Robert Smykowski wants to help you arrange your living trust

By Emily Sorensen

Looking to make a living trust? Robert Smyowski, of the Law Offices of Robert A. Smykowski, can help you prepare everything for the future.

“Everybody who owns a home should have a living trust,” said Smykowski, who has been practicing law for 32 years, and only deals in living trusts.

A living trust is an arrangement under which one person, called a trustee, holds legal title to property for another person, called a beneficiary. There’s many reasons to get a living trust, said Smykowski, but some of the primary reasons are to avoid probate upon your death, to avoid conservatorships if you become incapacitated, making sure your children don’t become wards of the state if you were to die, and allowing you to leave your assets to certain people and have them be distributed however you like, such as in increments.

Smykowski, who has lived in Poway for the last three decades and raised four children in the Poway Unified School District, didn’t initially set out to become an attorney. Smykowski initially earned a degree in engineering, before going back to school to study law. “I didn’t intend to become an attorney,” said Smykowski. “I just liked going to school.”

There were a lot of layoffs going on in the engineering world at the time, said Smykowski. “I could see the good and the bad, and I could see that bad times were coming. So I shifted into law, and it was so much better. I was my own boss, and I reported only to myself.”

Smykowski also knew he wanted to focus on working on living trusts, and avoid working in litigation. “(Living trusts) involve taxation, which I like,” said Smykowski. “It’s about solving problems for clients. It’s a nice area of law that is about transactions. I meet nice people, sit in my office and go home. Some people like litigation, but not me.”

Setting up a living trust is a two-meeting process. For the first meeting, Smykowski meets with the client, asking them questions about what it is they’re trying to accomplish with their living trust, and explaining what a living trust is and how it works. After he drafts a version of the trust, he and clients meet again to go over it, make any changes, and sign it.

Smykowski charges $495 for a living trust, a price he describes as “ the best price in town.” “It’s an excellent, excellent price,” said Smykowski.

Smykowski is available from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with flexible scheduling available depending on the client’s needs. His office is at 16776 Bernardo Center Drive, Suite #203 in Rancho Bernardo.

To find out more about living trusts, or to set up an appointment to get your own living trust, call 858-484-0264, contact bobsmycal@aol.com, or visit livingtrustplan.com.