Are you curious about creating a trust as part of your estate plan? If so, you may have many questions. Among them may concern what might happen in the future if the person you name as trustee has a disagreement with the trust beneficiaries. Who will settle a dispute? How much would a dispute cost the trust? There... Read More
Did you know that a popular estate planning tool for married couples, a Spousal Lifetime Access Trust (SLATs), may be a good choice for you if you and your spouse would like to remove assets from your taxable estate but preserve access for one of the two of you during your lifetime? Assets placed into a SLAT are not... Read More
Now that President Biden has been formally inaugurated as the President of the United States and the Democrats have control of the House and the Senate, have you considered the impact that a new tax plan may have on your estate plans? There may be two potential tax changes that President Biden proposed during his... Read More
If you finally reached the important decision to put an estate plan in place, you may have asked yourself, “How do I choose an estate planning attorney near me?” This can be a good question and a difficult one to answer if you do not know where to begin. A cursory search of local estate planning attorneys may yield a... Read More
Do you think that prenuptial agreements are only for the very wealthy or merely a plot point in movies about dynastic families with multiple properties? The truth is that pre-nuptial agreements can be helpful in many different situations, specifically if you may be getting married again after being widowed or... Read More
Is it important to update your estate plan after remarriage? Yes, even though it may not be the first thing you think about after remarrying, it can be important to update your estate plan as soon as possible after remarriage so that you can help ensure that your family, your assets, and your wishes may be... Read More
Have you ever heard of the term legalese? It is the language unique to the legal profession that often appears in fine print. This makes it easy to ignore, hard to read and, for the uninitiated, impossible to understand. To complicate matters further, some legal terminology is unique to certain aspects of the law. ... Read More
Are you aware of what can be addressed by an estate plan? A comprehensive estate plan does not just deal with financial assets and their passage to loved ones after an estate holder’s death, but it also addresses important health care considerations like advance directives and medical privacy releases. In any case,... Read More
Did you know the COVID-19 public health crisis has prompted a surge in estate planning? While it may be more challenging to meet, since most of us are tied to our homes, many people are crafting or updating their wills, trusts, and health care documents. Further, the economic downturn caused by nationwide... Read More
A Standalone Retirement Trust solves a number of issues related to leaving behind tax-qualified retirement accounts as an inheritance to non-spousal beneficiaries. In other words, leaving unspent funds from an IRA or 401k directly to your loved ones has some downsides. People with IRAs, 401ks, and similar accounts,... Read More
