Protect your pets with careful estate planning.
I have a new dog named Maggie. I grew up with beagles, then as an adult had a series of cats, and then had no pets at all for the years when I was a renter. Maggie is a two year-old rescue dog, a Maltese mix, weighing in at a little over ten pounds. I’m thrilled to have her in my life. As you might guess, part of my responsibility as a dog owner is to provide for her in my estate planning documents. With luck, I will outlive her, but what if I don’t? What if I am ever unable to take care of her? These questions ran through my mind as soon as I adopted her. My Power of Attorney, like those I...
Read MoreKeep Your Beneficiary Information Updated
If you’re one of my clients, you’ve heard me urge you to check the beneficiary designations on your various retirement accounts and life insurance policies. The end of this year and beginning of a new year is a good time to make a routine check to see that you have chosen people and charities you still favor. Contact the institutions that hold your accounts, ask them who is on record as your current beneficiaries and, if you want to make a change, request a change-of-beneficiary form. And then don’t neglect to fill it out, submit it to the bank or brokerage company, and request that they...
Read MoreIt’s never too early to start your estate planning.
Dan and Melissa were estate planning clients of mine a number of years ago. They made a revocable living trust to hold their property, both to spare their children from probate court and to have their property held in trust until the children are at least 25 years old. Last year, their youngest child turned 18 and left home to go to college. Dan and Melissa called me up and asked: isn’t it time that our son Joseph has his own estate plan? “Absolutely,” I said, and I applauded them for their foresight. Before a child turns 18, parents have the legal authority to make health care decisions...
Read MoreEstate Tax Law: To give or not to give…
This time of year, clients are asking me: what’s going to happen to the estate tax law at the end of 2012? I wish I knew. We all need to stay tuned to news events in the coming weeks as the end of the year approaches. Both of the ruling political parties play political games with the estate tax law, and this year is no different. We’re in the same predicament we were in toward the end of 2010 when Congress had not yet acted and the estate tax law was then about to “sunset” at the end of December 2010. Then, in the final weeks of 2010, Congress set the size of an estate excluded from...
Read MoreJoint Tenancy
Yvonne was an elderly lady, single with no kids, who had a trust leaving most of her estate to her niece Elizabeth. Yvonne’s trust also left a generous cash gift to her best friend Monica and several smaller gifts to relatives other thanElizabeth. Over the years, Yvonne and Monica had often helped each other with their finances when times were rough. They owned a rental house together in joint tenancy with the idea that when one of them died, the other would naturally become the sole owner and could pass the whole property on to her own respective choice of beneficiaries. A...
Read MoreKeeping Your Assets in Your Trust
A major purpose of a revocable living trust is to hold title to your property so that it will pass to your beneficiaries without having to go through an expensive probate proceeding. “Funding” a trust is the term used for putting assets in your name as trustee, after you’ve signed the trust. When I do a trust-based estate plan, I make sure to prepare deeds for any real property that will go into the trust. This is part of “funding.” What about a client’s bank accounts and assets he or she may acquire once she or he has left my office? I provide instructions to...
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