Fremont Attorney — Wills and Trusts, Business, and Real Estate
Volo Law serves Fremont and southern Alameda County from its office in San Jose, twenty-odd minutes down 880. Attorney Tony Bayard de Volo handles wills and trusts, business and transactional law, and real estate matters at flat fees quoted before any work begins. The first 20-minute consultation is free.
Most people looking for a lawyer start by searching for one nearby, on the assumption that legal work requires showing up somewhere. For the kind of work this firm does, it mostly doesn’t. Questionnaires are completed online. Drafts are reviewed by email. Signing happens once, and it can happen at our office or at your kitchen table with a local notary.
What that means for a Fremont client is that the choice isn’t between a nearby attorney and a distant one. It’s between attorneys, on the merits.
Why a Living Trust Matters More in Fremont
Here is the part most Fremont families don’t know until they’re in it. Alameda County consolidated its probate calendars years ago, and probate matters are no longer regularly heard at the Fremont Hall of Justice. They are calendared at the Berkeley Courthouse — roughly 30 miles north, through some of the worst traffic in the Bay Area, repeatedly, over the twelve to eighteen months a probate typically takes.
So the argument for avoiding probate is stronger in Fremont than almost anywhere. And avoiding it is not complicated: a properly drafted and properly funded living trust keeps the estate out of court entirely. Your successor trustee distributes the assets under the terms you wrote, with no hearings, no filings, and no statutory fees calculated on the gross value of your home.
That last point is what catches Fremont homeowners. California’s small-estate procedures are measured against gross value — the full value of the property, before the mortgage. A house in Mission San Jose, Ardenwood, or Warm Springs clears that threshold on its own. Having a modest income or little in savings doesn’t change the outcome. If the house is titled in your name at death, your family is going to Berkeley.
Volo Law prepares a complete will and trust package for a $1,000 flat fee, including the deed transferring your Fremont property into the trust.
Business and Transactional Law for Fremont Companies
Fremont has a denser concentration of manufacturing, engineering, and supplier businesses than most Bay Area cities — the Warm Springs corridor alone anchors a long supply chain of small firms. Those businesses need the ordinary things: the right entity, an agreement among owners, supplier and customer contracts that allocate risk sensibly, and corporate records that survive scrutiny when a customer or lender asks.
We form S corporations, LLCs, and partnerships at a $700 flat fee, draft and review contracts of every kind — professional services, contractor agreements, indemnification, buy-sell, asset purchase and sale, leases, warehouse and shipping documents — and prepare the annual minutes and resolutions that keep an entity in good standing.
Real Estate Matters in Fremont
Attorney Bayard de Volo is a lawyer and a licensed California real estate broker who runs his own brokerage, Legal Realty. For Fremont property owners that means one advisor across purchase agreements, commercial and residential leases, quiet title actions, easements and boundary disputes, promissory notes and deeds of trust, and broker price opinions.
Fremont’s older districts — Niles, Centerville, Irvington — carry the boundary and permit issues that come with long-established housing: fences that predate anyone’s memory of the recorded line, and additions or converted garages done without permits that surface during a sale. Both are far cheaper to resolve before a property goes on the market.
Estate Planning for Fremont Families
Fremont is one of the most diverse cities in the Bay Area, and many families here have needs that a generic online trust does not address. A few situations come up often for our Fremont clients:
Relatives living abroad. Many Fremont parents want to name a sibling or parent in another country as successor trustee or guardian. That is legally allowed, but it can create foreign trust tax issues and delays in caring for minor children. We usually recommend naming a U.S. resident as a temporary trustee and guardian, with the relative abroad as a co-trustee or later successor. See our article on naming a foreign person as your successor trustee.
Young children. If you have minor children, your plan should nominate a guardian and name backups. Our article on the difference between a legal guardian and a successor trustee explains how the two roles work together.
Multigenerational homes. When parents, grandparents, or adult children share a home or contribute to the mortgage, the trust and the deed need to reflect who owns what.
Property in more than one state or country. Real estate outside California may need its own planning so it does not end up in a separate probate.
Business owners. Ownership interests in a Fremont company can be held by your trust so the business keeps running if something happens to you.
What Is Included in the Will and Trust Package
Our flat-fee package covers the core documents most Fremont families need:
Revocable living trust
Pour-over will
Durable power of attorney for finances
Advance health care directive
Nomination of guardian for minor children
Deed transferring your Fremont home into the trust
Trust Book to keep your documents and account information organized
Signs It Is Time to Update an Existing Trust
If you already have a trust, it may still need attention. Consider an update if you have married or divorced, had or adopted a child, bought or sold a home, moved to California from another state, lost a named trustee or beneficiary, or signed your trust more than ten years ago. Straightforward amendments are a flat $150, and we can review a trust prepared by another attorney.
Business and Real Estate Help for Southern Alameda County
Beyond estate planning, we help Fremont, Newark, and Union City clients form LLCs and corporations, review commercial leases in the industrial areas near Warm Springs and Bayside, and resolve title, easement, and boundary issues in established neighborhoods like Niles and Irvington. Tony’s real estate broker license also allows him to provide broker price opinions for co-owner buyouts and estate sales.
Why Fremont Clients Work With a San Jose Firm
Our office is in San Jose, but we have served Fremont and southern Alameda County clients for years. Most of the work can be done by phone and email, and you only need to visit once, if at all, to sign. When you work with Volo Law, you deal directly with attorney Tony Bayard de Volo from the first call through signing, rather than being handed off to a paralegal or junior associate. Fees are flat and quoted before any work begins, and they are the same whether you live in Fremont or San Jose. After your plan is signed, you can call with quick follow-up questions at no charge.
How Working With Us Works From Fremont
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The consultation is by phone. Twenty minutes, free, and you’ll know what you need and what it costs.
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Intake is online. The client questionnaire runs over a secure connection, at your own pace.
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Review is by email. We send your documents as PDFs. You read them and tell us what to change.
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Signing is your choice. Come to the San Jose office, or we prepare the complete Trust Book and mail it with explanation stickers on every document, “Sign Here” tabs, and a notary page pre-filled with your name. You sign it with any notary.
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The fee is the same either way, and nothing is charged until you sign or the book ships.
Frequently Asked Questions
Talk to an Attorney Serving Fremont
Whether you need a trust before your family ends up in Berkeley, are forming a business, or have a property matter that needs sorting, the first conversation is free. Attorney Tony Bayard de Volo handles every matter personally.
Volo Law · 1541 The Alameda, San Jose CA 95126 · 408-288-5431 · tony@vololaw.com