Should I Include My Unborn Child in My Estate Plan?
Estate planning is an exercise in anticipating potential future events that could affect your plans for what happens if you become incapacitated (unable to manage your own affairs during your ...
The Wrong Successor Trustee Can Derail Your Final Wishes
Many estate plans contain revocable living trusts that will become irrevocable (cannot be easily changed or terminated) when the trustmaker dies. Such trusts may benefit the surviving spouse during their ...
Where Is the Best Place to Store Your Original Estate Planning Documents?
Estate planning attorneys are often asked where original estate planning documents—wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives—should be stored for safekeeping. While there is no right or wrong answer ...
3 Asset Protection Tips You Can Use Now
A common misconception is that only wealthy individuals and people in high-risk professions, such as doctors or lawyers, need an asset protection plan. However, anyone can be sued. A car ...
The Trust Protection Myth: Your Revocable Trust Protects Against Lawsuits
Many people believe that once they set up a revocable living trust and change the ownership of their accounts and property from themselves as individuals to their trust, those accounts ...
AB Trusts – Do You Need to Get Rid of Yours?
If the last time you and your spouse updated your estate plan was more than a decade ago, your estate plan may contain what is sometimes referred to as AB ...
Planning for the Unthinkable: Essential Tools for Parents of Minor Children
Approximately three-fourths of Americans do not have a basic will.[1] Many of the same people also have children under the age of 18, which underscores a major misunderstanding about estate ...
How to Give Real Property to a Loved One at Your Death Without Probate Court Involvement
A home is often one of the most important assets that people own. Therefore, most people want to stay in their home until they die and then have a loved ...
Who Needs an Estate Plan?
If you are reading this, you need an estate plan. Why? The short answer is that everyone age 18 and older needs an estate plan. It does not matter whether ...
Handling a Loved One’s Debts After They Die
Americans are, quite literally, getting buried in debt, with nearly half expecting to pass away with outstanding debts.1 As a general rule, a person’s debts do not go away when ...