Civil Commitment, Conservatorship and Guardianship
AB 2493 (Fuller) Conservatee photograph: duty of conservator. This bill requires that, upon establishing a conservatorship and each year thereafter, a conservator must maintain a photograph of the conservatee for identification purposes. Status: Chapter 97, 2010.
SB 308 (Harman) Professional fiduciaries. This bill revises the definition of “professional fiduciary” under the Professional Fiduciaries Act to include varying types of conservators and guardians, and specifies how trusts and beneficiaries are counted for purposes of the definition. This bill also excludes from the definition employees of public officers or agencies that are now specifically exempt from the requirements imposed on professional fiduciaries, when those employees are acting within the scope of their employment duties.Status: Chapter 348, 2009.
Elder Abuse
AB 2066 (Jones) Annuity sales: seniors. This bill would have required that seniors be provided with specified disclosures before obtaining an annuity, presumptively limited the sale of annuities to seniors in specified circumstances, and limited the surrender penalty that could be charged to seniors. Status: Dead, Asm. Ins.
AB 2555 (Feuer) Ombudsman programs: appropriation. This bill would have made a one-time appropriation of $1.6 million from the State Health Facilities Citation Penalties Account to the California Department of Aging to fund local ombudsman programs where 35 local ombudsman coordinators and volunteers monitor long-term care facilities and respond to local complaints. Status: Dead, Sen. Approps.
AB 2619 (Block) Elder and dependent adult abuse: restitution. This bill authorizes wage garnishments against defendants convicted of elder or dependent adult financial abuse. Status: Chapter 64, 2010.
Probate
AB 355 (Ammiano) Decedents' estates: sister state personal representatives. This bill would have established a procedure for the personal representative of a decedent who died a resident of a "sister state" to collect the decedent’s personal property in California valued in excess of $100,000. The procedure would have been substantially similar to the existing simplified affidavit procedure for the transfer of a nonresident decedent’s personal property valued at less than $100,000 to the decedent’s personal representative from the sister state. Status: Dead, Sen. Jud.
AB 724 (DeVore) Nonprobate transfers: revocable transfer upon death deeds. This bill would have created the revocable transfer on death deed (revocable TOD deed), as defined, which would transfer real property on the death of its owner without a probate proceeding. This bill would have: (1) established rules for the making and revocation of these deeds; (2) outlined the beneficiary’s liability for debts of the transferor and the procedure for restitution to the estate by the beneficiary of the revocable TOD deed, if appropriate; and (3) established the procedure for contesting a revocable TOD deed and for a creditor to collect payment for the transferor’s debts. This bill's provisions would have sunset on January 1, 2015 and would have required the California Law Revision Commission to study and make recommendations regarding the revocable TOD deed to the Legislature by January 1, 2014. Status: Dead, Sen. Jud.
AB 1986 (Silva) Statutory will: form. This bill conforms the requirements of the California statutory will form to the provisions of statutory law whereby witnesses to a will are not required to sign the will in each other's presence. This bill also makes technical revisions to the statutory will form by removing language providing that notarization alone is not sufficient and modifying the form. Status: Chapter 88, 2010.
AB 2190 (Block) Disposition of remains: authorized agent. This bill would have recognized in state law the U.S. Department of Defense (DD) Form 93 (Record of Emergency Data) as an acceptable written instrument of a military service member's designation of a person to direct the disposition of the service member's remains in the event of the member's death while on active duty with the U.S. Armed Forces. Status: Dead, Sen. Jud.
AB 2271 (Silva) Probate: appeals. This bill authorizes a trial court to appoint a temporary trustee to exercise powers over a trust during the appeal of certain judgments and orders. Status: Chapter 94, 2010.
SB 105 (Harman) Donative transfers: restrictions. This bill revises and recasts current provisions related to restrictions on donative transfers to specified persons that become irrevocable on or after January 1, 2011. This bill establishes an express presumption of fraud or undue influence if the donative instrument makes a gift to the person who drafted or who transcribed the instrument or to their family members, or makes a gift to certain other disqualified persons, including a caregiver or care custodian. This bill also specifies certain exceptions to the operation of this presumption, and provides that the presumption may be rebutted by preponderance of the evidence. Status: Chapter 620, 2010.
Trusts
SB 202 (Harman) Trustee: duties. This bill makes a number of relatively minor changes to trust administration to make the law of trusts more workable for trustees and to help ensure that the interests of beneficiaries are properly protected, including closing a loophole that may permit evasion of the required notice of trust administration, providing that late service of notice is nonetheless effective to trigger the 120-day statute of limitations to file a trust contest, and increasing the amount of a trust that a trustee may terminate without court permission from $20,000 to $40,000. Finally, this bill declares that it is against public policy for a trust instrument to waive the beneficiary's right to information and access to records. Status: Chapter 621, 2010.