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How to find out if someone had a will or trust - YouTube
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hi my name is amanda rocha i am an
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estate planning and probate attorney in
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california and today we are going to
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talk about how to know whether someone
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had a will or a trust
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before i get into that i want to give
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you my contact information
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you can find me on my website
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www.amandarochalaw.com
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you can comment down below if this
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platform allows you to do that or you
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can find me on social media at amanda
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rocha law
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so the reason we're going to discuss
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this today is because i recently had a
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conversation with someone who wanted to
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know whether or not
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she could find out if one of her
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grandparents had an estate plan
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and i think it's important information
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that everyone should know
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so let's just jump right in
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if we're talking about
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estate planning typically i mean
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lots of different documents but for this
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video you can find out if someone had a
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will
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by looking at
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the probate court's website if your
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court is up to date or you have to go
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down to the probate court
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and figure that out yourself through
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their documents
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and i'm also talking about trust in a
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little bit so first
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wills
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when someone passes away if they had a
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will and their estate was over the
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threshold amount and currently that is
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166
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250
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then the person who
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had a copy who has a copy of the will
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usually that's the personal
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representative named in the will has to
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file that will with the probate court
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the will has to be scrutinized in order
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for everything to be
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passed
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um
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along and and debts to be paid all of
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that
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that's public probate is public so any
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document scanned in certain things might
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be redacted um you know like
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personal information uh social security
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numbers if there was something like that
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which your will should never contain
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that anyway um point being wills are
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public so you would go and check the
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probate court where probate would be
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filed for that person so it's the county
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in which they lived in
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and that should be where
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their probate case was filed
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in some cases it could be multiple
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places but for the most part that's a
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good place to start
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some courts have documents online and
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you're probably going to have to pay for
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the documents
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but you could probably look to see if
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there was at least a probate case open
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without paying
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otherwise you'd need to go to the
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courthouse talk to the clerk talk about
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finding and locating the file and making
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copies of the documents so wills are
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public
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trusts on the other hand are not public
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documents
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so the only way that you would find out
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if someone had a trust besides asking
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they their
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immediate family members if you weren't
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one and they can tell you whether or not
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they know they do not have to tell you
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is if you were a beneficiary of the
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trust you will receive notice when that
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person's trust becomes
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effective and your
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your rights are
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then vested so
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unless you were contacted by
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the trustee
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then you're not going to be able to find
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out
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[Music]
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unless you think that there was a trust
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that no one knew about or someone passed
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away so here's what i would do
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if i thought that my parent had a trust
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and i was a beneficiary to the trust but
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i didn't have a copy of it and i didn't
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know of anybody who had a copy of it i
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would try and contact their attorney
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if you knew that information and their
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attorney may be able to tell you
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who the trustee is
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um and if not they might be able to give
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you a little bit of information about
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how to
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get a trustee appointed
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but at that point the attorney isn't
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your attorney so they don't really have
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to do anything for you in fact they
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still have to protect the rights of
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their client regardless of whether their
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client is alive or
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not um so really there isn't a an easy
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place to check for a trust sometimes
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when people create trust if they don't
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have successor trustees listed who have
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copies
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nobody knows and nothing happens with
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their property after they've passed away
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so if you have listened to anything i've
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said in prior podcasts or videos
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um or even any of my blog posts on my
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website you'll know that i always always
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recommend that if you're creating a
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trust that you give a copy to your
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personal representative and you alert
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your beneficiaries letting them know
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that you have a trust and who has a copy
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of it you do not have to give them a
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copy right away
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or at all during your lifetime if you do
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not want to unless they are a trustee
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so if you have any questions about this
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or anything else estate planning or
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probate related please give me a call
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send me a message on my website or book
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a consultation directly with me on my
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calendar which is on my website at
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www.amandarochella.com
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you can comment down below if this
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platform allows you to do that or you
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can find me through social media and
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send me an instant message that way
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i'm at amanda rocha law thank you
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