shares up 41 percent at the close of trading Thursday; Starbucks up 10 percent.

Peet’s, down 11.5 percent.

Good trade: Nice numbers for California’s exporters. They had the best January ever, according to trade figures released Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department.

The state’s $11.75 billion worth of exports marked a 14.5 percent increase over January 2010, driven by both manufactured goods, and especially raw materials and agricultural products. This was in line with U.S. exports which rose to record levels. But other states did even better, with California’s share of the nation’s export pie falling, according to an analysis of the Commerce Department data by San Rafael’s Beacon Economics. (sfg.ly/iiE5jW)

Future prospects may depend on the price of oil, said Jock O’Connell, Beacon’s international trade expert.

“Economies tend to go wobbly and global supply chains start experiencing serious palpitations whenever oil futures float much over the $100 a barrel mark,” he said.

Job grievance: It’s not exactly hi-ho, hi-ho, and off to work we go these days in the Golden State.

According to a just-released survey of “work environment well-being” in the nation’s 50 states, California dropped from sixth to 21st place. No. 1: South Dakota, followed by Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. Unsurprisingly, “work environment well-being” was down nationally.

“Healthy behavior” and “emotional health” improved, however, while “physical health” stayed about the same in the latest Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which measures good feelings in a number of categories.

The most well-being state overall, according to its rolling survey of 1,000 Americans: Hawaii. Other states feeling pretty good include Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota and Utah. California comes in at No. 18. (sfg.ly/hPBymj).

Blogging: www.sfgate.com/ columns/bottomline. Facebook page: sfg.ly/doACKM. Tweeting: @andrewsross. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/10/BU5C1I7HHK.DTL