Musings to give you insight and clarity on all things estate planning and elder law.
For better or worse, when someone passes away, their property is not distributed based on what’s equitable—or what’s fair—under the circumstances.
Owning a business is a major undertaking. After putting so much of your energy, time, and money into starting and running a business, the last thing you want is for the business to just “end” because something happens to you. But that’s exactly what can happen if you don’t plan ahead for some sort of business succession. Even if the plan is to simply sell the business assets and wrap up shop, things can get very messy without an appropriate plan in place.
The most common asset to force families into probate—the court procedure for distributing your assets when you die—is real estate. When a person owns real estate solely in their name when they die, their beneficiaries must go through a probate proceeding to transfer that property into their name when you pass away.
Benjamin Franklin tells an interesting and insightful story in his autobiography about a voyage he took from Boston back to England when he was a young man. At this time in his life, he was a vegetarian, but the crew of the ship on which he was traveling hauled in a large number of cod and prepared a significant feast, putting Franklin in a difficult positon
Everyone needs an estate plan, but people in second marriages especially need one. It is very common for us to meet with clients who are remarried and have children from a prior marriage. When this is the case, and they don’t have a proper estate plan set up, things can turn out drastically different when they die than what they imagined.
Although Coach Dale had a passion for planning in all other areas of his life, and he preached preparation to his players on the court and on the field, he fell into the trap that caught so many before him and will continue coaching folks long after he’s gone.
Retirement accounts, including IRAs and 401(k) funds, are often some of the largest assets our clients own. People typically have three main concerns when planning to pass their retirement funds on to the next generation.
It probably comes as no surprise that I, an estate planning and elder law attorney who uses the tag line You Need a Plan, would love a story about the foresight shown by Benjamin Franklin in the preparation of his Last Will and Testament, especially right here at the Fourth of July.
By planning ahead you can have the peace of mind of knowing that even if something happens to you, your children will be properly taken care of and will have the benefit of the protections you set up for them.
Scott was not feeling very lucky as he got ready for work Monday morning at the unusually late hour of 9:00 a.m. He normally left for work by 7:45 every morning, but that didn’t happen on this particular Monday. When his rental car pulled into the driveway at 3:30 Sunday night (or was it already Monday morning), he had no intention of setting an alarm to wake up on time for the start of the new week.
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