Wills and Trusts
A will tells the probate court how to distribute your estate. A trust distributes it without the court. That is the practical difference, and for a California homeowner it is usually the deciding one.
If you own California real property, a trust is almost always worth it, because the house alone will push the estate past the threshold for the simplified procedures. If you rent and your accounts have named beneficiaries, a will plus those designations may be sufficient. Twenty minutes on the phone will tell you which situation you are in.
A complete will and trust package is a $1,000 flat fee. You also pay the notary — around $90 for a married couple with one property — and the recording fee for the grant deed, usually about $30. If you own more than one property, each additional deed is $125. There are no other charges.
The revocable living trust, pour-over wills, medical powers of attorney with a HIPAA form, an assignment of personal property to the trust, the grant deed transferring your real property, a certificate of trust, and a guardianship nomination if you have minor children.
Most clients finish in two meetings across a few weeks. The main variable is how quickly you complete and return the client questionnaire.
It is a backstop. If an asset was never retitled into the trust — something bought late, something overlooked — the pour-over will directs it into the trust rather than leaving it to intestacy.
Moving assets into it. A trust document by itself controls nothing; it only governs property actually titled in the trust’s name. This is where do-it-yourself trusts most often fail. The deed transferring your California real property is prepared as part of the package, and you are told which accounts to retitle.
Yes, for the trust to do its job.
When you die or become unable to manage your affairs, they step in: notifying beneficiaries within the statutory window, gathering and valuing assets, paying debts and final taxes, and distributing what remains under the terms you wrote. It is real work, which is worth considering when choosing who to name.
A revocable trust can be amended or revoked any time while you are alive and competent. Straightforward amendments are $150. Irrevocable trusts are a different matter and are much harder to unwind.
After a marriage or divorce, a birth or death in the family, a move to or from another state, buying or selling property, or any change of mind about who serves as trustee or guardian.
Yes. Older trusts frequently name trustees who have died or moved, miss property acquired since, or predate changes in California law such as Proposition 19.
A trust that supplements what Medi-Cal, SSI, and other needs-based programs provide for a disabled beneficiary without disqualifying them from those benefits. A direct inheritance can do exactly that.
Almost certainly not. California has no state estate tax, and the federal exemption is $15 million per person in 2026. For nearly every family the issue is probate, not tax.
California’s intestacy statutes decide who inherits, which often does not match what you would have chosen, particularly for blended families and unmarried partners. The estate goes through probate and the court appoints an administrator rather than someone you named.
Business and Transactional Law
It depends on how you want to be taxed, whether you plan to raise outside money, and how many owners there are. An LLC is simpler to run; a corporation is the structure most investors expect. The choice is also the hardest one to reverse later, which is why it is worth twenty minutes on the phone before filing anything.
$700 flat for an S corporation, LLC, or partnership. State filing fees are separate and go to the government, and most California entities owe an annual minimum franchise tax to the Franchise Tax Board.
They will file the paperwork. What they do not provide is advice on which entity fits, an analysis of the tax consequences, an operating agreement written for your actual ownership arrangement, or anyone to call when a partner wants out. Volo Law Group’s position is that a lawyer should be able to prepare a common document at roughly what a form company charges, and that is how the fees are set.
Yes. A single-member LLC without one is easier for an opposing party to attack as not being a genuinely separate entity, which defeats the purpose of forming it.
If you are a corporation, yes. A corporation that never documents a decision is a weaker liability shield than its owner assumes, and the gap shows up at the worst possible moment — during a lender’s diligence, a dispute, or a sale. We prepare annual minutes and resolutions as part of ongoing corporate maintenance.
Professional service agreements, general contractor agreements, indemnification agreements, buy-sell agreements, options, settlement and work-out agreements, business asset purchase and sale agreements, leases, warehouse and shipping documents, and more.
Yes, and it is usually money well spent. An hour spent on a vendor agreement or a customer contract routinely surfaces an indemnity clause, an auto-renewal, or a venue provision worth many times the review fee. Send it before you sign.
Yes. That work covers letters of intent, asset and stock purchase agreements, diligence, and closing documents.
They do, and this is the most commonly missed piece. The business is often the second-largest asset after the house, and a buy-sell agreement coordinated with a trust that actually holds the ownership interest prevents a surviving spouse from inheriting a stake alongside partners who never planned for it.
