Vivinavi

Estate ・ Planning for Americans living in Japan and Japanese with assets in the U.S.

Estate ・ Planning in the U.S. is a unique process that Japanese are not familiar with. If you have an estate in the U.S., it is very important to do Estate ・ Planning while you are still in good health. In Japan, estates are distributed to the bereaved family without a will, but in the U.S., the estate of a deceased person can only be distributed to beneficiaries after a legal process called "probate" is completed. Probate is a court proceeding that takes place before the deceased's estate can be distributed. Probate has disadvantages, such as the contents of the deceased's estate becoming public knowledge and the time required for the court process. The cost of probate can also be expensive. In most cases, however, probate can be avoided by creating a living revocable trust （ ）. Estate ・ planning is not only the creation of the trust, but also the process of planning for important matters in your life such as retirement planning, end-of-life medical needs, and how your estate will be distributed.

Uchino Law provides the following services
to U.S. citizens and foreigners with assets in California

- Preparing estate ・ plans to suit your needs
- Providing advice on cross-border
estate ・ planning from a US law perspective for Japanese nationals and long-term residents of Japan
- Preparing wills trusts, powers of attorney, advance medical directives, and other ancillary documents
- trust administration
- standard probate procedures*
*Uchino Law does not handle litigation matters related to probate. If you anticipate litigation in the course of our support for probate, we will refer you to a probate litigation specialist.