An estate plan encapsulates all elements utilized to preserve a person’s legacy after death. This includes managing and bequeathing their belongings, anticipating and sidestepping unwanted complications, and developing strategies for unforeseen incapacity or permanent disability. Simply put, an estate plan is composed of several different contingencies and plans of action in the event of certain …
It comes as no surprise to anyone that legal work is hard work – and in many cases, expensive work. The average person does not seek the advice or help of an attorney lightly and wants to be sure that their hard-earned money will be well-spent. As such, a considerable portion of the initial negotiations …
What happens to your financial affairs when you are incapacitated? Who makes important healthcare decisions for you when you’re unresponsive? How are your financial responsibilities, from managing payroll to paying off your debts, managed while you are in a coma? The answer, in most of these situations, is that a court decides for you, directly …
Despite popular opinion, the benefits of estate planning are not limited to the rich and powerful. Taking care of your estate before death not only ensures a quick and painless transition for your loved ones but can avoid unwanted or awkward situations in complex cases, including owning properties in separate states, outdated or misinformed beneficiary …
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 …