Saturday, July 24, 2010 It's For Those You Leave Behind
It’s For Those We Leave Behind
People spend considerable time planning for their retirement, but many neglect one of the most important aspects of personal and family planning – estate planning.
Everyone should have a legally accurate and complete plan for the administration of their estate after they die. Remember, you do this for those you leave behind, not for yourself. They are the ones who will bear the burden. You can lighten that burden if you take advantage of the opportunities that are available in estate planning.
It’s your obligation to protect your family members, to save them the headaches and legal problems after you’re gone. Many of you know people who have suffered through such trying times while mourning the loss of a loved one at the same time.
I do this all the time, so I don’t think of it as difficult. But it would be difficult for my wife. I did my planning to protect her not for me.
I’m a family person. I’ve got eight children and a handful of grandchildren. I’ve been focusing my practice for the last 15 years in the areas of estate planning and estate administration. I’ve been practicing law for 30 years. I’m here to listen to you and help you make the very best personal decisions for you and your family.
When someone dies without having a legal representative for their estate, no one can access the deceased person’s assets. They’re all frozen. You can’t get to their bank account. You can’t do anything with their real estate. Everything’s frozen until somebody has authority to act. And even if that person has a will, you don’t get that authority until a judge grants it to you.
If you and your wife have a joint back account and you die, your wife probably still will have access to it. But if there are assets that are not joint, she’s locked out.
If you get the proper legal assistance to make sure your estate is administered correctly, you will avoid the kind of horror story I deal with often in my business. Saturday, July 24, 2010 Rules that Control Your Estate Administration
Rules you will live by after the passing of a loved one
Estate Planning and Estate Administration are both governed by four different sets of rules or laws.
1. Rule of Law
2. Rule of Possession
3. Rule of the Jungle
4. Rule of Love & Family
The key to ensuring that your plan will follow the Rules of Law and Love is to work with an attorney who is a Certified Legacy Advisor and uses Story Based planning. Plans that are Story Based result in plans that are purposeful and follow the rule of love & family.
Saturday, April 17, 2010 Straw House or Castle
Are your assets protected by a straw house or a casle with a mote around it?
How much protection do you need? Saturday, April 17, 2010 Why is there Probate and Why must the Trust be Administered
The primary reason for Administration of an Estate is to provide a process of orderly transfer of assets upon death, simply stated someone must be authorized to sign the decedent’s name to transfer assets. Upon the passing of an individual, there are certain steps and phases of administration that every estate goes through – regardless of size they are:
Phases are:
1. Get Acquainted, Review & Evaluate the situation and Retain the Law Firm.
2. Authority to handle the estate affairs is conferred upon the person who will be in charge.
3. Assets/Inventory and Appraise
4. Creditors
5. Plan and Reposition.
6. Taxes.
7. Report and Account/Protect Heirs and Beneficiaries
8. Distribute.
9. Receipts and close
Saturday, April 17, 2010 Quiz -- Do You Need Estate Planning
Do you need to do estate planning?
Your response either Yes or No then decide if you need estate planning.
Are you going to die
Have you been married more than once
Do You Have 2 or more Children
Do your children have imperfections
You do have children or if you have no children do you like all your brothers and sisters and all of their children
Are all of your children are perfect all of the time
You want your children to fight over who will be in charge of the estate
Do You want to give your family guidance for the future
Are all of your sons and/or daughter in laws are perfect
Do you care if the majority of your assets are consumed getting your estate to your family
Do you care if your heirs are in harmony over their inheritance
Do any of your children need government benefits
Non of your children will ever need government benefits
Do you love your children
Do you give over $1,500.00 to $5,000.00 to charities so they can help strangers and would rather give the money to the charity then to your children.
Your spouse is perfect
Do you want to protect your children if your spouse re-marries
You do not want to protect your spouse if your spouse marries again
Do you want to preserve your Legacy
Do you want your children to receive your core assets and experience assets
What do you think, do you need estate planning and should you talk to an Estate Planning Attorney? Only those who answer the questions Yes need estate planning. Sunday, April 04, 2010 Do you know why people do not plan?
I need your help answering this question.
Why Do So Few People Have An Estate Plan?
I am sure you have never asked that question and frankly I don’t dwell on it myself. I am an estate planning attorney and in the estate planning community the fact that only 35% of the population has an estate plan leads my peers to conclude that there is potential for a great amount of business.
I am not sure their conclusion is correct. I saw a survey result recently that causes me to conclude estate planners have it all wrong. People do not have estate plans because they just do not care. It is not important to them. It is not because they do not want to talk about death and taxes. It is because no one is talking to them about what is important.
