Marriage and property
It was excellent news last year when a pair of Supreme Court decisions allowed same-sex marriage to remain legal in California, and for it to be recognized under federal law. I’m seeing lots of newly married and soon-to-be-married same sex couples for estate planning. Some of have been together for decades and have well-established ideas about how they want to own property and have it distributed after their deaths. Others are just starting to understand what it means, legally and financially, to be married in California. Marriage changes, among other things, one’s relationship to one’s...
Read MoreFunny what some people think about estate planning.
Ask your average person on the street about any number of topics—baseball stats, the latest scandal news running on CNN, where to buy a good lawn mower, whatever—and you’ll probably get an earful of mostly accurate information. Ask the average person what he or she knows about estate planning and you might get some real doozies of misinformation. I think that’s because estate planning is about getting old, death, family and finances—and that’s a combination a lot of people would rather not think about. I am continually amazed by some of the things new clients tell me when it comes to estate...
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