This is a transactional practice — documents, formations, and deals. Ask during the consultation if your matter is a dispute.
Real Estate
California does not require one, and for a routine sale with a good agent you may not need one. You do when the transaction is off-market or between people who know each other, when the standard form does not match what you actually agreed, when there is a title or boundary problem, or when the tax consequence is significant.
Tony Bayard de Volo is both a lawyer and a licensed California broker running his own brokerage, Legal Realty, and he spent years as a real estate tax lawyer at PricewaterhouseCoopers. A lawyer who has never run a transaction sees the contract; a broker who is not a lawyer sees the deal. Here it is one person seeing both, plus the tax consequence.
Sometimes, depending on the transaction. Where both roles are appropriate, the arrangement and any conflict are disclosed to you in writing before anything proceeds.
A lawsuit asking the court to declare who owns a property and to clear competing claims off the record. It is the usual remedy for an old lien that was never released, a defective deed, a disputed ownership claim, or an heir nobody knew about.
Start with the deeds and a survey, because the recorded boundary and the fence frequently disagree. Depending on how long the fence has been there and how it came to be, remedies range from a written agreement between neighbors to a quiet title action.
An easement is a right to use someone else’s land — a shared driveway, an access route, a utility corridor. They can arise by grant, by necessity, or by long use, and they can also be terminated. Whether you want to establish, enforce, or clear one, the analysis starts with the deeds.
A neighboring use that interferes with your ability to enjoy your own property: noise, odors, drainage onto your land, overhanging trees. Most of these are worth resolving through a letter and a negotiated agreement well before anyone considers filing suit.
Yes, and it is worth doing. Commercial leases are where the money hides — triple-net charges, CAM reconciliation, personal guaranties, assignment restrictions, holdover rent, and who repairs the HVAC. All are negotiable, and all are expensive if the answer surprises you in year three.
It is one of the most common problems to surface during a sale, and it is far cheaper to address before listing than during escrow. We help owners work through the permitting process and deal with work that was done without one.
A documented estimate of a property’s value prepared by a licensed broker. It is useful in a dispute, a buyout between co-owners, an estate or trust distribution, or a loan negotiation.
A promissory note and a deed of trust that work together — the note setting the terms, the deed of trust securing it against the property. Both are prepared at flat fees.
The practice is focused on documents and transactions rather than litigation. Ask during the consultation.
About the Firm
Tony Bayard de Volo, directly. Volo Law Group is his practice, and he handles every matter personally from the first call through the signing. There are no associates or paralegals your file gets passed to.
More than twenty years in practice. He graduated with high honors from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned his law degree at Boston University School of Law, finishing in the top ten percent of his class with an emphasis on tax law. He worked as a tax lawyer at PricewaterhouseCoopers and at large firms in Chicago and Newport Beach before opening his own office in 2003. He is also a licensed California real estate broker and runs his own brokerage, Legal Realty.
Three areas: wills and trusts, business and transactional law, and real estate. Within those, the work is largely documents and transactions — preparing, reviewing, and negotiating them.
1541 The Alameda, San Jose, CA 95126, between downtown and the Rose Garden.
Usually not, apart from signing, and even that can be handled remotely. Questionnaires are completed online, drafts are reviewed by email, and for trust clients we can prepare the complete Trust Book and mail it with signing tabs and a pre-filled notary page.
San Jose and Fremont are the two primary markets, and matters come from throughout Santa Clara County and southern Alameda County — Santa Clara, Campbell, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Union City, and Newark among them.
Yes. The first twenty minutes costs nothing and carries no obligation. You’ll get a straight answer about what you need, whether you need it, and what it would cost.
You are quoted a price before any work begins and you approve it in advance. There is no hourly meter. If a matter turns out to be more complicated than a typical one, you are told what the additional cost would be and you decide before it is incurred.
Because most of this work is predictable, and hourly billing makes people hesitate to ask questions. A fixed price means you know what you are spending and you can call without watching the clock.
For the will and trust package, not until you sign at the office or the completed Trust Book ships to you.
Sometimes, and they go to third parties rather than the firm. Government filing and recording fees, and notary charges, are the usual ones. They are identified up front.
Yes, and there is no charge for a quick consultation. That is part of the point of using a lawyer instead of a form company.
Call 408-288-5431 for the free consultation, or go to Sign Up Now and begin the client questionnaire.