When a family member dies, there are many legal and financial things that need to be taken care of. That process is commonly called “estate settlement.” It is also called Probate. There are costs involved with the estate settlement process. Taking care of all that needs to be done usually entails a lot of work. […]
Unlike money, personal belongings usually cannot be divided equally after their owner passes away. For this reason, distributing possessions like furniture, jewelry, dishes, silverware, artwork, photographs or clothing is often the most difficult challenge in settling an estate. (Just ask Audrey Hepburn’s two sons.)It can help if the deceased person had stated in her will […]
Many families are hesitant to discuss financial affairs together. Parents do not necessarily want their children to know how much or exactly what they have. Some do not want their loved ones to know exactly how they plan to dispose of their assets when they die. However, what we strongly recommend for each and every […]
While most marriages are entered into with a great deal of bliss and optimism, nonetheless many of those marriages end in divorce. From an estate planning perspective, it always prudent for a marrying couple to enter into a prenuptial agreement that proactively addresses spousal support requirements and division of assets as well as in the […]
Springtime often creates a drive to clean out your home, your desk, your car and just about everything that physically and emotionally constitutes ‘clutter’ in life. In some cases, projects can be completed more effectively when help is enlisted. Professional organizing is a growing industry which aims to serve a multitude of populations, but can […]
When discussing estate planning with our clients, we always explain the need to prepare for the possibility of requiring long-term care, and the daunting costs of such care. As Americans are living longer, more and more of us are spending a significant portion of our later life in a long-term care facility. These facilities are […]
Adult children with elderly parents often report to our firm that their concerns about their parents significantly increased following an accident at home. After a trip to the emergency room and sometimes also a short-term rehabilitation center, children observe a decline in their loved one that requires changes going forward. Taking a closer look at […]
Many of our small business owner clients enjoy having their children or other family members work with them in the business, and their “exit plan” relies heavily on transferring responsibility for running the business to those family members. Frequently, however, these plans are made with the best of intentions but not properly documented and memorialized, […]
Quite often when counseling clients we must stress the importance of documenting things in writing. One of the planning contexts where that is crucial is in the area of Medicaid eligibility. Specifically, while it usually fairly straightforward to present sufficient evidence that the amount of a claimant’s countable assets are low enough to qualify, it […]
When it comes to estate planning, everybody wants a Will. Many people believe that good estate planning begins and ends with having a Will and they think once they have a Will, all their estate planning problems have been solved. But unfortunately there is much more to the story than that. While we do not […]