Anything you have to your name must go somewhere after your death – and for individuals who want the ability to choose where that is, tools exist that offer several different options. These estate planning tools are sometimes seen as instruments of the super-rich, meant to maintain their wealth and cut minimally into their fortune.
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In the estate planning world, a living trust is considered a powerful and versatile tool. Through it, a person can assign beneficiaries to their wealth and property, and plan ahead to create their own administration process without a probate court watching. The trustee creates and oversees the trust. The successor trustee is the person the
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Revocable living trusts are renowned for being the better alternative to a last will and testament, because of a myriad of estate planning features, the greatest of which is the ability to skip past the probate process. But just like a will must be updated to reflect life’s major changes and deal with unexpected events,
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When it comes to matters of estate planning, there are generally two tools that are most often discussed: revocable living trusts, and the last will and testament. However, choosing between them is not completely straightforward – they each have their benefits, drawbacks, and overall effectiveness depends largely upon your financial situation and a few other
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Probate comes from the old Latin and English for proving, giving a big clue on what the process is meant to do. A probate process illuminates the contents of a last will and testament and proves them, legitimizing the will and authorizing its execution at the hands of a capable and court-appointed estate executor. The
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Most Americans lack any sort of estate plan or will whatsoever, which can be to a huge detriment to their family after death. While the law tries and makes the probate process as simply and straightforward as possible, it can be a distressing experience for a family to deal with the consequences of no end-of-life
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The law provides people with many ways to protect their property, and ensure that their will is properly executed after their death. When you own something, you have a vast level of control over your property. You can change it, damage it, tear it down, repurpose it, or safeguard it. However, when you’re dead, all
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Estate planning is the art of ensuring that your wealth remains as untouched as possible, without cheating the government out of any necessary taxes. A legally sound and competent estate plan can be the make-or-break difference between paying millions of dollars in taxes, or leaving your inheritors with an estate that is mostly intact. Among some of
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Probate litigation can be described as any attack upon the legitimacy of a Last Will and Testament, either through challenging the appointment of a representative, or an aspect (or the entirety) of the will itself. There are many viable reasons to pursue litigation against the fulfillment of a will, including factors that may have influenced
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When life ends, we lose our need for material wealth. While no one knows what lies beyond a grave, we do know that our properties and belongings will not do us much good – and instead, we seek to pass these on to the next generation. However, the world of property laws and ownership is
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