Wills Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Timins Law Group

Leaving the Right Gift to the Right Person

Posted on September 30, 2016

I meet several clients who, upon death, want to automatically give their daughters their jewelry and split their remaining property equally between their children. This is also the default position suggested by general practitioner attorneys who will draft a two page Will for their lifetime client, and avoid the consultation time needed to truly understand their client’s desires. My experience suggests that serious consideration must be given to distributing the correct amount of property, and the right type of property, to each beneficiary. Most people leave property first to their spouse, then to their children equally – they have equated equally loving their children with bequeathing them equal amounts of property. It goes without saying that even in “healthy” families this may not be

Should I Serve as an Executor?

Posted on August 16, 2016

Most client I meet with name their most trusted family member or friend to serve as Executor of their Will when they pass away. Upon their death that person usually does serve; I would say approximately 90% of proposed Executors do serve in this position (if they themselves are still alive). These people think it will be “fun”, or that they “deserve to be in control” of the Probate. And then the wheels fall off: The Executor finds out that the decedent was a hoarder and has to clean out dumpsters of worthless garbage; beneficiaries fight, are impatient and ungrateful; collecting assets is hampered because they weren’t in easy-to-find places; the Executor lives in Los Angeles, but the decedent’s estate is being Probated

“No Contest” Clauses in Wills

Posted on August 6, 2016

No family is perfect. Sometimes a child is mean or indifferent to parents’ needs as they age, while the others go out of their way to help. Though parents / aunts & uncles / grandparents may say they love all of their potential beneficiaries equally, the truth may be different. And (of course) there may be an obvious disincentive to leave the troubled beneficiary equal (if any) proceeds upon passing away. These clients tend to leave a lesser sum of money to the beneficiary in their Will, not realizing that the beneficiary may attack the Will, and line the pockets of a few attorneys and diminish the estate in the process. There has been a good deal of discussion recently surrounding

Keeping Your Trust Private

Posted on July 22, 2016

As followers of my blog know, I am a proponent of passing property using a Trust instead of a Will. While a Will is a contract between the deceased individual and the State in which it is Probated, Trusts are contacts between the Creator and Trustee of the trust. Wills submitted to the Surrogate’s Court are public knowledge (as are the decedent’s assets), while Trusts are private documents. It is this last point that we are discussing here. In order to make a Trust “effective” you have to fund the Trust. The owner on the Deed is now “The John Doe Revocable Trust” (not “John Doe”); the beneficiary of the life insurance policy is likewise the Trust. An unfunded Trust is more effective

The Missing Pre Nup: Add a Family Trusts Band Aid

Posted on May 20, 2016

Attention parents with assets: Tell your children they must have a prenuptial agreement! And when they respond “No, I love him, that is not romantic, we will be together forever!”……panic!!! Then take a breath…PANIC a little more, then contact your T&E attorney to discuss how to protect your family assets using a family trust with a suitable trustee. The Family Court (more appropriately called the “Divorce and Fleece Court”) is known as a “court of equity”, meaning it can look at any factor relating to assets and income, and make a completely subjective (some may say arbitrary) decision as to who gets what. When a child is too shy or stubborn to get a prenuptial agreement, it is your job

Quiet Targets: Protecting Single Aging Men

Posted on April 22, 2016

While single men tend to pass away at younger ages on average than married men, I have met a number of aging single men without children. Unlike aging single women, who tend to both emote their needs and take steps to elicit sympathy and the help they require, aging single men tend to continue toughening up, not ask for help from others, and ignore seemingly unimportant health concerns that turn out to be rather serious. Single men often do not age well, are financial targets, and tend to do age without the familial concerns their female counterparts receive. They also tend not to ask their male friends for help. If you have an uncle, brother or male friend who doesn’t

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).

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