No contest clauses are an ever-evolving area of the probate law in California. The Court of Appeal further refined the rules governing no contest clauses in a decision issued last week, Aviles v. Swearingen (2017) 16 Cal.App.5th 485. In brief, in order for a no contest clause to apply to a trust amendment, the no contest clause must be stated in the amendment or the amendment must expressly reference the no contest clause set forth in a prior document.
The takeaway from the case for estate planners is that if your client wants a no contest clause, then you must mention the no contest clause in every trust amendment that you draft for the client. It is not good enough to simply include a no contest clause in the client’s trust and then refer back to that trust, generally, in later amendments. Each subsequent amendment must either contain its own no contest clause or must expressly reference the no contest clause of the original trust instrument.
Although much wealth passes today through trusts and beneficiary designations, we occasionally handle California probate disputes that turn on the validity of wills, sometimes involving high value estates.
One of the most dramatic areas of California trust and estate litigation is no contest clauses. No contest clauses bring a made-for-tv excitement to the practice of trust and estate law because of the risk of disinheritance. Yet such clauses are widely misunderstood, even among attorneys.
While financial elder abuse is a serious problem in California, not just anyone can sue to protect an abused elder. This is especially true if the elder does not want to bring suit in the first place. On April 19, 2017, the California Court of Appeal reinforced an important issue related to standing to bring financial elder abuse claims in the case of 
In our Sacramento trust and estate litigation practice there are several questions that come up over and over again. In many instances, these questions are the building blocks of our practice that lead to more complicated questions that sometimes require the filing of a lawsuit to answer. As a starting place, below are some of the more common questions we receive from trustees and from beneficiaries.
Beneficiaries beware: don’t dive in to trust litigation too quickly. That lesson was learned the hard way, ironically, by a diving heiress in 
Next time you schedule an appointment with Downey Brand’s Sacramento office to revise your estate plan you will have a new question to consider: who will manage your Facebook account when you’re gone?
Acting as a trustee can be a thankless and time consuming job, especially when the reward at the end is nothing more than second-guessing from trust beneficiaries. In our Sacramento-based trust and estate practice, we represent trustees who have strained relationships with beneficiaries, whether their siblings, step-relatives, or otherwise. One useful tool to help trustees manage those relationships is the Notice of Proposed Action.
As a 
It’s early in the morning, you’ve only just started your first cup of coffee, and your first few sips of java have not yet percolated your brain into full gear. Suddenly, your cellphone vibrates, a call is coming. You do not recognize the number, but you answer anyway. Hello? You have just been provided notice of an ex parte hearing in the probate department. A what?!?!