en English
en Englishes Spanish
estate planning lawyer Marin County
Facebook-f Yelp Envelope

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

If you own property in Belvedere or anywhere on the Tiburon Peninsula, there’s a good chance your estate will go through California probate if you don’t have the right plan in place. That’s not a scare tactic. It’s just math. Most homes in this area are worth well over $1 million, and California requires probate for estates over $184,500. Without a properly funded trust, your family could spend a year or more in court and pay 4–5% of your estate’s gross value in statutory fees before they see a dollar.

Matthew W. Harris, Esq., LLM is a Marin County trusts and estates attorney who helps families in Belvedere, Tiburon, and throughout the Bay Area build estate plans that actually work when they’re needed most. With a Juris Doctor and a Master of Laws in Taxation (LLM), Matt brings a depth of tax knowledge that most estate planning attorneys simply don’t have.

Why Estate Planning Is Especially Important in Belvedere

Belvedere is one of the most affluent communities in California. Homes routinely sell for $3 million, $5 million, or more. Investment portfolios and retirement accounts add to that. For families here, the stakes around estate planning are high.

A few things specific to this area worth knowing:

California has no state estate tax, but the federal estate tax applies to estates above the current exemption threshold. With the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act set to sunset, that exemption is expected to drop significantly in the coming years. People who don’t act now may find their estates suddenly taxable.

Probate here is expensive. California’s statutory probate fees are calculated on gross asset value, not net. That means a $2 million home with a $1.5 million mortgage still generates fees based on the $2 million value. A properly funded revocable trust avoids that entirely.

Privacy matters. Probate is a public process. Your will and the inventory of your estate become public record. A trust keeps all of that private.

Working with Matthew W. Harris, Esq., LLM

Matt is a licensed California attorney with a Juris Doctor and a Master of Laws in Taxation. The LLM credential isn’t common among estate planning attorneys. It means Matt spent an additional year of graduate legal study focused specifically on tax law. For clients with significant assets, business interests, or complex family situations, that knowledge directly affects the quality of the plan you get.

Matt’s office is based in Marin County and serves clients throughout Belvedere, Tiburon, Mill Valley, Sausalito, Corte Madera, Larkspur, Ross, San Rafael, Novato, and the broader San Francisco Bay Area.

Every client relationship starts with a confidential consultation. You’ll talk through your situation, your goals, and your concerns. From there, Matt will walk you through what a plan could look like and answer any questions before you decide to move forward.

What We Do: Trusts and Estates Legal Services in Belvedere

Revocable Living Trusts

A revocable living trust is the foundation of most good estate plans here in Marin County. It holds your assets during your lifetime, lets you stay in complete control, and passes everything to your beneficiaries without any court involvement when you’re gone.

Here’s the thing most people don’t realize: a trust only works if it’s funded. That means your home, investment accounts, and other assets need to be titled in the name of the trust. A lot of attorneys hand you a signed document and call it done. We make sure the funding actually happens.

We help clients with:

  • Revocable living trusts
  • Trust amendments and restatements
  • Trustee selection guidance
  • Pour-over wills (to catch any assets left out of the trust)
  • Beneficiary designation reviews

Irrevocable Trusts and Advanced Planning

For clients with larger estates or specific goals around tax planning, asset protection, or charitable giving, irrevocable trusts offer tools that revocable trusts can’t.

Unlike a revocable trust, an irrevocable trust generally removes assets from your taxable estate once they’re transferred in. That can matter a great deal when the federal estate tax exemption changes, which it’s set to do in the coming years.

Depending on your situation, we may work with you on:

  • Irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs)
  • Special needs trusts for a disabled loved one
  • Charitable trusts
  • Grantor trusts for wealth transfer
  • Generation-skipping transfer (GST) planning

Wills and Essential Documents

A trust doesn’t replace a will. It works alongside one. We draft pour-over wills that act as a safety net for any assets not transferred into your trust. We also handle:

  • Last wills and testaments
  • Durable powers of attorney
  • Advance healthcare directives and living wills
  • Guardianship designations for minor children

If you have kids and don’t have a guardian nomination in place, that’s the most urgent thing to address. Courts decide who raises your children if you haven’t said who you want.

