Estate Planning Archives - Page 8 of 10

College Kids in Trouble: Parents as Health Care Agent for Children

Posted on April 13, 2016

When a person may be subjectively considered an adult varies based on the person and the observing individual: My clients presume I was an adult long ago, my parents have begrudgingly accepted I may have final come of age, and an ex-girlfriend stated moments after we broke up that I would remain a child for the rest of my life. Fortunately, that girlfriend is long gone and, fortunately for her other ex-boyfriends and the rest of us in doubt as to our maturity, the law states that we are all considered an adult for legal purposes at age 18. This is an interesting public policy, since we are not physically or emotionally finished maturing at that age, and (probably due

Assets Good, Income Bad: Taxes, Government Programs, Planning

Posted on March 18, 2016

Here is a surprise for you: America favors people who have money already, not people building their wealth. If you want to build and preserve wealth in modern day America I can boil down the correct methodology in words a caveman could understand: Assets good, income bad. Example 1: Income Taxes versus Capital Gains & Estate Taxes. While your assets are private information, the government (and sometimes the public) has full knowledge of your (legal) income. Try it: Google your favorite sports star and see how much income they earn, then find out how much they are actually worth; I will be shocked if you see a net worth that is not noted as an “estimate.” Governments also know people

NEVER Videotape You Executing Your Will

Posted on March 9, 2016

I must apologize for my prolonged absence from blogging: I lost my proofreading and Blogging Accountability Partner Alix Purcell due to her successes. I shall attempt to continue this part of our journey in her absence as best I can. I have heard of some attorneys videotaping clients executing their wills, and I have in fact once been a witness to another attorney executing a will while recording the execution of the document. Attorneys think recording the testator’s actions (thereby supposedly proving his or her mental capacity at the time of execution) will make it clear to a court that the person “knew what they were doing” (executing a will) at that time (a key requirement for a valid will).

On-Going Planning: Generic Estate Plans Still Create Unique Post-Mortem Issues

Posted on October 16, 2015

Your estate plan is generic. I can almost guarantee it. Sure, perhaps 1% of people have something original, fantastic and truly thoughtful created for them, but (much like movie plots) there are somewhere between 9 and 14 standard estate plans out there for 99% of the population. That is because only .25% of us are truly wealthy enough to justify non-traditional planning, and .75% have the actual need for original content. Congratulations: You are normal. When you die, however, your estate is unique, special, its own miracle or monster. You have accounts at different financial institutions than everyone else, you leave behind a family with different relations, health concerns and creditor issues than everyone else, and leave assets to certain

Why Are Manhattan Estate Attorney’s Fees So High?

Posted on October 5, 2015

Lawyers are not cheap. Unless you hire someone from Legal Aid, you have to pay dearly for many types of attorneys. This is due to several factors: Greed, the horrible legal process we call the “Unified Court System” (a fancy-yet-inaccurate title), and the extreme difficulty New York places on small businesses being successful. First: Greed! Remember that most clients only participate in one or two Probates in their lives: Your second surviving parent and your spouse (if he / she predeceases you). You sell more cars than that in your life, and you probably did not know whether you got a great deal or not; Probate can be a MAJOR money moment, and due to the limited experience

When Should I (and Shouldn’t I) Have My Attorney Hold On to My Original Will?

Posted on September 21, 2015

An original will is a powerful legal document: It is almost always required to start a Probate proceeding, meaning that several estate plans could be confounded in its absence. This makes a will a very important document. The cynic in me gets extremely perturbed when I see an attorney presume possession of his client’s original will. This attorney is forcing the family to come back to him when the decedent dies, thereby getting a “second bite of the apple” by being in the best position to do the Probate. I have heard of 70 year old attorneys holding onto a 30 year old client’s original will, then the dying or going out of business before reuniting his client and

Destroy Your Old Will! Avoiding Problematic Probates

Posted on September 9, 2015

To probate a will you typically need the original document for the courts to commence the legal proceeding. Unlike Trusts, LLC Operating Agreements, Powers of Attorney, etc., where a copy shall typically suffice, a valid will is expected to be an original will. So what happens when there are two original wills that differ from one another? It’s more expensive: The first sentence of 99.9% of all wills is “I hereby revoke all wills and codicils.” This means that any previous version of an will is superseded by the new, most recent will. It also means that those parties who have been adversely-affected by the new will, must be given formal legal notice of the new will being offered

Why ITF & TOD Accounts Are (Sometimes) Worse Ways of Transferring Assets than Using a Will

Posted on August 24, 2015

If you read my blogpost dated August 8th, 2015 you saw my argument stating that “In Trust For” and “Transfer on Death” accounts are better ways of transferring your assets than using a will because these transfers are accomplished quickly, free of legal expenses, and are not public information. Transferring assets by probating a will, on the other hand, is not immediate, which assesses court filing fees and legal costs, and makes it a public affair. But I only told you one side of the story… There are several instances in which transferring assets by probating your will may be preferable, especially when utilizing a “Testamentary Trust” in your Last Will and Testament. While I can appreciate that the following

How to Protect the Aging from Aging Issues

Posted on July 26, 2015

How does a person protect an aging family member who still has some decision making abilities? Waning decision making abilities are more likely for people as they age. I see elderly people get increasingly frustrated by mixing up their family members’ names, forgetting what they were talking about in mid-sentence, reminiscing about events that never took place. These individuals can still make certain decisions at certain times, but are not really 100% competent. The problem is that courts are loath to consider these people incapacitated, so younger family members are stuck worrying that a financial predator will strike the aging client in a moment of weakness. MONEY: When paid care givers are working at the homes of these individuals, it

THE SILENT TWIN: How State Estate Taxes Have Replaced Federal Estate Tax Planning

Posted on July 17, 2015

To any one of a number of government entities the average person can be boiled down to one category: We are revenue-generating machines. Federal, state and local government entities know how to get their funding, as it seems almost every aspect of life (and yes, death too) is now taxable. And next to actually having to pay all these taxes, the most frustrating thing about taxes are that they are never as intuitively straight-forward as one would suspect. I met with a couple recently who is domiciled in New York. Their net worth is approximately $8,000,000, they are semi-retired, and their retirement income is substantial. Assets include a nice Manhattan apartment, a large sum of money in several retirement plans,