The Death of Anne Heche: Lessons For Estate Planning How Not Having a Will Can Put Family Members In a Difficult Position Anne Heche’s recent accidental death was a shocking reminder of how every day can quickly turn into a tragedy. While driving through the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles on August 5, 2022, [...]
Important Issues To Address Before You Leave on Vacation Estate Planning While Being On Vacation Getting ready to embark on your next great adventure? Before you zip up the last suitcase, here are some issues you need to address to protect yourself and your loved ones. Do You Have a Foundational Estate Plan? Has It [...]
Is a Defect a Good Thing? Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts In Estate Planning Using an Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust To Protect Your Assets The notion that your estate plan contains a defect would not normally be welcomed as good news. But despite the moniker, an intentionally defective grantor trust (IDGT) can be an advantageous tool [...]
Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts: What You Should Know The Pros & Cons Of Settle On SLAT as a Estate Planning Solution No one wants to pay more taxes than they have to. To carry out this objective, many people search for the perfect estate planning tool that will allow them to control as much of [...]
Legal Perils of Gifts & Joint Ownership Between Unmarried Couples Unintended Consequences Of Co-Ownership Without Being Married Cohabitation without marriage is becoming more common in the United States. Among eighteen- to forty-four-year-olds, the percentage of adults who have lived with an unmarried partner at some point is now higher than the percentage of adults who [...]
Your Planning Team For Your Next Adventure People To Make Appointments With Before Embarking On Your Next Journey When planning your next great travel adventure, you may decide that you can do it yourself. You know what you and your travel companions want to see and do, how much you are willing to pay, and [...]
The Pros & Cons of Probate Understanding If Your Assets Must Go Through Probate In estate planning circles, the word “probate” often carries a negative connotation. Indeed, for many people—especially those with valuable accounts and property—financial planners recommend trying to keep accounts and property out of probate whenever possible. That being said, the probate system [...]
Will Our Child Have To Handle Multiple Trusts After Our Deaths? Can You Combine Separate Trusts Into One? When a married couple creates an estate plan using a revocable living trust, they have the option of creating a single joint trust or two separate individual trusts. While the pros and cons of each are beyond [...]
Why a Trust Is The Best Option To Avoid Probate Trusts & The Probate Process: What You Should Know Ideally, when someone passes away, the paperwork and material concerns associated with the deceased’s passing are so seamlessly handled (thanks to excellent preparation) that they fade into the background, allowing the family and other loved ones [...]
Three Celebrity Probate Disasters & Tragic Lessons Lessons About Probate We Can Take From Celebrities One would assume that celebrities with extreme wealth would take steps to protect their estates. But think again: some of the world’s richest and most famous people enter the pearly gates with no estate plan, while others have made estate [...]
