DM
San Diego
David Mendoza
Lead Advisor · CFP, AWMS
Surviving Spouse & Divorce
Clarity in the hardest financial conversations — widowhood, separation, and the rebuild that follows. Holds the AWMS designation specifically for this work.
An inheritance arrives mixed with grief, family dynamics, and decisions that touch tax, estate, and the rest of your financial life. We help you take it in carefully — without spending it twice or deciding too fast.
Most inheritances don't arrive as a clean check. They arrive as a brokerage account with a concentrated position, a house in another state, an IRA with a 10-year distribution clock, and a trust with terms nobody fully explained.
The instinct is to do something with it quickly — invest it, pay something off, give some away. The better instinct is to slow down. Step-up basis, trust mechanics, and the income-tax interaction with the rest of your household are usually the most consequential decisions of the next 12 months.
We help you understand what you actually inherited, what it costs to keep it, and what would honor the intent of the person who left it.
A starting checklist. Not exhaustive — a place to begin.
A clear picture of accounts, basis, distribution rules, and trust mechanics — before any decisions get made.
We sit alongside the attorney on trust interpretation, distribution, and asset retitling. You don't manage the handoffs.
Inheritance gets folded into your investment policy, tax plan, and goals — not parked separately and forgotten.
We'll match you on the first call. Either advisor can route you to the other if it's a better fit.
Clarity in the hardest financial conversations — widowhood, separation, and the rebuild that follows. Holds the AWMS designation specifically for this work.
Late-career W-2 households at tech companies — RSU schedules, 10b5-1 plans, and a concentrated single-stock position that has to coexist with a real retirement date.
A practical guide to the first 90 days after receiving an inheritance — what to do, what to wait on, and the tax decisions that get locked in early.