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Trusts and Estates Attorney in San Anselmo, CA | Matthew W. Harris, Esq., LLM

If you live in San Anselmo or anywhere in Marin County and you’ve been putting off getting your estate plan in order, you’re not alone. Most people mean to get it done. Life just keeps getting in the way.

Here’s the thing though: not having a trust or a will doesn’t make those decisions disappear. It just means California’s default rules make them for you. And those rules rarely match what you actually want.

Matthew W. Harris is a licensed California estate planning attorney based right here in Marin County. He holds both a Juris Doctor (J.D.) and a Master of Laws (LLM) with a focus on estate planning and taxation, which puts him in a small category of attorneys who have truly specialized training in this area. If you want someone who does trusts and estates every day, not occasionally between other case types, this is his entire practice.

Why San Anselmo Families Choose Matthew W. Harris

Plenty of attorneys in Marin County will tell you they handle estate planning. Far fewer have dedicated their entire practice to it.

Here’s what makes a real difference:

An LLM in Estate Planning and Taxation. A Master of Laws is a post-J.D. graduate degree. Most estate planning attorneys don’t have one. Matthew’s LLM means he has advanced training in the tax side of estate planning, including strategies around the federal estate tax exemption, stepped-up basis, gift planning, and trust taxation. For families with significant assets, this matters.

Focused practice. Matthew doesn’t do criminal defense, divorce, or personal injury. He does trusts and estates. That focus translates directly into better advice and fewer mistakes.

He’s local. Matthew works in Marin County. He knows the local courts, the local real estate market (which affects trust funding and asset values), and the specific concerns that come up for families in communities like San Anselmo, Ross, Fairfax, and Tiburon.

Flat-fee pricing. You’ll know the cost up front. No billing surprises.

Real accessibility. Both in-person and virtual appointments are available, and he’s known for actually responding to client questions.

What a Complete Estate Plan Looks Like

Most families in San Anselmo need some version of these core documents:

  • Revocable living trust to avoid probate and manage assets during incapacity
  • Pour-over will to catch anything not in the trust and name guardians for minor children
  • Durable power of attorney so someone can handle your finances if you can’t
  • Advance healthcare directive with a HIPAA authorization so your medical wishes are known and your healthcare agent can access your records
  • Trustee designation that’s carefully thought through, not just a default name

From there, your situation may call for additional documents: a community property agreement, a letter of instruction, beneficiary designation updates, or more complex trust structures.

The first consultation is the right time to figure out exactly what you need.

Trusts and Estates Services for San Anselmo Families

Whether you’re starting from scratch or need to update a plan you put in place years ago, here’s what Matthew W. Harris can help you with.

Revocable Living Trust

A revocable living trust is the most practical estate planning tool for most Marin County families. It lets your loved ones skip the California probate process entirely, which can otherwise take a year or more and cost thousands of dollars in court and attorney fees.

Your assets go directly to the people you choose, on your timeline, without a judge involved.

A revocable trust also protects you during your lifetime. If you become incapacitated, your named successor trustee steps in to manage your finances right away, without going to court for a conservatorship.

Last Will and Testament

Even if you have a living trust, you still need a will. A pour-over will catches anything that didn’t make it into your trust and directs it there after you pass. It also names a guardian for minor children, which a trust can’t do.

For people with smaller estates, a straightforward will may be all you need to start.

Irrevocable Trusts

Sometimes you need a trust that can’t be changed. Irrevocable trusts are used for things like:

  • Removing assets from your taxable estate (including irrevocable life insurance trusts, or ILITs)
  • Protecting assets from creditors
  • Setting aside funds for a family member with special needs without disqualifying them from government benefits
  • Charitable giving strategies, including charitable remainder trusts

These are more complex and depend heavily on your specific financial and family situation. Matthew will walk you through whether one makes sense for you.

Trust Administration

When someone passes away and leaves behind a trust, the trustee has a legal obligation to follow California law in administering it. Mistakes here, even unintentional ones, can create liability and family conflict.

If you’ve just been named trustee for a parent or spouse’s trust in San Anselmo or elsewhere in Marin County, Matthew can guide you through every step: notifying beneficiaries, managing assets, paying debts, and making distributions correctly.

Probate Attorney Services

If a loved one passed away without a trust, or with assets that didn’t get transferred into one, those assets likely have to go through California probate court. It’s a public, time-consuming, and often expensive process.

Matthew handles probate cases throughout Marin County, from filing the initial petition through final distribution. He knows the local courts and knows how to move things forward efficiently.

Powers of Attorney and Healthcare Directives

A complete estate plan isn’t just about what happens after you die. It’s about what happens if you can’t make decisions right now.

A durable power of attorney names someone to handle your financial affairs if you’re incapacitated. An advance healthcare directive (sometimes called a living will) spells out your medical wishes and names a healthcare agent to speak for you.

Without these documents, your family may have to go to court for a conservatorship, which is far more expensive and stressful than signing two documents in advance.

Special Needs Planning

Families with a child or other dependent who has a disability face a unique challenge: leaving money directly to that person can disqualify them from Medi-Cal, SSI, or other benefits they depend on.

