by Andy Chen | Oct 24, 2017 | California, Law, in real life, Statutes... and stuff
A will and/or a trust is probably something that a lot of people hear that they should have. Most people probably don’t, however, because human nature is that way. In this blog post, I’m going to go over what happens if you die without any estate planning documents at all. Any one of us can, unfortunately, die all of a sudden so this post is likely not as theoretical as a lot of us would like to think. I’m going to talk specifically about California, but the concept I’ll go over (i.e. Intestate Succession) is not unique to California. Other states in the US recognize it also. As always, however, if you’re outside of California, you need to look up the particular rules for Intestate Succession in your state. In describing what happens to you if you die without a will or a trust, I’ll also illustrate one of the reasons why you should not wait to get divorced. Intestate Succession Intestate succession is the generic term for what happens if you die without a will or a trust. As a reminder, California has specific requirements that a will and a trust have to meet in order to be valid. If your will or trust doesn’t meet those requirements and you die, it’s like you didn’t have a will or trust at all. Intestate Succession is a set of rules that governs who gets your stuff when you die. If you leave a will or a trust, you can specify who you want (or don’t want, as the case may be) to get your stuff. You can leave things...
by Andy Chen | Sep 10, 2017 | California, Law, in real life, New York, Statutes... and stuff
California is a community property state when it comes to divorces. The idea of community property is not difficult to understand in the abstract — colloquially, you might have heard it as the rule that in a divorce, you get (or lose) of the stuff. See California Family Code section 2550. Property is basically put in to one of three categories: (1) stuff owned by spouse #1 from before the marriage, (2) stuff owned by spouse #2 from before the marriage, and (3) stuff that the two spouses acquired while they were married. The property in category (3) is divided in half — again see California Family Code section 2550 — while the property in (1) and (2) goes to each spouse respectively. Applying the idea of community property in the real world is not so simple. First, the spouses will argue about which category (1, 2, or 3) a particular piece of property falls in to. Second, if each spouse acquires property after they separate, determining when that property was acquired relative to the separation date can also be argued about, sometimes extensively. Third, it can often be confusing, such as when property was purchased prior to the marriage and financed or paid for partly during the marriage. Houses often fall in to this category. If you’re dealing with a California divorce where a house was purchased by one spouse before the marriage, but the mortgage was paid for during the marriage, you may be interested in something called a Moore-Marsden computation. Community property in divorces is the exception rather than the rule in the United States. The...
by Andy Chen | Jul 11, 2017 | California, Law, in real life, Statutes... and stuff
In California, are license plates required to be on both the front and back of a car? This question comes up every now and again, usually by those who have bought a car, but don’t like the aesthetics of having a license plate on the front of the car also. As with any argument about cars, people hold passionately to their views. Regardless of which side of the argument you fall on, what ultimately matters for your pocketbook is what a police officer can ticket you for. If you’ve bought a new car in California, you’ve likely received — or will receive — this envelope from the California Department of Motor Vehicles containing your license plates. The law that the envelope refers to is California Vehicle Code section 5200. The general rule regarding where you display your license plates depends on how many license plates the California Department of Motor Vehicles gives you. If you receive two, then one goes on the front of your car and one goes on the rear. That’s California Vehicle Code section 5200(a). If you only receive one, then it has to go on the back of your vehicle. That’s section 5200(b). If you think you’ve only received one plate, check to make sure that they aren’t just stuck together. Oh, and in case you’ve ever wondered, yes, license plates — at least in California — are made by prison inmates. Here’s the website of the California Prison Industry Authority....
by Andy Chen | Jun 15, 2017 | California, Law, in real life, Statutes... and stuff
If you’re shopping for a used car in California, something you might be wondering about — and if you’re not wondering about it, you should for the reasons I’ll describe — is whether or not a smog check needs to be done. If you’re looking on a website like Craigslist where anyone can post a vehicle for sale, for example, you might see a lot of ads where the seller says: The smog test is the buyer’s responsibility, The vehicle passed smog “6 months ago”, or The vehicle is “smog ready” I’ve always assumed that “smog ready” means the vehicle can pass a smog test which, if you think about it, could have two possible meanings: (1) the vehicle will pass smog and the seller agrees to do that as a condition of the sale, or (2) the vehicle will allegedly pass smog, but the buyer has to buy the car first and bear the risk of it not actually passing smog. So the question for this blog post is this: what is the rule about smog tests when you’re buying a new car in California? Two things before we dive in to the answer: First, if you’re not in California and don’t know what a smog test is, it’s an emissions test that your car has to pass in order to get registered in California. Smog tests are, thus, an air pollution control measure. If your car can’t pass a smog test and you can’t fix it, then you cannot register it in California. Depending on your situation, you may be able to sell your car to your...
by Andy Chen | May 2, 2017 | California, Law, in real life, Statutes... and stuff
In my experience, most people tend to have a good intuition about how to sue a private person, such as someone who has damaged or broken your property. That intuition also applies — with minor differences — to suing a corporation, limited liability company, or other entity. When it comes to suing the government, though, the rules change significantly and most people’s intuition tends to let them down. I don’t know where the rumor started, but you can indeed sue the city, county, state, and federal government. This post, though, is not going to cover suing the federal government, but instead I’m going to go over how to sue the city, county, and state in California under something called the California Tort Claims Act. Two things I want to mention first: First, you might think that you would never sue the government itself (e.g. State of California, City of San Diego, etc), but remember that the government — like any entity — acts through individuals. Thus, if you’ve been injured or damaged as a result of the actions of a city, county, or state employee (e.g. city police officer, public school teacher, etc), it’s the city, county, or state that may be ultimately responsible. Second, if you ever do find yourself in a position where you might have to sue the government, please do find a lawyer to help you. As I’ll describe generally below, the rules for suing the government are very specialized and strict. In general, it is not something you can wing or simply figure out. Spend the money and effort to find a lawyer who...
by Andy Chen | Apr 8, 2017 | California, Law, in real life, Statutes... and stuff
In a prior post, I described California’s Marital Privileges under the guise of illustrating that there are benefits to being married versus just living together. That post was general — this post will be general as well — but the idea was to introduce you to the idea of a privilege and, also, to show that the law does confer some benefits on married couple over unmarried couples, regardless of how outdated some people might think the institution of marriage is. To refresh, the idea of a privilege is — in general — that it allows you to do something or refuse to do something that would ordinarily garner a punishment under the law. In my Marital Privilege post, I described how that privilege can, depending on the situation, allow communications between spouse to be kept private, for instance. Many people have probably heard of the Attorney-Client privilege under which an attorney is allowed to refuse — even refuse a judge’s order — to disclose what the lawyer and the lawyer’s client talked about. Attorney-Client privilege is certainly not unique to California, but if you’re interested, the statute for Attorney-Client privilege in California is section 954 of the California Evidence Code. The Marital Privileges as well as the Attorney-Client privilege are just two kinds of privileges California recognizes. This post will be about another privilege, namely that between a victim of domestic violence and a domestic violence counselor. The California statute for this is section 1037.5 of the California Evidence Code. As always under the law, definitions are extremely important. The privilege exists between a victim and a domestic...
