When you met with an attorney a few weeks ago, perhaps all you expected was a simple will. Maybe you thought that, with your situation, the work should be easy and the documents should be few. But now that you have finished working with the attorney, your parting gift is a large binder filled with hundreds of pages. You may be wondering, “Why is my trust so long?” READ MORE
Posts Categorized: Wills
3 Vital Estate Planning Documents For High School Graduates
With the arrival of summer, young people across the country are about to reach a key milestone: high school graduation. If you have a child claiming their diploma, now is the time to prepare them for life after leaving the nest. READ MORE
Should You Own Your Timeshare in Your Trust?
When it comes to your estate planning though, how should you handle your timeshare? If you have a revocable trust, should you transfer ownership of the timeshare to your trust? READ MORE
Four Things to Make Your New Job a Success
Congratulations on your new job! Getting a job begins a major chapter in your life. As you navigate this new territory, we are here to help ensure a prosperous transition. READ MORE
What is Long-Term Care and Who Provides It?
Most long-term care involves assisting with basic personal needs rather than providing medical care. You are usually determined to need long-term care if you need help with two or more “activities of daily living” (such as bathing, dressing, eating, and going to the bathroom). Family members usually provide long-term care to start, but as an illness escalates paid care may become necessary. READ MORE
Selling a Deceased Loved One’s Real Estate: Things You Need to Know
After the death of a loved one, such as a parent, there are a variety of tasks that must be handled to wrap up your loved one’s final affairs. Selling your deceased loved one’s real estate is one of the more daunting ones. But before you call a real estate agent, you should take some time to get familiar with and consider a few of the key issues as you work through this process. READ MORE
What Are the Rights of a Child Born Outside of Marriage?
If you are a nonmarital child or have a nonmarital child, it is essential to understand how rights to inherit are formed and defined. Failure to adequately provide estate planning for a nonmarital child could be problematic for children and families attempting to assert their rights following the nonmarital father’s death. READ MORE
Don’t Let Diminished Financial Capacity Put Your Elderly Loved Ones At Risk – Part 2
In the first part of this series, we discussed the early warning signs of diminished financial capacity in the elderly. Here, we’ll discuss planning strategies that can protect your loved ones from incapacity of all kinds. READ MORE
Don’t Let Diminished Financial Capacity Put Your Elderly Loved Ones At Risk – Part 1
Coinciding with the boom in the elderly population, the number of Americans suffering from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia is expected to increase substantially as well. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that the number of Americans with Alzheimer’s disease will double by 2060, when it’s expected to reach 14 million—more than 3% of the total population. READ MORE
Money Talk: How Much Will You Share With Your Kids (and When)?
In many families, money still is not a typical dinner table discussion, but we think it should be. Surprisingly, this is especially true when it comes to affluent parents. And, we hope to change it because one of the most important things you can do is talk to your kids (and your parents) about money. READ MORE
Simultaneous Deaths: What If My Spouse and I Die at the Same Time?
The chances of a married couple dying in a common accident or within a very short time of one another are probably quite slim. However, it does happen. And it happens frequently enough that most states have laws to address the issue and the problems that can arise from simultaneous deaths. What are these laws, why do we need them, and can we work around them if we need to? READ MORE
It’s All in the Family: Understanding Common Legal Terms
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
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