California Wills & Trusts: April 2006 Summary

Updated Product Features

Acknowledgement Language Option for County Clerks who want language modified by hand by the notary public

Some County Clerks have apparently been insisting that acknowledgments have the various wording choices offered by the recent amendment to Civil Code Section 1189(a) (e.g., pronoun gender and noun number) made by hand by the notary (rather then printed with these choices correctly shown, as they are generated by Lawgic).  For such cases Question Help at the Questions indicated below now provides the following quotation from the statute so that you may copy some or all of it into the document's acknowledgment language:

On ________________  before me, (here insert name and title of the officer), personally appeared ________________________ , personally known to me (or proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence) to be the person(s) whose name(s) is/are subscribed to the within instrument and acknowledged to me that he/she/they executed the same in his/her/their authorized capacity(ies), and that by his/her/their signature(s) on the instrument the person(s), or the entity upon behalf of which the person(s) acted, executed the instrument.

California Wills & Trusts Questions 1212 and 1213.  California Irrevocable Trusts Questions 469 and 470.  Rev. Proc. Charitable Remainder Trusts Questions 47 and 48.

Tab Key Function Restored

The February 2006 update upgraded the user interface to incorporate the latest version of Java, which improves both stability and appearance.  The Tab key was disabled as a result of the Java upgrade.  The tab key function has now been restored.  The tab key will now advance to the next question where multiple questions appear on the same screen.

New Tools to Generate Shorter Documents Added

In response to customers requesting shorter documents, a new answer file named "sample_shortdocs" and a new template named 'short_docs' have been added. The answer file is available by selecting File from the Select Title/File screen and the template is available by selecting Templates from the same screen. Both the answer file and template create a simple 5-page will, a 1-page 'statutory' Durable Power of Attorney, and a 2-page 'statutory' Advance Health Care Directive. The answer file is used to quickly create sample documents. The template is used to create your own client documents. Select Using Templates by clicking Help on the Lawgic menu and then Help again for more information on templates.