What a Family Legacy Planner Does for High-Earning Parents in California and Washington

By Kevin Luu, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer. Reviewed on 2026-09-30.

A family legacy planner is an adviser who coordinates the three parts of passing wealth to the next generation: the legal documents (will, trust, guardianship and beneficiary designations), the money and tax decisions behind them, and a written record of how the parents think about money so the children inherit judgment along with assets. The planner does not replace your estate attorney, who drafts the documents. The planner makes sure the documents, the accounts and the family’s intentions match.

For a California or Washington W-2 family with young children, family legacy planning usually comes down to five decisions: who raises the kids, who manages the money for them, at what ages they receive it, how your accounts are titled so the plan actually works, and what you write down for them about why you made these choices.

What a family legacy planner does that an estate attorney does not

“Family legacy planner” is a marketing title, not a license or a regulated credential. Anyone can use it, including people who are paid to sell insurance. What matters is the role the person plays and how they are paid. A working legacy plan for a two-income household usually involves several professionals.

For a delegating family, the value is coordination. A common pattern: an estate plan is drafted correctly and then quietly breaks, because the trust was never funded, a new 401(k) still names a spouse and then “my estate”, or an RSU brokerage account sits outside the trust.

The five parts of a legacy plan for parents of children under 12

1. Guardians for the children

A written guardian nomination, usually made in your will, is how parents get a say in who a court appoints to raise their children if both die (in California, a separate signed writing also works under Cal. Probate Code §1502). This is the single most important decision for families with young kids, and it costs nothing in tax. Name a first and a backup choice, and talk to them before you sign.

2. A trustee for the money

The person who raises your children does not have to be the person who manages their money. Many families split the roles: a sibling as guardian, a financially experienced friend or a professional trustee for the trust. Splitting them adds a check without adding conflict.

3. The ages your children receive money

If assets pass to a minor outside a trust, state law decides when the child gets control. Under the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, a California custodial account transfers at 18 by default, and the transferor can delay it to no later than 21 for a lifetime gift or no later than 25 for a will or trust transfer (Cal. Probate Code §3920.5). In Washington, gifts and transfers under a will or trust end at 21, and the transferor can extend that to 25 in the original nomination (RCW 11.114.200). A trust lets you choose staged ages instead, for example a third at 25, 30 and 35, with the trustee able to pay for education and health at any age. Our guide to what happens to a UTMA at the age of majority covers the custodial side in more detail.

4. Titling and beneficiary designations

Retirement accounts and life insurance pass by beneficiary form, not by your will. A revocable trust controls only the assets titled in its name or payable to it. This is where most plans fail. Each account needs to be checked one by one: 401(k), deferred compensation, IRAs, employer group life, private term policies, the brokerage account that holds vested RSUs and ESPP shares, and the house. See our walkthrough on naming a trust as beneficiary of a brokerage account.

5. A written record of how you decide

Documents say who gets what. They do not say why. The part most plans skip is a short written record of how the parents think about work, spending, giving and risk, so a trustee and, later, the children can apply it to decisions you never anticipated. As Kevin Luu puts it: “Your kids don’t need to inherit your portfolio. They need to inherit your decision-making process.”

Worked example: why a California family needs a funded trust

Assumptions (illustrative): a married couple in San Mateo County, one at a biotech company and one physician, household income $950,000. They own a home appraised at $2,400,000 with a $1,100,000 mortgage, a taxable brokerage account of $600,000 holding vested RSUs, and 401(k) accounts with named beneficiaries. They have wills but never set up or funded a revocable trust.

When the second parent dies owning the home and brokerage account in their own name, those assets go through California probate. California sets statutory fees for both the executor and the executor’s attorney on a sliding scale: 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000 and 1% of the next $9,000,000 (Cal. Probate Code §10800 and §10810). For both fees, the value is the inventory “without reference to encumbrances”, so the mortgage is not subtracted.

• Probate estate: $2,400,000 home + $600,000 brokerage = $3,000,000 gross.
• Fee on $3,000,000: $4,000 + $3,000 + $16,000 + $20,000 (1% of $2,000,000) = $43,000.
• Attorney fee $43,000 plus executor fee $43,000 = $86,000, before court costs, appraisal and the months the assets are tied up in court.

The executor may waive the executor fee, for example when it is a family member, but the statutory attorney fee is still calculated on the full gross value. A funded revocable living trust keeps these assets out of probate. The cost of drafting the trust is a fraction of that figure, and the bigger benefit is that a trustee you chose can pay for the children’s school and housing without waiting for a court.

Worked example: Washington estate tax for a dual-income family

Federal estate tax is not a concern for most families at this income level. For 2026, the federal basic exclusion is $15,000,000 per person, made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and indexed from 2027 (IRS: What’s new, estate and gift tax). Older articles that warn the exemption “drops to about $7 million in 2026” are out of date.

