The wrong word can lead the courts to incorrectly interpret your documents and therefore cause an unintended result. Here are a few commonly confused words, their proper meanings, and some usage scenarios. READ MORE
Posts Categorized: Trustee
Do I Have to Leave Anything to My Children?
One common storyline in Hollywood movies is the rich father disinheriting the family outcast. The story usually traces the child’s attempts to win the father over and be considered a part of the family again. But can fiction imitate reality? Can you actually disinherit a child? READ MORE
Planning Considerations for Unmarried Partners
While do-it-yourself options may be cheaper, they can sometimes create more problems than they solve, and the problems can be expensive to remedy. READ MORE
Five Mistakes Successor Trustees Make (and How to Prevent Them)
When establishing a trust, you must give serious thought to who you choose as your successor trustee. The successor trustee is the person who will manage, invest, and hand out the trust’s accounts and property once you are no longer able to do so. READ MORE
5 Questions To Ask Before Hiring An Estate Planning Lawyer – Part 1
Since you’ll be discussing topics like death, incapacity, and other frightening life events, hiring an estate planning lawyer may feel intimidating or morbid. But it definitely doesn’t have to be that way.
Instead, it can be the most empowering decision you ever make for yourself and your loved ones. The key to transforming the experience of hiring a lawyer from one that you dread into one that empowers you is to educate yourself first. This is the person who is going to be there for your family when you can’t be, so you want to really understand who the lawyer is as a human, not just an attorney. Of course, you’ll also want to find out the kind of services your potential lawyer offers and how they run their business. READ MORE
Things You Need to Know as Successor Trustee
Accepting the role of successor trustee can seem a little intimidating when you look at the job description. However, you are not alone. Your advisor team (trust administration attorney, certified public accountant (CPA), financial advisor, and insurance agent) can guide you through the various steps of the administration process. If you are feeling overwhelmed, you may want to consider delegating trust administration tasks to another person with comparable, more advanced, or specialized skills such as an attorney, CPA, or financial advisor. Also note, services completed on behalf of the trust can be charged to the trust, not to you personally. READ MORE
Who Should I Choose to Be Successor Trustee?
When you create a living trust, you must name a successor trustee to take over for you if you are unable to act due to incapacity or death. It is crucial that this decision be given careful consideration and that the right person be selected for the job. READ MORE
How to Choose a Trustee
When you establish a trust, you name someone to be the trustee. A trustee does what you do right now with your financial affairs – collect income, pay bills and taxes, save and invest for the future, buy and sell property, provide for your loved ones, keep accurate records, and generally keep things organized and in good order. READ MORE
The Recipe for a Satisfying Estate Plan
Misconceptions about who needs an estate plan abound. Most people believe that estate planning is only for extremely wealthy business moguls or celebrities. But that could not be further from the truth. Estate planning is the process of making decisions about what happens to you, your money, and your property when you pass away or can no longer make decisions for yourself. Thus, estate planning should be standard practice for every adult age eighteen or older.
To learn more about Cheever Law, APC and estate planning, please register for our FREE educational Life & Legacy Planning Webinar. We look forward to serving you! READ MORE
4 Tips for Talking About Estate Planning with Your Family Over the Holidays
With COVID-19 still raging, your 2020 holiday season may not feature the big family get-togethers of years past, but you’ll still likely be visiting with loved ones in some fashion, whether via video chat or in smaller groups. And though the holidays are always a good time to bring up estate planning, given the ongoing pandemic, talking about these issues is particularly urgent this time around. READ MORE
Six Questions to Consider When Selecting Beneficiaries for a Life Insurance Policy
Selecting a beneficiary for your life insurance policy sounds pretty straightforward. You’re just deciding who will receive the policy’s proceeds when you die, right? But as with most things in life, it’s a bit more complicated than that. It can help to keep in mind that naming someone as your life insurance beneficiary really has READ MORE
Three Keys to Protecting Yourself from a Rogue Executor/Trustee
Unfortunately, sometimes a death in the family can bring out the worst in people. Indeed, family resentments sometimes simmer during a time of grieving – particularly when money and assets from the deceased’s estate are involved. If you are a beneficiary under a loved one’s estate plan, you may be under the assumption that those READ MORE
Big “Life Changes” Often Mean Big “Estate Plan Changes”
Estate planning must be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure that your plan still accomplishes your goals and objectives and will work the way you want it to at incapacity and at death. READ MORE
How to Choose a Trustee
When you establish a Trust, you name someone to be the Trustee. Generally, you are the Initial Trustee for your Revocable Living Trust. A Successor Trustee steps in your shoes in the event of your incapacity and at your death. That person does what you do right now with your financial affairs – collect income, pay bills and taxes, save and invest for the future, buy and sell assets, provide for your loved ones, keep accurate records, and generally keep things organized and in good order. READ MORE
The Ins and Outs of Collecting Life Insurance Policy Proceeds
Unlike many estate assets, if you’re looking to collect the proceeds of a life insurance policy, the process is fairly simple provided you’re named as the beneficiary. That said, following a loved one’s death, the whole world can feel like it’s falling apart, and it’s helpful to know exactly what steps need to be taken to access the insurance funds as quickly and easily as possible during this trying time. READ MORE