Prior to the pandemic, only about one in three Americans had a will, let alone another type of estate planning tool. That may be in part because death is an uncomfortable subject – but if you have any assets and any family, it is an important one. When we die, everything we own is distributed …
What we own in life must be divided among the living when we die. It’s one thing to carry our favorite necklace or a wedding ring into the earth, but another to cling to the family home or the vintage convertible. The purpose of a last will and testament is to put a person’s wishes, …
An estate consists of everything you owned in death. A trust is a legal entity funded by your property and managed by a third-party trustee for the sake of your chosen beneficiaries. In both instances, these are accumulations of property and assets meant to be passed onto others at some point after your death (usually). …
There comes a time when it is prudent to think about life after death. Not necessarily in a philosophical or theological sense, but in a logistical one. We each have tangible and intangible things attached to our name, whether it is a bank account, a boat, a home, an investment property, or a business. These …
Wills and trusts are two common elements of a comprehensive estate plan, and if you were to believe various online services and websites, they do not seem very hard to draft and create by yourself. But do not be fooled into thinking that a cheap or free estate planning software can substitute the legal advice …
Personal Representative vs Trustee When creating a plan for your estate, it is important to ask who will physically carry out that plan. Personal representatives and trustees, while sometimes confused for one another, are two very different roles of crucial importance in the estate planning process. While both have a fiduciary duty to you and …
Do you have estate planning goals for 2022? For most people, an estate plan consists of a last will and testament, with perhaps a few funerary wishes or personal requests. The simpler, the better. But comprehensive estate plans – with multiple documents and beneficiary designations – are not solely within the purview of the rich …
What does estate planning for blended families look like? Polling results from 2015 estimate that about one in six children lives in a “blended family”, which defines any family with a stepparent, stepsibling, or half-sibling. Furthermore, over 60 percent of remarried women marry into a blended family. There are estimates that at least half of …
So, what happens if someone dies without a will? Dying without a will is called dying intestate. It means dying without testament, specifically one’s legal testament regarding the management and distribution of one’s belongings and possessions after death. Dying without a will means having everything you own automatically distributed among your next of kin as …
Trusts are not exclusive to the ultrarich but setting one up wisely may still require help from an estate planning professional. Even simple mistakes can end up costing your estate a fortune, and leave your family with much more stress and trouble than the whole thing might have been worth. Unlike simpler documents, trusts require …