Americans are Explorers. We are a people who are comfortable with uncertainty, 60% of Americans “tend to enjoy the uncertainties of life”. Only 33% tend to avoid uncertainty and want everything in life to fit in a neat box. Most of what we have IE., our financial wealth and our stuff we acquired through our hard work as a result of our experience and values. Things were not neatly boxed up and handed to us. We took what we had in an uncertain world and made something out of it. Therefore if we could do it so could our children can do it.
Over the years I have talked to many parents who have said, “let our children work it out”. Or we have taught them well and they are prepared to work it out themselves. Or I just don’t care what happens after I am gone.
I think estate planners are not offering the correct product. What we offer is not something people care about. Consider this the estate plan does not save the planner any money or time. It is just an expense that may put things in a neat box for their children and save them some money. We need to help parents pass on what is important.
Estate planning is more than controlling the money from the grave. Parents want to return to their roots and pass on what is important. Their core and experience assets because with those assets in a world of uncertainty they know that their children will have the tools to be financially secure. I believe Estate planners have focused too long on only the financial assets we must also help parents pass on their other more important assets.
Parents have spent a lifetime living their core values and have years of experience which is more important to share with their children and grandchildren than their money. They do not do their estate planning becaue they do not want to think their life only in financial terms. They do not want their children to remember them for the money and estate they left. They want to be remembered for something more.
What do you think? I agree _____ I disagree __________ Friday, April 02, 2010 Away at College
Yesterday I received a special phone call. My daughter who is away to college called just to say hi. There is nothing that makes a dad feel so good as to hear from one of his children. This young lady has been away for only three months now. The snow is beginning to melt and soon will be gone. She was out walking in the park with friends. Do you remember the carefree days of your youth? Walking through the park in early spring. Friday, April 02, 2010 Holding on to Your Hard Earned Assets
A request that is being made more and more often is how do I protect my assets in this litigious society. Over the next few days I will addess that question.
The goal of asset protection is to make if increasingly difficult for a creditor or litigator take your assets. Some of the tools available are:
1. Insurance
2. Incorporating Your Business
3. Moving assets into a Family Limited Partnership
4. Moving assets into a Limited Liabilit Company
5. Domestic Self Settled Asset Protection Trust
6. Off Shore Self Settled Asset Protection Trust
Each of these tools give different amounts of protection and the cost to set each up increases as you obtain more protection. Over the next few posts I will describe the differences between each tool and the additional protection obtained.
Larry Tuesday, March 30, 2010 L A Times Got It Wrong
The Money Talk Column of the LA Times by Liz Pulliam Weston on Sunday March 28, 2010 responded to a question by a reader. The question is from a son who cannot find a signed copy of a revocable Living Trust prepared by his parents. His father is now suffers from dementia and his mother does not know where the trust might be.
This question was what should they do. The main asset is the house. Before spending hours looking for the trust which was the advice given, they need to check the title of the house, with the county recorder. If title has been changed into the trust they will then know a trust was prepared. But if title is not in the name of the trust there is no reason to keep looking for a trust.
A trust will only control the property that is titiled in the name of the Trustee of the Trust. Therefore, it may not matter if they find the trust it may not avoid probate.
If title is in the name of the trust you still may be able to avoid probate even if you cannot find the trust.
If title is not in the trust than we address the question of how to avoid probate even though dad has dementia and may not be able to sign a trust.
This is an example of a situation trying to do it yourself when there are too many things that can go wrong. People may not want to take the time and spend the small amount of money on an attorney who would have a copy of the signed trust.
Besides there are many reasons in addition to avoiding probate to prepare a comprehensive estate plan. One of the most important reason is Because You Care Enough. Tuesday, March 16, 2010 Increasing Estate Litigation
Recently I was asked the following question. Is the economy causing more contested probate cases? After thinking about the question for over a day I think it is but not in the way the questioner was thinking. The increase is not directly connected.
There will be more contests because people are NOT doing their planning. As a result the family will be faces with uncertainty at a time when they are most vulnerable to conflict. Uncertainty because there is no direction and guidance from the decedent is a situation that we all recognize as a breeding ground for conflict.
Add to the uncertainty of no planning is the changed family structure. Families are no longer just mom, dad and the three kids. Today it is yours, mine and ours and there is no connection after parent is gone. The relationships become strained and conflict erupts. The result is another case of probate litigation.
The growth area of litigation is Trust Litigation. This is because the Trust is not correct and the Trustees do not do their jobs.
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