Estate Planning & Living Trusts · Ventura County, California
Your parents had an estate plan.
You still spent a year cleaning it up.
Their binder looked complete. Then you found out that the house was still in Mom and Dad’s names, an account named someone who died in 1998, and their estate plan sent you to court anyway.
That’s an estate plan that was drafted and quit halfway. Most are. The trust gets signed, the binder goes on a shelf, and nobody ever moves the assets in.
The estate plans I design get finished. The house retitled by me, every account moved or confirmed before I close your file, so your kids settle everything in weeks, privately, instead of the year you just lived.
Probate on a single California house runs about $46,000 in court-set fees. My flat fee is $4,100 for a couple, $3,700 for one person. Pay it once, and your family never pays the $46,000. That fee also buys you lifetime access to me — call anytime, no hourly meter.
Your kids get the version you didn’t.
(Not ready to talk? See if your current plan would actually work.)
My father died thinking he had it handled — a will, a trust, and thirty years of work behind them. It didn’t protect anyone. Thirty years of his work walked out the door with a stranger. That is why I build plans that hold when your family needs them, instead of a binder that only looks like one.
Three steps. That’s the whole plan.
A free thirty-minute call.
We design the plan and move your home and accounts into it.
Your family’s whole job becomes one phone call.
A will does not
keep your family out of court.
Most people find that out too late. In California, when there is no working plan, families do not sort it out at the kitchen table — they go to probate. It is public, slow, and the fees are set by statute. An ordinary home and modest savings can cost a family tens of thousands of dollars and a year or more before they can touch any of it.
This is not a problem for the wealthy. The bigger the estate, the more lawyers it already has. Ordinary families are the ones who get hurt — because they assumed something in a drawer was enough.
And this is only the half that comes after you die. The other half comes while you are still here: a stroke, a fall, a long illness — and someone has to step in to manage your money and your care. Without a plan that names who, a court does it for you, and you lose control of your own life while you are still living it.
If you’ve been meaning to handle this for years, and you’re not sure the documents in the drawer would even work, you’re exactly who I built this practice for.
The only part you control is whether the plan exists before you need it.
Keep your family out of probate court.
A plan that works moves assets the moment they need to move — without permission from a judge, without a public docket, without statutory fees.
Name who steps in if you cannot.
Incapacity is the half of the conversation no one wants. Your plan should name, in advance, who handles your medical, financial, and family decisions.
Keep a hand on the wheel after you’re gone.
A plan decides not just who inherits, but how and when. A share can be held for the child who isn’t ready, or shielded from a divorce or a creditor, so the money lands where you meant it to.
Because it was built to be tested — a plan that survives contact with grief, family conflict, and the courthouse, not just the day you sign it.
That is the whole job. I will tell you what you need, what you do not, and why — then build it so it actually works. — Eric Ridley, on his practice
An honest
number.
$4,100 for a married couple. $3,700 for one person. That covers the trust, the will, the incapacity documents, the deed that moves your California home into the trust, and the funding work tracked to completion — the part most attorneys hand back to you.
That number fits a family with one California home. A second property, a business, a child with special needs, or children from a prior marriage takes more drafting. If that’s you, nothing changes about the process: you’ll have the full number in writing before any work starts.
For comparison, probate — the court process a funded trust prevents — runs about $46,000 in statutory fees on a $1,000,000 estate, calculated on the gross value. A mortgage does not reduce it.
I’m not the cheapest way to get a trust. An online form is cheaper, right up until nobody moves the house into it.
See every fee, in writingTry the probate calculator
A focused practice.
Four things, done well.
The questions
families ask first.
Not ready to talk?Browse the free guides
Five meetings, then
a plan that keeps working.
- I.The ConversationWhere you tell me about your family and what you’re planning for. No documents drafted.
- II.Asset ReviewA full inventory of what there actually is to plan around.
- III.The DesignA written plan in plain language, before any legal documents are drawn.
- IV.Final ReviewThe documents read line by line, with you in the room.
- V.The SigningExecuted, witnessed, notary provided — where most attorneys stop.
Then the part most plans skip: I move the assets into the trust — deeds re-titled, accounts re-registered, beneficiaries aligned — and we sit again every three years to keep it current. A plan that is not funded is just a binder.
What done
feels like.
Every account has a destination. The deed is recorded, the house is in the trust, and the person you chose — not a judge — takes the wheel if you can’t drive. If the day comes, your children’s entire job is one phone call, to a lawyer who already knows them.
If you have ever had to settle an estate yourself, you know exactly what that is worth. If you haven’t, take my word for it: it is everything.
Get it off your list.
In their
own words.
We had previously completed a trust through LegalZoom, but it didn’t feel like enough to truly protect our family in a worst-case scenario. Eric and Spencer were fantastic to work with and provided incredible value.
“Eric and Spencer took my hand and walked me through the process of building my trust, and to the finish line. They were always available to answer all my questions. I’m happy I picked the Ridley Law, and you will too.”
“After meeting with several firms, I felt that Eric was the most forthright and upfront about the whole process. He and his team are patient, informative, and helpful. A great experience all around.”
“Unlike other attorneys I’ve encountered, Eric genuinely puts people before paperwork. His personalized approach made us feel confident and at ease throughout the entire process.”
Begin the
conversation.
The first call is unhurried, and there is no fee for it. I’ll tell you whether you need me, what a working plan looks like for your family, and what it would cost — before you decide anything.
I’d rather be useful to someone who doesn’t hire me than sell a plan to someone who wasn’t sure they needed it.
(Not ready to talk? See if your current plan would actually work.)