>>The big problem with living trusts is that to get any real benefit (other than the perceived benefit of avoiding probate), the person making the trust has to give up all control over his or her estate.This may be true in New England but it is certainly not true in CA. We have a Revocable Living Trust as does my widowed MIL, and have full control of the assets in both cases. In an IRREVOCABLE Living Trust, such as an ILIT (Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust), you do indeed lose control of the assets. Also underrepresented in the current craze to sell the middle-class on getting RTs is the fact that unless the trust originators spell out some non-standard instructions, most lawyers use a standard software to produce an RT. This can in fact create problems - for example, my MIL is allowed to draw down the principal of her deceased husband's share of the estate for health, education, and maintenance. This is EXTREMELY unusual, yet most middle class people would assume they could do this. Not so, unless your trust is set up this way. As for probate not being a problem, I beg to differ. I settled my sister's estate - a simple one with no real estate, just a car and some art assets. It took a full 18 months to get through probate and three different lawyers (the first two were incompetent and lazy; the third was a gem and wrapped it up in less than 2 months). Probate in CA costs a percentage fee to both the lawyer and the executor, plus expenses. On average it's about 1.5% (a big change from the 6% it used to be!). So on a $1M estate that's $15K to the lawyer and $15K to the executor, plus expenses. OTOH, a trust passes without probate, and trustees don't get paid unless specified in the trust, or unless you have specified a professional trustee. If you name a spouse, family member, or friend, they DO NOT GET PAID. They can get reimbursed for expenses but that is all, unless the trust originators have specified they can be paid on an hourly basis, at the current professional rate (about $65-70 hr here in the SF Bay Area). The fee of $2500 to set up the trust (don't forget, we are in one of the most expensive-to-live areas of the country, so our costs are always higher than most places) included pour-over wills, durable healthcare Power of Attorney with HIPAA releases, Power of Attorney docs, and the title transfer of our property into the trust, for both of us. Our MIL got the same pkg, which is important in her case because the original RT she and her husband set up was 25 yrs out of date. It was critical for us to arrange a way to change the successor trustee and contingent beneficiary lists to reflect the many changes that had happened in the last quarter century. The lawyer spent hours with us and my MIL, over a series of three meetings, making sure my MIL understood all the changes we were making and why. This lawyer was a bargain at any price and did an outstanding job for this small flat fee.

I'm no expert, but this is what I understand from setting up my own 'living trust', which this sounds like. Your brother's wife was probably the initial Trustee of her own estate, with the power to use and dispose of the assets as she wanted. Upon her death, the 'Successor Trustee', who should have been named in the trust document, is responsible for disposing of the trust assets as the trust document directs. Your brother needs to find/read the trust document and have the 'Successor Trustee' take appropriate action. If the 'Successor Trustee' is not available/willing to do this, the court will have to appoint someone. An initial visit with a Trust/Estate Attorney is usually without charge, so your brother should make an appointment with one, take the estate documents he can find and ask for advice as to how to proceed.

Echinocactus grusonii v. albispinus is probably the most likely. It normally has much denser spines than this, however.Notocactus warasii can get very woolly when large, but it usually has thin, hair-like spines. Hopefully yours will bloom soon. That always helps with ID.

I think whitewashing the walls would significantly decrease the value of the house, and this is true in many cases in which people want to paint perfectly beautiful wood, which I see quite frequently here. Hopefully, whoever buys it will appreciate it for what it is, but it is not a museum, and whoever buys it can do what they want with it. Cher had/has another residence in Malibu that was featured in AD about fifteen years ago. I was asked to copy some of its details for a house in Newport Beach. Cher's Malibu house was very beautiful, and so I do not know why people would question her taste in furnishings. I even like Bob Mackie's L.A. residence, which I saw photos of in 1990, I think. Here's some info on the estate. I was not familiar with the architect, but as it turns out, I was born on his birthday. The interior of this house reminds me a bit of Shane Blake's house in Hancock Park, except that his is quite a bit darker, and therefore more somber, but it was great for the Halloween party that I went to there. I would never want to live with wood paneled walls, but then I would never buy a house that had them, unless they were meant to be painted. Yoko Ono is famous for painting everything white. When my brother had a show at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, Yoko was having a show right across the courtyard from him.