Washington is different. It has its own estate tax with an exclusion of $3,000,000 for deaths from July 1 to December 31, 2026 ($3,076,000 for deaths from January 1 to June 30, 2026), and rates for deaths on or after July 1, 2026 run from 10% on the first $1,000,000 of taxable estate to 20% above $9,000,000 (WA DOR estate tax tables).

Assumptions (illustrative): a Bellevue couple, one an Amazon executive, household income $1,400,000. Home $2,200,000, retirement accounts $900,000, brokerage and RSU shares $1,600,000, and one $3,000,000 term life policy that the Amazon executive owns on their own life, naming the spouse as beneficiary.

• At the first death, assets left to the surviving spouse generally qualify for the marital deduction, so no tax is due then.
• When the surviving parent later dies, their estate holds the $4,700,000 of assets plus the $3,000,000 death benefit (received at the first death, or paid at their own death if they were the insured owner), about $7,700,000.
• Minus the $3,000,000 exclusion, the Washington taxable estate is about $4,700,000 before debts and administration costs. Under DOR’s table for deaths on or after July 1, 2026, the tax is $550,000 plus 18% of the $700,000 over $4,000,000, about $676,000, money that would otherwise go to the children’s trust.

Planning tools such as a credit shelter trust at the first death or an irrevocable life insurance trust that owns the policies can reduce that exposure. Each has costs and trade-offs your attorney should walk through. California does not currently collect an estate tax: its estate tax is only a share of a federal credit for state death taxes that no longer exists (Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code §13302), so a California family with the same balance sheet would owe none at the state level.

How to choose a family legacy planner

Because the title is unregulated, ask direct questions before you hire anyone.

1. Are you a fiduciary at all times, in writing? You want someone legally required to put your family’s interest first on every recommendation.
2. How are you paid? Fee-only means the adviser is paid only by the family, with no commissions on insurance or products. Ask for the firm’s Form ADV, which registered advisers file publicly on the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site.
3. Do you work with equity compensation? For a family whose net worth sits in RSUs, ESPP and deferred compensation, the legacy plan and the vesting schedule are the same conversation.
4. Who drafts the documents? A good planner works alongside your estate attorney rather than selling a packaged trust kit.
5. What gets written down for the children? If the answer is only the trust document, the values part of the plan is missing.

If you are weighing whether an adviser should also serve in a formal role, see can my financial advisor be the executor of my will, and bring our questions to ask an attorney to the drafting meeting.

Common mistakes in legacy planning for young families

• Signing a trust and never funding it. The house deed and brokerage accounts still sit in your own names, so probate happens anyway.
• Naming minor children directly as beneficiaries. A child cannot take control of a 401(k) or insurance payout, so a court or a custodial account steps in, and the child gets full control at 18 or 21.
• Forgetting employer accounts after a job change. New 401(k), deferred compensation and group life forms are often left blank at onboarding.
• Owning large life insurance policies personally in Washington. The death benefit can push the estate well past the state exclusion.
• Leaving the “why” unwritten. A trustee who has to guess how you felt about private school, a gap year or a first home will guess conservatively, or inconsistently.

What to document for your children

Keep it to one or two pages, updated once a year: why you chose the guardian and trustee you did, what you want the money to pay for and not pay for, the ages you picked and the reasoning, and two or three money decisions you made this year with the thinking behind them. This is the core of the FamilyKnowledge® System we use with families, and it is what turns a set of legal documents into a legacy. Conversations fade. Documentation compounds.

Frequently asked questions

Is a family legacy planner the same as an estate planner?

Not exactly. “Estate planner” usually means the attorney who drafts your will and trust. A family legacy planner, at its best, is a fiduciary adviser who coordinates those documents with your accounts, taxes, insurance and the family’s written values, then keeps them in sync as income, equity compensation and children’s ages change. You typically need both, working together.

When should young parents start family legacy planning?

When the first child arrives, or before if you own a home. At that point a guardian nomination, a revocable trust, updated beneficiary forms and enough term life insurance cover most of the risk. Review the plan after each new child, a move between California and Washington, a large RSU grant or a job change.

Do Washington families need a revocable trust too?

Washington probate is generally simpler than California’s, and Washington sets no statutory percentage fee: the court allows the personal representative compensation it finds “just and reasonable” (RCW 11.48.210). So the probate cost argument is weaker. Families still use trusts for privacy, to manage money for minor children, to hold assets in other states and to support Washington estate tax planning. Ask your attorney which structure fits your balance sheet.

Your next step

Make a one-page list of every account, policy and property you own, with how it is titled and who the beneficiary is. Compare it against your will or trust. Any mismatch is the first thing to fix. If you would like a second set of eyes on that list, our estate planning and family governance teams at Age Five Family Office™ review it as part of the Tax & Wealth Assessment, and our Age Five Wealth Education work covers the written record for your children.

This article is general education, not legal or tax advice. The right structure depends on your family’s full picture and should be confirmed with your estate attorney.

Written by

Kevin Luu

Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer, Bright Advisers

Kevin has advised high-income W-2 tech and biotech families since 2015, and leads the education-first Age Five Family Office from Brea, California.

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