California Court of Appeals, Second District, Sixth Division
[257
Cal.Rptr.3d 302] Superior Court County of Santa Barbara,
Colleen K. Sterne, Judge (Super. Ct. No. 18PR00032)(Santa
Barbara County)
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COUNSEL
The
Stone Law Group, Kenneth H. Stone and Scott G. Braden, San
Diego, for Defendant and Appellant.
Reicker,
Pfau, Pyle & McRoy, Alan A. Blakeboro, Diana Jessup Lee,
Santa Barbara, and Meghan K. Woodsome, for Plaintiff and
Respondent.
OPINION
TANGEMAN,
J.
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Probate Code [1] section 21135 provides that transfers
of property to a person during the transferors lifetime will
be treated as an at death transfer to the person under
certain conditions. All of these conditions [257 Cal.Rptr.3d
303] require a writing. Here we decide that the transferors
record of amounts he periodically distributed to his children
is a writing that satisfies the requirements of section
21135.
Avram
M. Sachs appeals from the probate courts order granting a
petition for instructions. (§ 17200.) The order allowed the
trustee (his sister, Benita Sachs) to treat lifetime gifts to
trust beneficiaries as advances on their inheritances. We
affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
David
L. Sachs had two children, Benita and Avram.[2] David
established a trust in 1980 when Benita was 20 years old and
Avram was 12. The trust provided for small distributions to
other beneficiaries, but most of the trust corpus would be
distributed to Benita and Avram equally on Davids death.
David was the original trustee.
In
1989 David began to keep track of money distributed to his
children on papers he referred to as the "Permanent
Record." When a child asked for money, David would tell
the child that the distribution would be reflected on the
Permanent Record.
In
June 2013 David began to experience cognitive problems due to
a stroke. He hired Ronda Landrum as his bookkeeper to help
manage his finances. At Davids instruction Landrum continued
to make distributions to Avram and Benita. Landrum said David
was adamant that she keep a record
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of the distributions. After a distribution was made David
would often confirm that the distribution was on the list.
Landrum kept a list for each child in the form of an
electronic spreadsheet. David told Landrum on more than one
occasion that keeping the list was important so that payments
...