I went to Marty in order to have him evaluate a living trust and life estate that had been done by another attorney. Something had gone very wrong with the life estate portion in the trust and I was being assessed supplemental property taxes by the County Tax Assessor. My attorney was being very unresponsive and the clock was ticking on the tax bill.
Marty looked over the filing documents done by the previous attorney and spotted the error right away, taking the time to explain how the life estate should have been handled. He told me, honestly, that he could charge me a fee to straighten out the mess with the assessor, or I could instead do it myself by simply showing up at the County office, documents in hand.
He also described the quitclaim deeds I would have to file and once again, gave me the option of doing it myself by downloading, filling out and filing them, or he could do it for me, again for a fee. He could have used a hard sell to have me turn it all over to him to charge more money but instead showed me how to do it all myself.
You know what? Given the option and knowing what's involved, I'll probably have Marty do the forms anyway, just to make sure they're handled properly. I couldn't be happier with the outcome of my visit with him; I now feel empowered to put my living trust back on course.
