Losing a loved one is incredibly tough, but the pain can deepen when disagreements over their personal belongings cause rifts within the family. When cherished items become the center of conflict, the emotional scars can run deep, sometimes never fully healing. Read more.
Read MoreWhen Matthew Perry, the beloved Friends star, passed away last year, the world grieved the loss of a comedic legend. But as details about his estate surfaced, an unexpected question arose: why did his wealth seem smaller than anticipated? Read more.
Read MorePicture this: You’re in your twenties, completing a form at your job, and designating your partner as the beneficiary of your retirement account. Fast forward 28 years—you’ve moved on, experienced life to the fullest, and then passed away, leaving your former partner with your now-million-dollar retirement savings. Sounds unbelievable? Think again. Read on to find out more.
Read MoreEver curious about the fate of your social media accounts after you're gone? Each platform follows its own set of rules, making it crucial to understand these policies to manage your digital presence responsibly. Continue reading to learn more.
Read MoreJuly is National Family Reunion Month. If you’re getting together with family this month, it’s also a perfect time to talk to your loved ones about estate planning and the legacy you want to leave behind for the next generation. Read to learn practical tips and strategies for talking about it at your family reunion.
Read MoreDid you forget any of these critical financial steps when you created a Trust? Be sure to read this week’s blog to learn why proper funding of your Trust is essential to making it work! Read more.
Read MoreVacations are a time to relax, unwind, and create beautiful memories with your loved ones. But before you set off on your adventure, it's essential to ensure that your legal affairs are in order. Read more…
Read MoreIf you’re tempted to use a DIY estate planning service or have already created a plan you aren’t 100% confident in, be sure to read how these three simple mistakes can derail your estate plan and leave your family with an expensive mess.
We regularly meet with clients who ask us to review an estate plan that they created online or with an attorney who isn’t experienced with estate planning.
Read MoreI know discussing topics like death, incapacity, and other potentially frightening life events, with someone like me, an estate planning lawyer, may feel intimidating or even morbid. Take a deep breath and relax… it doesn’t have to and shouldn’t be that way.
Hiring a lawyer to help you make wise decisions for life and death can be the most empowering choice you ever make for yourself and your loved ones.
Read MoreVacations can be the perfect opportunity to relax, disconnect from work and responsibilities, and enjoy your spouse, partner, kids, or friend’s company. But before you head off on your next getaway, there’s something else you should consider doing that might not sound quite as fun—creating an estate plan. While it may not sound like the most thrilling way to spend a day, here are some reasons why you need to think about your estate plans before you travel.
Read MoreAs the world and its laws continue to evolve, everyone needs to keep their estate plans up to date. An estate plan is a set of documents, such as a will or trust, that dictate how assets will be distributed upon death or incapacity. An individual's current legal and financial situation should be considered to create a comprehensive estate plan tailored specifically to their needs.
Ensure Your Wishes Are Respected
The primary reason to update an estate plan is to ensure that an individual's wishes are respected upon death. For example, suppose an individual has recently acquired valuable property or has had changes in family structure (such as marriage or children). In that case, updating the documents that outline how assets should be distributed is important. If the documents are not updated, this could lead to disputes between family members and legal complications when probate occurs. Additionally, if laws change at the state or federal level, those changes need to be incorporated into the existing estate plan to remain valid and effective.
Read MoreAs a parent, you are quite accustomed to managing your children's legal and medical affairs as circumstances require. If your child requires urgent medical attention while away from you, a simple phone call authorizing care can do the trick. But what happens when those “children” turn 18, now adults in the eyes of the law, and need urgent medical attention far from home?
The simple fact is that the day your child turns 18, he or she becomes an adult and has the legal rights of an adult. This means that you lose your prior held rights to make medical and financial decisions for your child unless your child executes legal documents giving you those rights back. Without the proper legal documents, accessing medical information and even being informed about your adult child’s medical condition can be difficult and, in some cases, impossible.
