Most DIY estate plans do not fail because the document was badly written. They fail because nobody recorded the deed.
I say that as the person who cleans these up in probate court, and it is worth knowing that the risk is concentrated in one place rather than spread evenly across everything you might do yourself.
Start with what DIY does fine
A simple will from a reputable service, properly signed and witnessed, is usually a valid will. A beneficiary designation you fill out at your bank is exactly as effective as one an attorney watches you fill out. A health care directive from a hospital form works. If you are a renter with a checking account and a retirement plan, doing this yourself is a reasonable decision and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
The trouble starts when real property enters the picture.
The failures I actually see
- The unfunded trust. A beautiful trust, signed and notarized, with the house still titled in the individual's name. Full probate, statutory fees, everything the trust was bought to avoid.
- A deed prepared but never recorded, sitting in the binder the online service mailed.
- The refinance problem. The lender required the house out of the trust to close, and nobody ever put it back. Years pass.
- Beneficiary designations that contradict the trust, and the designation wins, because it always wins.
- An ex-spouse still named on a life insurance policy or a 401(k), which happens constantly and which a will does not fix.
- A holographic will where the material provisions were not in the person's own handwriting, or the whole thing was typed, or it was never dated.
- Witnessing errors, particularly a will witnessed by someone who inherits under it.
- A minor named as an outright beneficiary, which produces a court-supervised guardianship of the estate nobody wanted.
- No successor trustee named, or the named successor died in 2011 and nobody updated it.
- Community property character handled wrong, which can cost the surviving spouse the full step-up in basis on the family home.
The deed is where it goes wrong
Recording a deed in Los Angeles County involves the right form of deed, the correct legal description copied exactly, a preliminary change of ownership report, and a documentary transfer tax exemption claimed correctly. Get the exemption language wrong and you can trigger a reassessment on a transfer that should have been exempt. I have seen a $200 attempt to save money produce a five figure annual property tax increase, and unwinding it means going to the assessor with a very sheepish explanation.
The Prop 19 layer
Since 2021 there is a second trap. Families hear that inherited property gets reassessed and respond by transferring the house to the children during the parent's lifetime, usually with a form deed found online. That triggers reassessment immediately, which was the thing they were trying to avoid, and it destroys the step-up in basis, which was worth more than the property tax to begin with.
It also exposes the house to the children's creditors and divorces, and it can affect the parent's benefit eligibility. Four consequences, one deed, none of them explained by the website that sold it.
“The pattern I see most is not a bad person or a lazy one. It is a careful person who did nine tenths of the work correctly, put the binder on a shelf, and never got the last step done. Their family finds a perfect trust and a house in the wrong name, and I have to explain the statutory fee schedule to people who are already grieving.”
Delia Vasquez-HartHow to check your own plan tonight
- Pull your grant deed or look the property up on the county recorder site, and confirm the trust name appears as the owner
- Confirm the trust name on the deed matches the trust document exactly, including the date
- Log into every retirement and insurance account and read the named beneficiary and the contingent beneficiary
- Confirm your successor trustee is alive, willing, and someone you would still choose
- Check whether anything has happened since you signed: a marriage, a divorce, a birth, a death, a refinance, a new property
If items one through three check out, your plan is probably doing its job. If item one fails, fix it now, because it is cheap while you are alive and expensive after you are not.
Questions we get asked
I have a trust from an online service. Is it valid?
Very likely yes as a document. The question is whether your house is in it. Bring the binder and we will look at the deed inside the free consultation.
Can I record the deed myself?
You can. Get the legal description exactly right, use the correct deed form, and claim the transfer tax exemption properly. If any of that sentence made you uneasy, do not.
What does it cost to fix an unfunded trust after a death?
If it can be fixed, it is generally a petition to confirm the property as trust assets, which is far cheaper than a full probate. If it cannot, you are looking at the statutory fee schedule.
Is a handwritten will valid in California?
It can be, if the signature and the material provisions are in the person's own handwriting. They are also a reliable source of litigation, because they are usually ambiguous and rarely dated.
Next step
Look up your property on the Los Angeles County Recorder site right now and read the owner name on the most recent deed. That one line answers the most important question about your plan. If it shows your name instead of your trust, call (310) 555-0219 and bring the deed to a free 45-minute consultation.