A special needs trust, sometimes called a supplemental needs trust, is designed to hold assets for that person’s benefit without affecting their eligibility. This is specialized work that requires careful drafting, and it’s something Matthew handles regularly.

Medi-Cal Planning and Elder Law

Long-term care is one of the largest financial risks facing older adults in California. Nursing home costs in Marin County can easily exceed $10,000 a month. Medi-Cal can cover this, but eligibility rules are strict, and poor planning can leave a surviving spouse with very little.

Matthew works with families to plan ahead for these costs, including trust structures and asset protection strategies that comply with California’s Medi-Cal rules.

Business Succession Planning

If you own a business in San Anselmo, Fairfax, San Rafael, or anywhere else in the North Bay, your estate plan needs to address what happens to that business. Who takes over? How is it valued? Are there co-owners whose interests need to be considered?

Without a clear succession plan, a business that took decades to build can fall apart quickly after an owner’s death or incapacity.

Trust Amendment and Restatement

Life changes. Your estate plan should change with it. Marriage, divorce, new children or grandchildren, a move, a death in the family, or a significant change in assets are all reasons to review your existing trust and update it.

Matthew offers trust amendments for targeted changes and full trust restatements when a more complete overhaul makes more sense.

Serving San Anselmo and All of Marin County

Matthew W. Harris serves clients throughout Marin County and the broader North Bay Area, including:

San Anselmo, San Rafael, Fairfax, Mill Valley, Corte Madera, Novato, Tiburon, Sausalito, Larkspur, Ross, and Greenbrae.

Virtual consultations are available for clients anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Get Started with a Free Consultation

You don’t have to figure out what you need before you call. That’s what the consultation is for.

Matthew W. Harris offers a free initial consultation for San Anselmo and Marin County residents. You can meet in person at his Marin County office or connect virtually, whichever works best for you.

Call or use the contact form below to schedule.

Frequently Asked Questions

Most people in California are better off with a trust. A will alone means your estate goes through probate, which is a public court process. It can take 12 to 18 months and cost 4% to 8% of the gross estate value in fees, by California statute. A trust skips all of that. Your loved ones get access to assets quickly and privately. That said, not everyone needs a trust. If you have a very simple estate and few assets, a will may be enough. The best way to know is to go through your specific situation with an attorney.

Your estate goes through “intestate succession,” which means California law decides who gets your assets. The California Probate Code has a formula based on family relationships. It doesn’t know that you wanted your house to go to one sibling but not another, or that you’ve been estranged from a family member for 20 years. It also doesn’t account for unmarried partners, close friends, or charities you cared about. Your wishes simply don’t factor in.

Probably yes. Estate planning law, tax law, and California trust law have all changed significantly in recent years. The federal estate tax exemption has gone up and down. California has its own rules around property tax reassessment that affect how trusts should be structured after Proposition 19 passed in 2020. Beyond legal changes, your own life has likely changed too. Assets you didn’t own before, new grandchildren, a business, a death in the family, changes in who you’d want as trustee. A review every three to five years is a good rule of thumb, and any major life event is a reason to call.

Matthew uses flat-fee pricing, so you’ll get a clear number before you sign anything. Costs vary based on what you need. A simple will-based plan is less than a full revocable trust package. A plan that includes special needs planning, business succession, or advanced tax strategies will be more. The real question is the cost of not planning. California probate fees on a $1.5 million estate, not unusual for a Marin County homeowner, can exceed $40,000. A properly funded trust costs a fraction of that.

A trust only works for the assets that are actually in it. “Funding” a trust means retitling your real estate, bank accounts, and investment accounts into the trust’s name, and updating beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement accounts. This is where most DIY estate plans fail. People create a trust but never fund it, and the whole thing ends up in probate anyway. Matthew walks clients through the funding process and makes sure it gets done right.

You can, but there are real risks. California has specific execution requirements for valid wills and trusts. An incorrectly signed document may not be valid at all. Online templates don’t account for Marin County-specific issues like property tax rules, community property, blended family dynamics, or business ownership. And a template doesn’t ask follow-up questions. It won’t notice that your trust is unfunded, that your beneficiary designations conflict with your trust, or that your plan would actually disqualify a family member from Medi-Cal. For a simple situation with straightforward assets, a template might be fine. For most families in San Anselmo, the cost of a professional plan is worth it.

They cover different things. A durable power of attorney names someone to manage your financial affairs if you can’t, things like paying bills, managing investments, handling real estate. A healthcare directive (also called an advance directive or living will) names someone to make medical decisions for you and spells out your wishes on things like life support. You need both. One without the other leaves gaps that can create real problems for your family if you’re ever incapacitated.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER:

The information on this website is for general information purposes only. Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing does not constitute, in any way an attorney-client relationship. Matthew W. Harris, Esq., LL.M is a California lawyer in good standing with the State Bar of California. Matthew W. Harris is admitted to practice only in California. Mr. Harris is not licensed to practice in any other jurisdiction.