Read MoreIf you have a current estate plan, I'll bet you plan to leave your assets to your children outright and unprotected by age 35 or maybe a little later. Go take a look at your estate plan, and see what it does right now. And, if you don’t have an estate plan and you have kids or other people you care about, contact us today and let’s get that handled for you.
If you do have a plan and it distributes your assets outright to your kids -- even in stages, over time, some at 25, then half of what’s left at 30, and balance at 35 (or something along those lines), you’ve overlooked d an incredibly valuable gift you can give your children (and the rest of your descendants for generations); a gift that only you can give them. And a gift that, once you’ve died and left them their inheritance outright, is lost and cannot be reclaimed.
Read MoreIn most cases, from the most sophisticated business people with the highest net worth to those just starting in the workforce and on their path to adulthood, you very likely do not know how to evaluate estimates when shopping for an estate plan.
Shopping for an estate plan based on getting the lowest cost plan possible is often the fastest path to leaving your family with an empty set of documents (maybe in a beautiful binder, but not worth the paper they are written on) that won’t work for your family when they need it.
Unfortunately, we see the negative effects of cheap estate planning when family members come to us during a time of grief with that fancy binder that sat on the shelf for years sending out signals of false security, full of out-of-date estate planning documents, and find themselves stuck in what could have been an avoidable court process, or even conflict when that’s exactly what their loved one thought they had paid someone to handle for them.
Read MoreLike most people, you likely think estate planning is just one more task to check off your life’s endless “to-do” list.
You can shop around and find a lawyer to create planning documents for you or create your own DIY plan using online documents. Then, you’ll put those documents into a drawer, mentally check estate planning off your to-do list, and forget about them.
The problem is estate planning is more than just a one-and-done type of deal.
It will be worthless if your plan is not regularly updated when your assets, family situation, and laws change. Failing to update your plan can create problems that can leave your family worse off than if you’ve never created a plan.
The following story illustrates the consequences of not updating your plan, which happened to the founder and CEO of New Law Business Model, Ali Katz. Indeed, this experience was one of the leading catalysts for her to create the new, family-centered model of estate planning we use with all of our clients.
Read MoreBeing asked by a loved one to serve as Trustee for their Trust upon their death can be quite an honor, but it’s also a significant responsibility—and the role is not for everyone. Indeed, serving as a Trustee entails a broad array of duties, and you are both ethically and legally required to execute those duties or face potential liability.
Before you say yes, be sure you understand what it means to be a Trustee.
In the end, your responsibility as a Trustee will vary greatly depending on the size of the estate, the type of assets covered by the Trust, the type of Trust, how many beneficiaries there are, and the document’s terms. In light of this, you should carefully review the specifics of the Trust you would be managing before deciding to serve.
Read MoreYou’ve probably heard you need trust to keep your family out of court and may be out of a conflict in the event of your death or incapacity. And, if you haven’t, you are hearing it now. If you own any “probatable” assets in your name at the time of your incapacity or death, your family must go to court to access them. If you aren’t sure if your assets are “probatable” contact us to discuss.
But you may need clarification about whether you need a revocable living or irrevocable trust. More and more, we are seeing people come our way asking for an irrevocable trust, and so this article is designed to help you learn the difference and then get into an “eyes wide open” conversation about the right kind of trust for you and your loved ones.
Read MoreMaybe you’ve wondered about your own debt or perhaps your parent’s debt—what happens to that debt when you (or they) die? Well, it depends, and that’s part of the reason you want to ensure your estate plan is well-prepared. How you handle your debt can greatly impact the people you love.
In some cases, you could inadvertently leave a reality in which your surviving heirs—your kids, parents, or others—are responsible for your debt. Alternatively, if you structure your affairs properly, your debt could die right along with you.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, an individual’s debt does not disappear once that person dies. Rather, the debt must either be paid out of the deceased’s estate or by a co-creditor. And that could be bad news for you or the people you love.
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