Trust and Estate Administration

Not all of our clients come to us for planning. Many come to us after a loved one has passed and they’re trying to figure out what to do next.

We help successor trustees and executors understand their duties, gather and value assets, handle creditor claims, deal with tax filings including IRS Form 706 when required, and distribute assets to beneficiaries. We also help families avoid the disputes that come from unclear instructions or improperly administered trusts.

Probate in California

If a loved one passed away without a trust, or with assets that weren’t properly titled, probate may be required. California probate court can be slow and costly. We guide families through the process from start to finish, and in some cases we can use simplified procedures for smaller estates.

We can also help you plan now so your family never has to deal with probate at all.

Elder Law and Medi-Cal Planning

This is an area that often gets overlooked until it’s almost too late. If you or a parent may need long-term care in the future, Medi-Cal planning can protect family assets from being spent down on nursing home costs.

California’s Medi-Cal rules are complex, and the timing of any planning matters a lot. We help clients in Belvedere and across Marin County think through asset protection strategies that fit within the legal rules and their family’s goals.

Business Succession Planning

If you own a business, your estate plan needs to address what happens to it if you can’t run it anymore. We work with business owners in Belvedere, Tiburon, Sausalito, and throughout the Bay Area to document succession plans that align with their business structure and personal estate goals.

Serving Belvedere and the Tiburon Peninsula

Matthew W. Harris, Esq., LLM works with clients throughout Belvedere, Tiburon, Mill Valley, Sausalito, Corte Madera, Larkspur, Ross, San Rafael, Novato, and the wider San Francisco Bay Area.

Ready to talk? Start with a confidential consultation. There’s no pressure and no obligation. Just a real conversation about what you want to protect and how to do it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Probably yes. In California, a will alone doesn’t avoid probate. If your estate is worth more than $184,500 (and most Belvedere residents’ are), a will just tells the probate court what you want. Your family still has to go through the court process. A revocable living trust, when properly funded, keeps your estate out of probate entirely. Most people in Marin County are better served by a trust-based plan that includes a will as a backup.

It depends on the complexity of your situation, but most clients finish their basic estate plan within a few weeks. The first consultation covers your goals and circumstances. From there, we draft the documents, review them with you, and finalize them at a signing appointment. The trust funding process (retitling assets) happens after signing.

This is one of the most common estate planning mistakes. If your assets aren’t titled in the name of your trust when you die, they may still go through probate, even if you have a perfectly drafted trust document. A pour-over will can catch those assets, but they’ll still pass through court. We walk every client through the funding process and help make sure it’s actually done.

Most estate planning attorneys focus on the legal documents. Tax planning is often treated as a secondary concern. Matt’s Master of Laws in Taxation means tax strategy is built into every plan from the start. That matters if your estate might be subject to federal estate tax, if you’re thinking about gift planning, if you want to transfer a business, or if you’re using irrevocable trusts for asset protection. You get a more complete plan because tax and legal strategy are considered together.

Yes, but there are important differences to know. Non-citizen spouses don’t qualify for the unlimited marital deduction the way U.S. citizen spouses do. A Qualified Domestic Trust (QDOT) is one way to address that. If you or your spouse is not a U.S. citizen, it’s especially important to work with an attorney who understands the tax implications.

California law sets statutory fees for both the executor and the attorney handling a probate. Each is entitled to 4% of the first $100,000 of the estate, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, and 1% on amounts above that. And remember, these fees are calculated on the gross value of the estate, not the equity. A $2 million home with a $1.5 million mortgage still generates fees on $2 million. That’s a strong reason to avoid probate entirely with a properly funded trust.

Blended families, children from prior relationships, estranged family members, dependents with special needs, unmarried partners, international assets — these situations come up regularly. They require more careful planning, not less. Matt has worked with clients across a wide range of family situations and can help structure a plan that reflects your actual wishes and reduces the risk of disputes later.

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.