Infidelity is the act of betraying someone’s trust. Its opposite is fidelity, which involves loyalty. In the very same linguistic branch, we have “fiduciary”, which describes a relationship of trust and responsibility between two individuals, where one (the fiduciary) is acting as a representative for the other (the principal). In estate planning, the planner, grantor,
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A trust checking account is a bank account set aside to hold assets in-trust for beneficiaries, as well as funds for paying expenses and miscellaneous fees during the distribution and dissolution of a trust agreement. Either the grantor/settlor of a trust or their trustee can set up a trust checking account, and these accounts make
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A trust protector’s original duty was to fire a trustee should they act out of self-interest or in a way that does not align with their fiduciary duty towards the grantor of the trust (i.e. you). Trust protectors were not commonly an element of American trust law until quite recently and were typically seen in
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A power of attorney and a will are two very different documents, and even when one person is appointed as both someone’s agent and their executor, the tasks that each position entail are very different as well. In the state of California, you can choose to have the same person take on the role of
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The hallmark of a life estate is the duration of ownership rights for each who owns the property in a life estate, as well as what those rights are. – A life estate is a form of property ownership that exists to transfer property from one person to another, without burdening that person with the
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A living trust is a unique estate planning tool because it effectively transfers ownership over specified assets and property to someone else through a third party, while giving the original owner a varying degree of control while the assets remain in the third party’s care. This is important in the context of estate planning at
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The process for declaring bankruptcy is a critically important element of our financial system. Giving businesses and people the ability to discharge debts under certain circumstances breathes fresh life into them and earn a second chance in our system. When it comes to financial success, taking risks and hoping for the best is part of
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Regardless of the outcome, divorce is an arduous process. Even when both individuals end up on amicable terms, the emotional and financial repercussions of divorce are often immense. Given the sensitive nature of the process, it makes sense that something as inconsequential as estate planning is the furthest thing from most people’s minds. However, estate
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It is not common for people to prepare for their deaths. Only an estimated 32 percent of Americans have a will in 2020, down from 42 percent in 2017. And over half of all Americans over the age of 55 have no estate planning documents whatsoever. That is entirely understandable. We do not want to
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In the minds of most people, estate planning is an exclusive luxury to the wealthy, built by expensive lawyers explicitly to minimize the cost of generational wealth transfer. But this common belief misunderstands the purpose and usefulness of estate planning in general, as well as its applicability to the average middle-class American family. To explain
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