Estate Planning for Collectors and Hobbyists
Americans often prefer to stay busy. When we are not working, many of us turn to hobbies to keep us engaged and productive. We spend hours each day on our ...
Does Your Revocable Living Trust Reduce Your Federal Estate Tax Bill?
Many believe that once they set up and fund a revocable living trust, property held in the trust will completely avoid federal estate taxes after they die. In reality, a ...
Guardianships & Conservatorships and How to Avoid Them
Guardianships & Conservatorships and How to Avoid Them If a person becomes mentally or physically handicapped and can no longer make rational decisions about their person or their finances, their ...
What to Know about Nonfungible Tokens
A nonfungible token (NFT) is a unique digital code that represents a digital item such as art or music, as well as a growing number of physical items, that runs on the blockchain (a secure, decentralized, and cryptography-backed online ledger) and provides proof of ownership of virtual collectibles. That explanation may cause confusion, and when it comes to NFTs, confusion and excitement are present in equal parts. NFTs can generate new streams of revenue for creators and be a store of value for collectors. If you own NFTs or plan to invest in them, you should update your estate plan accordingly. Handing down an NFT is more complicated than passing on a physical item or other traditional asset. But with buzz building around NFTs, they could end up being among the most valuable items in your estate.
Using Beneficiary/Transfer-on-Death Deeds
If you own real property, such as a home, in your sole name but you have not created a trust and transferred your property’s title to the trust, it is virtually guaranteed that your beneficiaries (or heirs) will have to deal with probate after your death. If the time and expense required to create a living trust does not make sense for your situation but you still want to avoid the probate process, a transfer-on-death (TOD) deed may be the solution. A TOD deed (also known as a beneficiary deed) does what it sounds like it does—it transfers your real property to your selected beneficiaries upon your death, similar to a payable-on-death designation for a bank account or a transfer-on-death registration for an investment account.
How to Protect Yourself from Claims of Self-Dealing When Serving as a Trustee
What Is Self-Dealing in Trust Administration? A trustee usually has quite a bit of discretion in their management of a trust’s accounts, money, and property (known as assets). At the ...
Untangling Tangled Titles: Homeownership, Property Deeds, and Estate Planning
If you are currently living in a property that you inherited but the deed has not been transferred into your name, you may be surprised to learn that, under the law, you are technically not the owner. This legal situation is known as “tangled title.” A tangled title negatively impacts a property’s current occupant in a number of ways. It can also harm generational wealth and even contribute to fraud. For many households, most of their wealth is tied up in their home. However, until a tangled title is resolved, you cannot take full advantage of your home’s value. Untangling a tangled title is often a complicated legal process that requires attorney assistance. There are costs, but the costs of not straightening out a title could be much higher in the long term.
Life Insurance and Estate Planning: Protecting Your Beneficiaries’ Interests
A common misconception people have about life insurance is that they only need to designate their spouse, child, or loved one as the beneficiary of the policy to ensure that ...
Should You Consider a Life Estate for Your Home?
A life estate, sometimes called a right of occupancy, is a property law concept that allows a property owner to split their interest in real estate and other types of property into different types of ownership that can exist simultaneously. For example, the owner of a cabin could legally split their ownership interest in the cabin, allowing them to possess and enjoy the cabin for the remainder of their life and then, at death, automatically pass full ownership of the cabin to a named individual.
Trust Funding: Is Everything Titled Correctly?
Working with an attorney to draft a trust agreement for estate planning purposes is an important step. But just getting the document drafted and signed is not enough. For any trust to be effective, you must complete the process of funding your trust as soon as you can. But what exactly is funding?