Probate

Can a Trust Own My Business After I Die?

In general, the answer to the title question is yes, your trust can own your business after you die. However, there are a number of considerations that may impact the answer to this and the following questions. One consideration is the type of business interest you own. Is your business a limited liability company (LLC), a partnership, a corporation, or a sole proprietorship? Another consideration is how your business is managed. Is your business managed as an LLC, a partnership, or a corporation?

Three Steps to Take When the Deceased Has Controlled Substances

There are so many things to think about when a loved one passes away. What to do with the prescription drugs (or other controlled substances) that are in your loved one’s medicine cabinet is not usually at the top of that list. Yet, to avoid running afoul of laws governing their disposal, it is important to understand the proper procedures for disposing of a deceased person’s controlled substances.

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 ...

Why You Might Want to Go Through Probate

Avoiding probate is a common goal for individuals deciding how they want their money and property to be handled when they pass. It is a worthy one and is regularly promoted by estate planning attorneys across the nation. However, probate is not an inherently bad process and does not always need to be avoided. Probate can be simply defined as the court-supervised process of distributing a deceased person’s money and property—the key word being “court-supervised.” Court supervision has both pros and cons. In most cases, emphasis is rightly placed on the complexities associated with court involvement. Namely, court supervision makes the process of distributing money and property a public proceeding that is subject to timelines that are slow and often drawn out. The cost of court involvement also complicates matters.

Trust and Estate Administration: Whom Should You Bring to the Meetings?

A loved one’s passing is felt by their entire surviving family. But when it comes to carrying out the decedent’s final wishes, not everyone has an equal say. In fact, in many cases, only one person—the executor, or personal representative, of the estate—plays a role in administering a will.

Types of Life Insurance and How They Can Be Used in Estate Planning

Many of us do not start thinking about life insurance until we get our first full-time job and the company’s human resources representative asks us if we want to enroll in the employer’s group life insurance policy. Most people think “Why not?” and sign up, naming a family member as the beneficiary of their policy, and then never give it another thought. Although this may be a good start, too few of us spend much more time thinking about life insurance.

Can a Disabled Individual Be an Executor or a Trustee?

An important element of creating an estate plan is choosing a responsible party to handle your legal, medical, and financial affairs if you become unable to manage them yourself (i.e., ...

Do I Have to Leave Anything to My Children?

One storyline trope in Hollywood movies is the rich father disinheriting the family outcast. The story usually traces the child’s attempts to win the father over and be considered a part of the family again. But can fiction imitate reality? Can you actually disinherit a child? The answer, in most circumstances, is yes. You can disinherit a child under most states’ laws, but you must understand the limitations and additional factors if you are considering this option.

Simultaneous Deaths: What If My Spouse and I Die at the Same Time?

The chances of a married couple dying in a common accident or within a very short time of one another are probably quite slim. However, it does happen. And it happens frequently enough that most states have laws to address the issue and the problems that can arise from simultaneous deaths. What are these laws, why do we need them, and can we work around them if we need to?

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